I need not go into details. My opinion of the paragraph is
      founded principally upon its manner. It does not look true. Persons who are narrating facts, are seldom so particular as Mr.
      Kissam seems to be, about day and date and precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come upon the discovery he
      says he did, at the period designated—nearly eight years ago—how
      happens it that he took no steps, on the instant, to reap the
      immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must have known would
      have resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large,
      from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man
      of common understanding could have discovered what Mr. Kissam
      says he did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby—so
      like an owl—as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who is
      Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the ‘Courier and
      Enquirer’ a fabrication got up to ‘make a talk’? It must be
      confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little
      dependence is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if
      I were not well aware, from experience, how very easily men of
      science are mystified, on points out of their usual range of
      inquiry, I should be profoundly astonished at finding so eminent
      a chemist as Professor Draper, discussing Mr. Kissam’s (or is it
      Mr. Quizzem’s?) pretensions to the discovery, in so serious a
      tone. But to return to the ‘Diary’ of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet
      was not designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the
      writer, as any person at all conversant with authorship may
      satisfy himself at once by the slightest inspection of the style. At page 13, for example, near the middle, we read, in reference
      to his researches about the protoxide of azote: ‘In less than
      half a minute the respiration being continued, diminished
      gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on
      all the muscles.’ That the respiration was not ‘diminished,’ is
      not only clear by the subsequent context, but by the use of the
      plural, ‘were.’ The sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: ‘In
      less than half a minute, the respiration [being continued, these
      feelings] diminished gradually, and were succeeded by [a
      sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.’ A
      hundred similar instances go to show that the MS. so
      inconsiderately published, was merely a rough note-book, meant
      only for the writer’s own eye, but an inspection of the pamphlet
      will convince almost any thinking person of the truth of my
      suggestion. The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last man
      in the world to commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had
      he a more than ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly
      afraid of appearing empirical; so that, however fully he might
      have been convinced that he was on the right track in the matter
      now in question, he would never have spoken out, until he had
      every thing ready for the most practical demonstration. I verily
      believe that his last moments would have been rendered wretched,
      could he have suspected that his wishes in regard to burning this
      ‘Diary’ (full of crude speculations) would have been unattended
      to; as, it seems, they were. I say ‘his wishes,’ for that he
      meant to include this note-book among the miscellaneous papers
      directed ‘to be burnt,’ I think there can be no manner of doubt. Whether it escaped the flames by good fortune or by bad, yet
      remains to be seen. That the passages quoted above, with the
      other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the hint, I do
      not in the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet
      remains to be seen whether this momentous discovery itself
      (momentous under any circumstances) will be of service or
      disservice to mankind at large. That Von Kempelen and his
      immediate friends will reap a rich harvest, it would be folly to
      doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so weak as not to
      ‘realize,’ in time, by large purchases of houses and land, with
      other property of intrinsic value. In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the ‘Home
      Journal,’ and has since been extensively copied, several
      misapprehensions of the German original seem to have been made by
      the translator, who professes to have taken the passage from a
      late number of the Presburg ‘Schnellpost.’ ‘Viele’ has evidently
      been misconceived (as it often is), and what the translator
      renders by ‘sorrows,’ is probably ‘lieden,’ which, in its true
      version, ‘sufferings,’ would give a totally different complexion
      to the whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely
      guess, on my part. Von Kempelen, however, is by no means ‘a misanthrope,’ in
      appearance, at least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance
      with him was casual altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in
      saying that I know him at all; but to have seen and conversed
      with a man of so _prodigious_ a notoriety as he has attained, or
      _will_ attain in a few days, is not a small matter, as times go. “The Literary World” speaks of him, confidently, as a native of
      Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in “The Home Journal”)
      but I am pleased in being able to state _positively_, since I
      have it from his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the
      State of New York, although both his parents, I believe, are of
      Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way, with
      Mäelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short
      and stout, with large, _fat_, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers,
      a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank,
      and his whole manner noticeable for bonhomie. Altogether, he
      looks, speaks, and acts as little like ‘a misanthrope’ as any man
      I ever saw. We were fellow-sojourners for a week about six years
      ago, at Earl’s Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I presume
      that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or
      four hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the
      day; and nothing that fell from him led me to suspect his
      scientific attainments. He left the hotel before me, intending to
      go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was in the latter city
      that his great discovery was first made public; or, rather, it
      was there that he was first suspected of having made it.