[Born 1794. Still living.]
This illustrious scientific man is the son of a poor blacksmith, and was
in early life apprenticed to a bookbinder, at which craft he worked
until his twenty-second year. His great delight in electrical researches
brought him into acquaintance with Sir Humphrey Davy, whose assistant he
became in the laboratory of the Royal Institution, where Faraday himself
in time rose to the dignity of Fullerian Professor. The discoveries of
Faraday in several branches of science have placed him in the very
highest rank amongst European philosophers. The most difficult and
abstruse points in connexion with light, heat, electricity, magnetism,
and the laws of matter, have been simplified to an extraordinary degree
by the force of his sagacity and singular acuteness. As remarkable as
his genius for discovery, and for the detection of the hidden operations
of nature, is his admirable faculty of exposition. No living man
approaches Faraday in the easy power of communicating the results of the
most subtle investigation to a miscellaneous audience. Passing through
his lucid understanding, every subject, however abstruse or abstract,
becomes simple, clear, and attractive.
[By E. H. Baily, R.A. Executed in 1823.]
436*. MARY SOMERVILLE. _Mathematician and Astronomer._
[Still living.]
One of the few women who step out from the limits which seem naturally
assigned to their intellectual avocations, to compete with men in
theirs. One of the fewer who do so, deserting none of their proper
tasks, forfeiting nothing of their proper character. A profound
mathematician and astronomer; a delicate inquirer into natural
phenomena. Her work on “The Connexion of the Physical Sciences” spreads
out, in a form designed for the uninitiated reader, but not for the
inattentive, a large variety of impressive knowledge, on some of the
most interesting laws of the natural world. Her manner of writing is
remarkably simple, descriptive, clear and exact.
[By Macdonald. Executed in Rome, 1848.]