religious mind on the removal of those we love to that region of purity and joy to which we ourselves ardently, yet humbly and fearfully, aspire. Strengthened, then, by these considerations, we proceed to finish our painful task with feelings of pride and gratitude; - proud of our relationship to one of Nature's highly-gifted children; and truly grateful, as he himself was, for the ample measure of approbation and kindness with which his talents and successes were appreciated and rewarded.

That Colonel Denham entered upon the duties of his government with zeal and spirit, may be best gathered from his own expressions; for he says in a letter, dated Government House, a very few days after his landing from Fernando Po:

"I have just held my first levee, which has been attended by the Members of Council, Chief Justice, King's Advocate, Colonial Secretary, and the Officers of the Garrison and Commissariat, fifty-eight persons; High Sheriff, Mayor and Aldermen, and, lastly, the principal merchants who had served the office of sheriff, and were in the commission of the peace. The clergy, and several members of the Church Missionary Society, were also presented."

In his own happy vein of pleasantry, he adds, "We are in perfect health, and well pleased with our government: so are our people. They flocked round me in hundreds when I landed; and many of my free-labour boys came down from the mountains, and wanted to carry me up with them, on their return, on their shoulders. The liberated Africans are a class of the population the most interesting to me; therefore there is no fear of their not being brought forward as much as possible. You say, 'Would it were a better kingdom!' - So say I too; but rest assured that, after completing my three years, it shall be so. Pray send me some one of the shortest and best pamphlets on the subject of Savings' Banks."

He still retained enough of early professional predilections to take pleasure also in acting, as he did, ex officio, as Com

missary Judge of the mixed Commission Court, there being none appointed; and in that capacity he pronounced judgment on some captured slave-vessels, sailing under Dutch and Brazilian colours.

66 I am

On the 27th of May he writes for the last time : as well as ever I was any where ;" and on the 31st he was attacked by the fatal fever of the country. On the 2d of June he appeared better; and it is stated that until the sixth day no decidedly-alarming symptoms manifested themselves. He then expressed the most anxious desire to return to England; but it is presumed that it was too late. He became immediately intractable, then delirious, and, the vital powers being gradually exhausted, he expired in the morning of the 9th of June. We have seen a copy of the notes of Dr. Boyle, of whose professional skill the Lieutenant-Governor had spoken in terms of high commendation, from which no doubt can exist for a single moment that every care and attention was paid to him which art and anxiety could suggest. Dr. Boyle says, "I was never absent from Government House for more than an hour at a time, during the last eight days of my lamented patient's suffering. The fatal symptom to be traced throughout this case is the absence of ptyalism; for the state of the tongue, and other appearances, were calculated to justify our hopes of a recovery until the eighth day of the attack."

It was a striking excellence in the character of Colonel Denham, that the service on which he was employed always appeared to his ardent and fearless mind the best of all possible services; and, from this short narrative, it will be seen how entirely he had converted all things to the colour of his own imaginings. Such confidence had he in his own resources, that, walking as he did, surrounded by the most fatal dangers, even that of death itself, he seemed to have persuaded himself that to will was to perform, and that an enterprise once determined upon was already half achieved. This surely was the spirit and the frame of mind most happily adapted for succeeding in a perilous service; but

even his undaunted heart was at one fell blow bereft of all its wonted energies, so indescribably baleful is the fatal fever of Sierra Leone.

To show that Colonel Denham was already truly estimated by those in power under his government, we quote, in conclusion, the words of a letter from thence, announcing the sad event:

"Denham bade fair to be of great use to Sierra Leone. He was conciliatory, and anxious to promote every plan for improvement. He was in the confidence of the Colonial Office, and his representations and wishes would have been attended to; and I am quite sure, from what he said and did, that he felt a great interest in the colony. In a word, he appeared to connect its future prosperity with his own name and fame."

Here concludes the Memoir, with which, as we have already stated, we have been favoured from the most authentic source. In justice, however, to the living, as well as to the dead, we cannot refrain from quoting a few of the closing paragraphs of an animated, elegant, and affecting biographical notice of Colonel Denham, written (as we have reason to believe) by one who had known him from early life, and who was perfectly capable of justly appreciating the value of his character; and published in the Second Number of the United Service Journal.

"If supposed knowledge of the climate, if easy conformity with the aborigines' modes of living (for to that Colonel Denham always turned his attention, and adapted himself); if perfect confidence, from these circumstances, that African atmosphere possessed no perils for him, so inured had he been to all its influences during his wide, wide travels through its burning deserts, and along its steaming shores; if a jocund, happy heart, happy in spreading comfort around him, from his countrymen in the colony, to the rescued native black;

and sanguinely putting forward his yet more promising plans, ready to be brought into immediate activity;—if this sense of amply doing the duty he was sent out to perform, animating the natural strength of his fine constitution, could have kept the warm blood unvenomed in that benevolent heart; could have preserved the bright health, which one hour glowed on that manly cheek, and in the next was extinguished in livid paleness; if all this could have sufficed, to compass with security the life of man in that colony, Denham would not have died! 'But the good, the brave, has indeed fallen! and, who is safe?' *

"It was on the 9th of June, 1828, that he breathed his last, in the Government House at Sierra Leone, after a few days' severe illness. Young as he was, he had completed his commission on earth; for his sun, though yet in its early noon, had gone down in a glorious path, and a rich harvest of good works waved over it.

"The news, when brought to England, did not find a father or a mother to weep for a noble son,-whose growing fame was to reflect honour on their hoary heads no more. They had been, many years before, laid in their peaceful tombs. But his brother survived; his elder in primogeniture, and, as such, one who, from the time of their revered parents' death, had been a brother indeed, a friend, a father, to the young and enterprizing soldier; he lived but in the happiness and honour of that dear and adventurous charge; and nobly did the indefatigable aspirant repay him with the object of his fraternal cares; for, ere a few years had passed away, Dixon Denham became renowned as a successful as well as faithful servant of his country; also, as an unwearied benefactor to the poor inhabitants of the wildest regions, whithersoever he was sent: and in this true celebrity his not less beneficent and disinterested kinsman found a just recompense, himself a retired man, but frankly enjoying, with an honest pride, the light which shone round his brother's name; for it was the light of integrity, talent, and an intrepid soul."

"P."

*The Arab's Lament.

39

No. IV.

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, BART., LL.D. F.R. S. M.R.I.A.

&c. &c.

Or the various branches of human knowledge which have been elucidated by the discoveries and improvements of modern times, no one has been further advanced than that of chemistry. The rapid and important acquisitions in that science which have distinguished the present age, are chiefly to be attributed to the substitution of the analytical for the synthetical system of philosophising; and, in the next place, to the profound judgment and indefatigable ardour with which the subject of this memoir availed himself of that great improvement, in unveiling in a career, unequalled since the death of Newton, the mysterious constitution of the infinitely diversified matter by which we are surrounded.

The circumstances that may have produced in any eminent man a propensity for a particular pursuit, will always be enquired into with curiosity and interest. No one can deny the powerful and commanding influence of our first impressions; and the acute observer of character will continually develope traits that are referable only to such a source; even as, in the magical colouring of Rembrandt's pictures, the practised eye readily recognises the chiar'-oscuro of his father's mill, in which the artist passed his earliest days. But circumstances, however happily combined, although they may direct, can never create, genius; it is true that Cowley, as he himself relates, became a poet by reading Spenser's Fairie Queen, which he accidentally discovered in the window of his mother's apartment; and it is equally true, that Sir Joshua