[Letter] 18[47?] March 22, Royal Institution [to] Dr. Henry / M[ichael]. Faraday.

The letter is written on stationery with a mourning border. See also additional letters in the collection from Faraday.

Faraday declares that Henry must not know his rule: "I _never_ dine out & go to [...?] parties very rarely," citing his busy schedule as well as his health as reasons, and stating that he cannot break this rule without giving "just offense" to many kind persons. He expresses regret that he must "lose the pleasure of your company." A philosopher as well as a scientist, Faraday experimented with electricity, chemistry, radiation, and physics. Sir Humphrey Davy, whose influence secured Faraday his first position as a laboratory assistant at the Royal Institution, was his mentor, and his contemporary John Tyndall (whose work, along with Davy's, is also represented in the collection) wrote Faraday's biography in 1872. Faraday became director of the laboratory in the Royal Institution in 1825 where he devised a lecture series, taught chemistry at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, became a fellow of the Royal Society as well as a scientific adviser to the Corporation of Trinity House, and his portrait appears on the Bank of England's twenty-pound note.