29 Ruston, p154
30 Further discussion in Ruston p208, and Crowe, Extraterrestrial, p171
31 Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, Act I, lines 163-6
32 Ibid., Act II, lines 52-9
33 Ibid., Act IV, lines 238–44
34 Ibid., lines 457-72
35 Gascoigne, pp257-9
36 JB Correspondence 6, various letters, 1820
37 Gascoigne, pp249-55
38 JB Correspondence 6, August 1819, p352
39 Ibid., November 1819, p367
40 Ibid., February 1820, p379
41 William Edward Parry to ‘My Dearest Parents’, December 1817; from O’Brian, p300
42 JB Correspondence 6, asking for news of Parry, 1818, pp251, 326, 377
43 Ibid., 20 December 1819, p374. The man was of course John Herschel
44 Ibid., Berthollet to Banks, 27 March 1820, pp383-4
45 See his Will, described in O’Brian, Chapter 12
46 Marie Boas Hall, All Scientists Now, 1984, p18
47 Lockhart, Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol 2, 1838, pp40-3
48 HD Works 7, pp5-15
49 Ibid., p21
50 JD Life 2, p126
51 Paris, vol 2, p185
52 Faraday, Correspondence 1, p183
53 Ibid., pp244-80 passim
54 Hamilton, p192
55 Faraday to Phillips, May 1836, Bence Jones, Michael Faraday, 1870, vol 1, pp335-9
56 Discussed in Bence Jones, pp335-9, and James Hamilton, pp186-9
57 Holmes, Shelley, p410
58 Hartley, p129
59 Ibid., p130
60 Humboldt, ‘Lecture to the Berlin Academy of Sciences’, 1805, quoted in Steven Ruskin, Herschel’s Cape Voyage, 2004
61 Ibid., pp20-2
62 Ibid., p16
63 Many of these instruments, including the ‘mountain barometer’, in WH Archive; and see Ruskin, p21
64 ‘The Garden Days: Marlow 1817’ in Holmes, Shelley. If I had been a novelist I would have described Shelley and Mary making a night visitation to the great forty-foot, and getting Caroline to show them Andromeda and other distant constellations, and planning a comet-flight into deep space. See ‘The Witch of Atlas’, 1820
65 CHM, p131. The note is actually dated 4 July 1819
66 CHM, p137
67 WH Chronicle, p363. The second translation is mine
68 Gentleman’s Magazine, September 1822
69 Ibid.
70 Holmes, Shelley, p730
71 Sime, pp259-61
72 WH Chronicle, p359
73 CHM, p163
74 CHM, p171
75 WH Chronicle, p366
76 CHM, p167
77 Caroline Herschel to John, April 1827, British Library Ms Egerton 3761.f45/60; and see J.A. Bennett, ‘The Telescopes of William Herschel’, in Journal for the History of Astronomy, 7, June 1976
78 CHM, p163
79 CHM, p180
80 CHM, p193
81 CHM, p161
82 David S. Evans (editor), Herschel at the Cape: Letters and Journals of John Herschel, Texas, 1969, pxxi
83 CHM, p168
84 Thorpe, p222
85 Treneer, p208
86 Ibid., pp206-12
87 Ibid., p208
88 The Harringtonian System of Chemistry, 1819, quoted in Golinski, p217
89 ‘The Humbugs of the Age’, in John Bull Magazine, 1, 1824, British Library catalogue PP.5950
90 Evans, pxxx
91 Treneer, p207
92 JD Memoirs, p346
93 JD Fragments, p289
94 JD Memoirs, pp334-6
95 HD Works 9, pp13-14
96 Salmonia, Day 4, HD Works 9, pp66-7
97 JD Fragments, p258
98 Salmonia, Day 4, HD Works 9, p66
99 HD Archive Mss Box 25/51
100 HD Archive Mss Box 25/61
101 Consolations, Dialogue IV, HD Works 9, pp314-15
102 Paris, vol 2, p306
103 Tom Poole to John Davy, c.1835, in Paris, vol 2, p307
104 Paris, vol 2, p309
105 HD Archive Mss Box 25/73, 74, 75. On 25 January 1829: ‘I hope I may wear on till the spring & see May in Illyria. I have now constant pain in the region of the heart.’ Box 25/84
106 HD Archive Mss Box 25/73; and Lamont-Brown, pp157-63
107 HD Archive Mss Box 25/90
108 HD Archive Mss Box 25/74, letter, 2 November 1828
109 HD Archive Mss Box 25/75, letter, 3 December 1828
110 HD Archive Mss Box 26, File B/17
111 HD Archive Mss Box 25/83
112 JD Fragments, p265
113 Davy’s two unpublished poems to Josephine Dettela can be found in HD Archive Mss Box 14 (e) pp128-30
114 Based on local information provided by Professor Dr Janez Batis of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences, for David Knight, Humphry Davy: Vision and Power, Blackwell Science Biographies, 1992, pp180, 260
115 JD Fragments, p293
116 Thorpe, p232
117 HD Archive Mss Box 25/87a
118 Fullmer, p350
119 Consolations, Dialogue I, HD Works 9, p233
120 Ibid., pp233-6
121 Ibid., pp237-8
122 Ibid., p240
123 Ibid., pp239-47
124 Ibid., pp236-47, 266, 274
125 Ibid., Dialogue II, p266
126 Ibid., pp274, 254-6
127 Ibid., Dialogue III, pp302-3
128 Ibid., Dialogue II, pp304-8
129 Ibid., Dialogue III, p309
130 Ibid., p308
131 Ibid., Dialogue IV, p316
132 Ibid., pp320–1
133 Undated extract from Davy’s lecture notebooks, JD Memoirs, p147
134 Consolations, Dialogue V, HD Works 9, pp361-5
135 Ibid., pp364-6
136 Ibid., pp365-6
137 Ibid., Dialogue VI, p382
138 Janet Browne, Charles Darwin, vol 1, 2003, p30
139 JD Memoirs, 1839
140 John Tobin, Journal of a Tour whilst accompanying the late Sir Humphry Davy, 1832, p5
141 JD Fragments, p268
142 JD Fragments, to Jane, September 1827, p296
143 HD Archive Mss Box 25/80, to Jane, 1 September 1828
144 John Herschel, On the Study of Natural Philosophy, 1830, pp342-4 and footnote
145 HD Archive Mss Box 14 (M) pp105-6
146 JD Fragments, Jane to Davy, late March 1829, p313
147 John Davy’s affectionate account, in JD Memoirs, p412
148 JD Memoirs, p408
Chapter 10: Young Scientists
1 In a series of gloomy articles, e.g. The Times, 28 June 1832. See Marie Boas Hall, All Scientists Now, CUP, 1984
2 Edinburgh Review, 49, 1829, pp439-59; and Hamilton, p270
3 Thomas Carlye, Sartor Resartus, 1833
4 Anthony Hyman, ‘Charles Babbage: Science and Reform’, in Cambridge Scientific Minds, edited by Peter Harman and Simon Mitton, CUP, 2002
5 Charles Babbage, The Decline of Science in England, 1830, p102
6 Ibid., p152
7 Ibid., p44
8 Ibid., p102
9 Ibid., p174
10 Ibid., pp203-12
11 Ibid., p210
12 Ibid., p200
13 Hamilton, p229
14 J.S. Mill, Autobiography, 1870, p124
15 John Herschel, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, 1831, p4
16 Ruskin, pp117-21
17 Natural Philosophy, 1830, Part II
18 Ibid., p191
19 Ibid., p4
20 Ibid., p20
21 Ibid., pp14-15
22 Ibid., p55-6
23 Ibid., pp299-303
24 Ibid., pp329-40
25 Ibid., p340
26 Faraday to John Herschel, 10 November 1832, Correspondence, vol 1, p623
27 Charles Darwin to W.D. Fox, 15 February 1831, in Correspondence Volume I, 1821-1836, CUP, edited by Frederick Burkhardt and
Sydney Smith, 1985, p118 footnote 2. See also Charles Darwin, Autobiography
28 Gentlemen of Science: Early Correspondence, Camden Society, 1984, p26
29 Jack Morrell and Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of Science: Early Years, OUP, 1981, pp12-17
30 Gentlemen of Science: Early Correspondence, pp85-6
31 Ibid., pp55-8
32 Morrell and Thackray, pp180-201
33 The Times, 23 June 1832, p4, columns 3-4
34 The Voyage of the Beagle, June 1833
35 Coleridge, 29 June 1833; Tabe Talk, edited by Carl Woodring, 1990, vol 1, p392 and footnote
36 Ibid., pp394-5
37 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, 1817, Chapter 4
38 Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections, p555
39 Quarterly Review, 51, 1834, pp54-68. James Secord, Victorian Sensation, University of Chicago Press, 2000, pp404-5; see also Richard Yeo, ‘William Whewell’, in Cambridge Scientific Minds, 2000
40 Hamilton, p261
41 Unpublished comment by Mrs Margaret Herschel, in the holograph Introduction to the manuscript of Caroline Herschel’s Memoirs, in WH Archive, John Herschel-Shorland. It is interesting that this comment was suppressed from the printed Introduction by her publisher John Murray
42 James Secord, Vestiges of Natural Creation, Chicago UP, 2000, p47
43 ‘Fragment of Bridgwater Treatise’, Charles Babbage, Collected Works, vol 11
44 William Sotheby’s poem is reprinted in Tim Fulford (editor), Romanticism and Science, 1773-1833
45 The Times, 4 September 1835, p3
46 Gentlemen of Science, p543
47 Bentley’s Miscellany, IV, 1838, p209
48 The whole series of experiments is dramatically described in James Hamilton, Faraday, 2002, pp245-52, which beautifully explains the construction of early coils and dynamos
49 On the Chemical History of a Candle, 1861; Faber Book of Science, edited by John Carey, 2003, p90
50 Darwin, Correspondence 1, p324
51 Knight, Humphry Davy, pp176-7
52 Brewster, Life of Newton, 1831, Chapter XI, pp 148-50; and contrast 1860 edition
53 Ibid., Chapter III, pp35-7, and Chapter XI, p336
54 Ibid., Chapter XIX, p388
55 John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 10, lines 743-5
56 Author’s Introduction to the 1831 Standard Edition’, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, 1831, px. Introduction dated 15 October 1831
57 Mary Somerville, The Connexion of the Physical Sciences, 1834, p4
58 Ibid., p260
59 Ibid., ‘Section 24’
60 Ibid., p432
61 Ibid., p2
62 Ibid., p432
63 Ibid., pp260–1
64 Gentlemen of Science: Early Correspondence, Camden Society, 1984, p137
65 ‘Report on the British Association for the Promotion of Science’, in The Gentleman’s Magazine, October 1834
66 Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Volume 1: Voyaging, Pimlico, 2003, p137
67 John Herschel, Natural Philosophy, pp350-3; and Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, Penguin, 1992, p91
68 Browne, vol 1, p135
69 Letter to John Lubbock FRS, 13 May 1833, quoted in Steven Ruskin, John Herschel’s Cape Voyage, p51
70 Ibid., p47
71 WH Archive: John Herschel’s notebooks, drawings and equipment are still preserved by John Herschel-Shorland, Norfolk
72 WH Chronicle, p177
73 Darwin, Correspondence 1, p498
74 Ibid., p500
75 Charles Lyell to Darwin, 26 December 1836, ibid., p532
76 Caroline Herschel, letter to John Herschel, British Library Ms Egerton 3761-2; also Claire Brock, The Comet Sweeper: Caroline Herschel’s Astronomical Ambition, Icon Books, Cambridge, 2007, p205
77 The Times, Friday, 27 June 1834, quoted in Evans, Herschel at the Cape, p88
78 New York Sun, 25-30 August 1835, internet file
79 Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Great Balloon Hoax’, 1836
80 Ruskin, Herschel’s Cape Voyage, p97
81 Evans, pp236-7
82 Ibid., pxix
Acknowledgements
For the use of copyright materials and illustrations, and kind permission to consult and refer to manuscripts, rare editions and archives, my most grateful acknowledgements are due to the British Library, London; the University Library, Cambridge; the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the Royal Institution, London; the Royal Society, London; the Royal Astronomical Society, London; the Science Museum, London; the London Library; the Whipple Museum, Cambridge; the Herschel Museum, Bath; the National Mining Museum, Wakefield; Somerset County Record Office, Bristol; the Cornwall County Record Office, Truro; la Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, Le Bourget, Aeroport de Paris; the University of New South Wales, Australia, for permission to quote from their transcript of the manuscript of Joseph Banks’s Endeavour Journal; to Pickering & Chatto (publishers) Ltd for permission to quote from The Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1765-1820, edited by Neil Chambers; to the Imperial College Press, Natural History Museum and Royal Society, Banks Archive Project, for The Selected Letters of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820, edited by Neil Chambers; to Cambridge Science History Publications Ltd, 16 Rutherford Road, Cambridge CB2 8HH, for permission to quote from Caroline Herschel’s Autobiographies, edited by Michael Hoskin; to the Royal Astronomical Society for permission to quote from the manuscripts of William and Caroline Herschel; and to John Herschel-Shorland, Harleston, Norfolk, for permission to quote from Herschel manuscripts and for all his kindness in letting me see and refer to Herschel family artefacts in his possession.
In attempting to cross between several scientific disciplines and fields of specialist study, I owe a particular debt to the following scholars and writers whose work has inspired and encouraged me, and whose publications (detailed in my Bibliography) I wholeheartedly recommend to the reader. For Joseph Banks and Pacific exploration: Neil Chambers, Patrick O’Brian and John Gascoigne. For the Herschels and astronomy: Michael Hoskin and Simon Schaffer. For Humphry Davy and chemistry: David Knight, Anne Treneer and Frank A.J.L. James. For Mungo Park and African exploration: Anthony Sattin and Kira Salak. For Victor Frankenstein, Regency medicine and the Vitality debate: Roy Porter and Sharon Ruston. For general overviews of the field of Romantic science and the emerging role of the scientist in society: Tim Fulford, Lisa Jardine and Jenny Uglow. I am also hugely grateful to Professor Amartya Sen, then Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Fellows of Trinity, for giving me two wonderful summers as Visiting Fellow Commoner (2000, 2002), and enabling me (among much else) to spend long evenings talking with mathematicians, chemists, astronomers and astrophysicists — several of them Nobel Prize-winners — which gave me some sense of what science is really about.
My warmest personal thanks are due to my old friend and colleague Professor Jon Cook, to whom this book is dedicated; to Professor Kathryn Hughes and Dr Druin Burch (my medical postgraduate) at the University of East Anglia; William St Clair, Richard Serjeantson and Priya Natarajan (our beautiful astrophysicist) at Trinity College, Cambridge; Professor Christoph Bode at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich; Roderick Winstrop at the Cambridge Observatory; Jim Saulter (pharmacist) and John Allen at Penzance; Debbie James, Curator at the Herschel Museum, Bath; Lenore Symons, the Archivist at the Royal Institution, London; Celia Joicey and Pallavi Vadhia at the National Portrait Gallery; Pierre Lombarde, Directeur, Centre de Documentation, Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, Le Bourget; Dr Paul Baronek, then of GlaxoSmithKline, for his advice on drugs and medical procedures; Alan Judd for late-night intelligence at The Reform; Patricia Duncker for discussing the fact and fiction of telescopes; Tim Dee of the BBC for producing our three drama-documentaries, The Frankenstein Experiment (Radio 3, 2002), A Cloud in a Paper Bag (Radio 3, 2007) and Anaesthesia (Radio 4, 2009); my brother Adrian Holmes of Young & Rubicam, and my sister Tessa Holmes of the London
College of Printing, for their shrewd help with questions of presentation and design; my late uncle, Squadron Leader David Gordon (RAF Bomber Command), who taught me to build short-wave radios, to understand the principles of flight, and once smuggled me into the cockpit of his Vulcan V bomber (not armed); the West Kent Gliding Club and the Norfolk Hot Air Balloon Co. for some highly instructive airborne moments; Eleanor Tremain for finding Andromeda; Dr Percy Harrison, Head of Science, Eton College, for patiently trying to save me from at least some of my scientific howlers; Mr Glasgow, Department of Orthopaedics, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, for discussing anaesthetics in the few seconds before he put me under; Richard Fortey, FRS, for swift, exacting and helpful observations at proof stage; and finally Sir Michael Holroyd, for simply being such an inspiration to an entire generation of biographers (Romantic or otherwise).
I have been very lucky at HarperCollins to have such a truly outstanding team behind this book: Robert Lacey (words), Sophie Goulden (pictures), Louise McLeman (internal design), Julian Humphries (cover design), Helen Ellis (trajectories), Douglas Matthews (the prince of indexers), and above all my dauntless, visionary editor Arabella Pike, who would have done brilliantly aboard the Endeavour (although that was a much shorter voyage than this one). Best thanks also to my agent David Godwin, who backed this starry-eyed project from its start. Two other teams have supported me far more than they can ever know: the ever-loving Dominos, and of course those wild Delancey boys. To Rose Tremain, once again: without you no book.
R.H.
Copyright © 2008 by Richard Holmes
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Originally published in Great Britain by Harper Press,
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, London, in 2008.
Pantheon Books and colophon are reigstered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Holmes, Richard, [date]
The age of wonder : how the romantic generation discovered
the beauty and terror of science / Richard Holmes.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37832-3
1. Science—Great Britain—History—18th century.
2. Discoveries in science—Great Britain—History—18th century. I. Title.
Q127.G4H65 2009 509.41′09033—dc22 2008049587