204 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OP BINDERS, &C.

binder in Biandford Street, when only nine years ofage, and in which occupation he continued till he wastwenty-two. The circumstances k that occasioned hisexchanging the work-room of the binder for thelaboratory of the chemist, have been thus forciblyrelated. Ned Magrath, now secretary to the Athe-naeum, happening five and twenty years ago to enterthe shop of Ribeau, observed one of the bucks ofthe paper bonnet zealously studying a book he oughtto have been binding. He approached—it was avolume of the old Britannica, open at electricity.He entered into talk with the greasy journeyman,and was astonished to find in him a self-taughtchemist of no slender pretensions. He presentedhim with a set of tickets for Davy’s lectures at theRoyal Institution; and daily thereafter might thenondescript be seen perched, pen in hand, and hiseyes starting out of his head, just over the clockopposite the chair. At last the course terminated; butFaraday’s spirit had received a new impulse, whichnothing but dire necessity could have restrained;and from that he was saved by the promptitude withwhich, on his forwarding a modest outline of hishistory, with the notes he had made of these lectures,to Davy, that great and good man rushed to therescue of kindred genius. Sir Humphrey imme-diately appointed him an assistant in the laboratory ;and, after two or three years had passed, he foundFaraday qualified to act as his secretary . 1

1 Frazer’s Mag, xiii. 224.