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The Age of Wonder, by Richard Holmes  Vital sparks in art and
science  The phrase "Romantic Chemistry" did not always mean the
sexual spark between two people. At the birth of English
Romanticism, chemistry and other sciences, notably astronomy and
the physics of electricity, were exciting components of the new
mood. For so long assumed to be polar opposites, Romanticism and
Science are justly reunited in Richard Holmes's new book.  The
defining trait of Romanticism for Holmes is expansiveness.
Joseph Banks and Mungo Park explore Africa and Polynesia, losing
their Eurocentric blinkers, and in Park's case his life; William
Herschel sees the universe as an evolving structure; Humphry
Davy sees chemistry and electricity as vital forces, as opposed
to the predictable billiard-ball mathematics of Newtonian
atomism. Literary figures such as Coleridge, Wordsworth and
Southey were at first thrilled by these revelations of natural
forces and felt that they