YOUNG, Edward, born at Upham in Hampshire, in June 1681, was the son of Dr Edward Young, who afterwards became dean of Salisbury. The son was educated on the foundation at Winchester, but he did not succeed to a fellowship at New College, Oxford. In 1703, he was invited by the warden of that college, a friend of his father’s, to live at his lodge until he should be qualified to stand for a fellowship at All Souls. He had scarcely availed himself of this acceptable offer, when death deprived him of his host; but he was not long in finding a second patron. From the president of Corpus Christi College, another of his father’s friends, he received a summons to join that society, in which he remained until he was nominated by Archbishop Tennison, in 1708, to a law-fellowship of All Souls. His father had now been dead for three years.

In 1712, Young commenced his poetical career as a dauber of greatness, a branch of the art which he pursued with unabated ardour until its close. His first poem was entitled “An Epistle to the Right Honourable George Lord Lansdowne one of the twelve worthies whom Queen Anne raised in one day to the dignity of the peerage. If his lordship had half of the talent and virtue ascribed to him by the poet, the nation ought to have been reconciled, upon the catholic principle of supererogation, to the whole batch; but Young became ashamed of this lavish panegyric, as he did of many succeeding ones, and suppressed it. In the same year appeared “The Last Day,” part of which had been previously printed in the Tatler. Although he contemplated a period when human grandeur and insignificance must meet on equal terms, he had no apprehension of the speedy consummation of all things, and drew near with becoming reverence to the fountain of sublunary dis tinction. This poem was inscribed to Queen Anne, but the dedication does not now appear. About the same time he produced “The Force of Religion, or Vanquished Love,” founded on the history of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guilford. It was inscribed to the countess of Salisbury, but, as usual, he denied a place to the dedication among his works. An entire poem on the death of the queen and the accession of George II. he also suppressed. In 1714 he took the degree of LL. B., and five years afterwards that of LL. D. When the Codrington Library was founded in 1716, Young was appointed to deliver a Latin oration, which he dedicated to the ladies of the Codrington family. The selection of Young to compose this harangue speaks favourably of his academical attainments; but it is said that his moments of relaxation were passed in such a manner that he reflected upon them afterwards with little complacency. But whatever was the nature or amount of the indiscretions into which he was betrayed, Dr Tindall, a fellow of All Souls, was unsuccessful in his attempts at making him a convert to infidelity.

Young’s next patron was the duke of Wharton, “the scorn and wonder of his days.” His grace was stained with every vice but that of avarice, which, however, in the eye of Young, was probably the most heinous of all. From a passage in his letter to Richardson on original composition, it is conjectured that Young accompanied the duke to Ireland in 1717. Two years afterwards was brought upon the stage at Drury Lane the tragedy of Busiris. This, or some other play of Young’s, is referred to in a number of the Englishman so far back as 1713. It probably lay for six years on the manager’s shelf, and was at last taken down in deference to the suggestion of Wharton, or some other competent judge of dramatic writing, whose opinion on that or any other subject it might have been inexpedient to controvert. The first edition of Busiris contains a dedication to the duke of Newcastle, which is only to be found in the copies of that impression.

About this time, Young entered the family of the earl of Exeter as tutor to Lord Burleigh. This employment he quitted at the solicitation of Wharton, who, among other unequivocal tokens of his favour, paid him the compliment of accompanying him to Oxford, where, at his recommendation, be defrayed the expense of a range of buildings then unfinished at All Souls College. In 1721 was acted “The Revenge,” the most successful of Young’s three tragedies, and the only one that retains possession of the stage. The Revenge is dedicated to the duke of Wharton, whom the poet acknowledges to have suggested the most beautiful incident in the play. His debt of gratitude to Wharton, which he became studious to conceal, he was compelled to divulge in the Court of Chancery under the solemnity of an oath. After the duke’s death, it was found that his estates, already sufficiently involved, were threatened with additional perplexity by some unsatisfied claims of Young. The other creditors submitted it to the decision of Lord Hardwicke, whether the arrears of two annuities of one hundred pounds each, granted to Young by the duke, as tokens of his friendship for the poet and esteem for letters in general, considerations not recognized by law, ought not to be regarded as gratuities only, and postponed to their demands, many of which were for money advanced to the deceased nobleman. Being put to his oath, Dr Young swore that he gave up one hundred pounds for life as the tutor of Lord Burleigh, at the pressing entreaty of the duke, who promised to provide more amply for him. It also appeared that in 1721 Wharton had given him a bond for six hundred pounds, to reimburse him for the expenses of a contested election at Cirencester, for which place he had stood candidate, but unsuccessfully, at the duke’s request, and in consideration of his refusing to take orders and accept of two livings in the gift of All Souls College. Lord Hardwicke’s decision[7:21:968] was fatal to the bond, as every man must be supposed, in the estimation of the law, to endeavour to get into parliament with the sole view of serving his country. As to the livings, they were not actually held, and no man can be said to relinquish what he never possessed. But the abandonment of the pecuniary advantages enjoyed by Young in the Exeter family at the time the grant was made by the duke, was pronounced to be a consideration as legal as if money had been paid down. The chancellor therefore directed the arrears of his annuities to be paid out of the funds remaining in the hands of the trustees.

In 1719, he published “A Paraphrase on a part of the Book of Job.” Of his seven satires, entitled “Love of Fame, the Universal Passion,” we have not seen the original editions, but they probably appeared between the years 1725 and 1728. The satires were followed by “Ocean, an Ode,” occasioned by the new king’s speech, which recommends the encouragement of seamen to enter the service voluntarily. This production he wisely excluded from the collection of his works. In 1728, he entered into holy orders, and was soon afterwards appointed chaplain to George II. His ode was preceded by some stanzas addressed to the king; and this preferment was probably the reward of his loyalty. If his lyrical poetry improved his fortune, it added nothing to his reputation, for Young’s dithyrambics are the worst of all his writings. He now thought it suitable to his new character to withdraw from the players a tragedy entitled “The Brothers,” which was already in rehearsal. This play he suffered to be performed many years afterwards, for the benefit of the Society for Propagating Christianity in Foreign Parts; but it met with little success, and he made up the profit to a thousand pounds. Soon after he assumed the character of a clergyman, he published a prose work entitled “A true Estimate of Human Life,” and a sermon preached before the House of Commons on the anniversary of King Charles’s martyrdom. The title of this discourse is “An Apology for Princes, or the Reverence due to Government.” In 1730, Young produced “Imperium Pelagi, a naval Lyric, written in imitation of Pindar’s spirit.” He did not escape the fate of Icarus; and this nautical Pindaric, one of the many productions which the author refused to acknowledge as his offspring, was justly ridiculed by Fielding in Tom Thumb. During this year he was presented by his college to the rectory of Welwyn in Hertfordshire. In 1731, he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the earl of Lichfield, and widow of Colonel Lee. If he received any fortune with this lady, which is probable, he must have been rendered very easy in his circumstances; for, in addition to the emoluments of his living, it is inferred from the following couplet in Swift’s Rhapsody on Poetry, which was written soon after this period, that he had an allowance from the court.

Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

Wycherley and Addison found little felicity in splendid alliance; but Young was more fortunate in that respect, if we are to estimate the value of his wife by the vehemence of his lamentations for her loss. That mournful event, which happened after ten years’ cohabitation, and some other family afflictions that befell him, gave rise to the Night Thoughts, the occasion of which poem, he says in his preface, “was real, not fictitious.” Of this work the different portions were published from 1742 to 1744. “The Centaur not Fabulous, in six letters to a friend on the life in vogue,” appeared in 1754. This performance is very rhapsodical and declamatory, and there appears in it a prose Lorenzo, who is called Altamont; a proceeding which, to use an illustration of Jeremy Collier, seems like cutting a diamond in two in order to double its value. The Centaur was followed, in 1759, by “Conjectures on Origi nal Composition,” in a letter addressed to Richardson, in which are displayed all the fire and fancy of youth. In 1761, he was appointed clerk of the closet to the princess dowager of Wales; and in the year following he published a collection of what he considered the best of his Works, in four volumes duodecimo. In the same year, when he was past fourscore, appeared “Resignation.” When the early part of this poem was going through the press, he received the intelligence of the death of Richardson, who was printing it, and with whom he lived on terms of affectionate intimacy. Resignation was written to console Mrs Boscawen for the death of the admiral, but he has dedicated several stanzas to the memory of the novelist. It is touching to hear the veteran poet complain, in the postscript to this production, that some critics had upbraided him with the failure of his powers. This judgment is equally savage and unjust, for Resignation has many stanzas that exhibit all the vigour and originality of his earliest productions. But commendation and reproach were soon to be alike indifferent to him; for, as the dying bard reminds Voltaire, then an old man also,

One who writes Finis to our works

Was knocking at the gate

This dreadful summons Dr Young obeyed in April 1765, having reached the eighty-fourth year of his age. He was buried under the communion-table of the church at Welwyn.

It is unnecessary to consider Young in the character of a lyric poet, as, in his attempts to rise to the level of Pindar, he has sunk beneath his own. His fame as a tragedian rests on the Revenge. Thinking a fair complexion less suitable to the European than to the African notions of diabolical malignity, Young has reversed Shakspeare’s arrangement in Othello, by making the villain a blackamoor and the noble dupe a white man. Young however has taken nothing from Shakspeare but the general idea of exemplifying the effects of jealousy, stimulated by the machinations of pretended friendship. There is much passion in this tragedy, but there is also much rant and hyperbole. The character of Zanga is a favourite with those performers who are better provided with lungs than brains, and with those spectators who have a keener relish for “sound and fury” than for nice touches of art and masterly strokes of character. Ridicule itself can scarcely heighten some of the extravagancies of this play. Zanga demands an eclipse of the sun on every future anniversary of the day on which he has received corporal punishment from Alonzo; a request which we must own is somewhat more modest than that of Bombardinian in Carey’s Chrononhotonthologos, who roars for the immediate dissolution of nature, to testify the divine displeasure at a box on the ear lent him by the king. It is remarkable that Young’s three tragedies all end with the obvious expedient of suicide. In the Night Thoughts, faults and beauties are scattered with almost equal prodigality. He is perhaps more deficient in judgment than any poet who has attained to the same degree of eminence. This deficiency appears in the Night Thoughts, by the perpetual blending of sublimity and epigrammatic point; an error into which few poets are in danger of falling, but which we could wish that Young had avoided. There is also a palpable straining after effect in this poem; much labour without art, and much smoke without fire. But if he often offends us by turgid exaggeration and mean conceits, he as often makes us amends by passages of true beauty and grandeur. Next to the Night Thoughts, the Universal Passion is Young’s greatest performance. But the effect of these satires is almost neutralized by the lavish applause bestowed upon those to whom they are dedicated. The coarse fondness of Churchill for his pot-companions, and his ruffian swagger to all the world besides, are more edifying, because more disinterested, than the mean partiality[7:21:969] of the satirist, who pockets his scourge, and is all over-acted grimace, at the approach of every titled knave or simpleton. It must however be admitted that if Young often praised the worthless, he never abused the virtuous, which is too often a kindred propensity. Though every line of the Universal Passion sparkles with wit or antithesis, the reader must regret with Swift that the poet was not either more angry or more merry. The greater part both of Young’s rhyme and blank verse, for he is the most unequal of all poets, is of a structure more peculiar than pleasing to the ear.

Young , Thomas, one of the most distinguished men of the present age, was born at Milverton in Somersetshire on the 13th of June 1773. Both his parents were Quakers, and he was the youngest of ten children. His father bore the same name with himself; his mother was a niece of Dr Brockelsby, an eminent physician in London. His parents, we are informed, were among “the strictest of a sect, whose fundamental principle it is, that the perception of what is right or wrong, to its minutest ramifications, is to be looked for in the immediate influence of a Supreme intelligence, and that therefore the individual is to act upon this, lead where it may, and compromise nothing. To the bent of these early impressions he was accustomed in after-life to attribute, in some degree, the power he so eminently possessed of an imperturbable resolution to effect any object on which he was engaged, which he brought to bear on every thing he undertook, and by which he was enabled to work out his own education almost from infancy, with little comparative assistance or direction from others.”

At a very early period, he became an inmate in the family of his maternal grandfather, Robert Davies of Minehead; who, although engaged in mercantile avocations, had cultivated a taste for classical literature, and, without being a very deep or accurate scholar himself, was anxious to inspire his grandson with the love of scholarship. Here he learned to read with fluency when he was only two years old. He was afterwards placed under the tuition of a village schooloustress; and, during the intervals of his attendance, he was occupied with the task of committing to memory various English, and even some Latin poems. It is stated that he easily retained the words, although unacquainted with their meaning; but this mode of exercising his memory can scarcely be regarded as very judicious. Before he had completed his sixth year, he attended the seminary of a dissenting minister. He was next sent to a school at Bristol, where he remained about a year and a half, and where, as his biographer remarks, “the deficiency of the instructor appears to have advanced the studies of the pupil, as he here first became his own teacher, and had by himself studied the last pages of the books used, before he had reached the middle under the eye of the master.” During the holidays he appears to have derived no small advantage from his acquaintance with one of his father’s neighbours, a land-surveyor and land-steward; in whose office he was indulged with the use of mathematical and philosophical instruments, and, what was then of more importance, with the perusal of three volumes of a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. New sources of knowledge were thus opened to him, and the delight which they afforded seemed to be inexhaustible.

In the year 1782 he was sent to the school of a Mr Thompson at Compton in Dorsetshire. Of this preceptor he was accustomed to speak with great respect, as a man of an enlarged and liberal mind; and under his tuition, he proceeded through the ordinary course of Greek and Latin classics, together with the elementary parts of mathematics. The master possessed a miscellaneous library of moderate extent; and of this he encouraged his pupils to make a free use, allowing them a certain degree of discretion in the employment of their time. This method of proceeding was peculiarly adapted to the taste and exigencies of such a pupil as Thomas Young, whose prematurity of judgment, accompanied with an insatiable thirst of knowledge, qualified him to act as his own preceptor. He rose earlier and went to bed later than his companions, and was thus enabled to devote himself to a surprising variety of pursuits. By the aid of a school-fellow, who had some French and Italian books, he rendered himself tolerably familiar with those languages. “The next study he undertook was botany; and for the sake of examining the plants which he gathered, he attempted the construction of a microscope from the descriptions of Benjamin Martin. This led him to optics; but in order to make his microscope, he found it necessary to procure a lathe. Every thing then gave way to a passion for turning, and science was forgotten for the acquirement of manual dexterity; until, falling upon a demonstration in Martin, which exhibited some fluxionol symbols, he was never satisfied till he had read and mastered a short introduction to the doctrine of fluxions. Mr Thompson had left in his way a Hebrew Bible. He began by enabling himself to read a few chapters, and was soon absorbed in the study of the principal oriental languages. At the age of fourteen, when he quitted Mr Thompson’s school, he was thus more or less versed in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew, Persic, and Arabic; and in forming the characters of those languages, he had already acquired much of the beauty and accuracy of penmanship which was afterwards so remarkable in his copies of Greek compositions, as well as of those subjects connected with the literature of ancient Egypt.” Such a statement as this might appear scarcely credible, if we were not possessed of the most unexceptionable evidence that, in every stage of his intellectual career, Young was a very remarkable person.

After he had completed the fourteenth year of his age, he went to reside in the family of Mr David Barclay of Youngsbury in Hertfordshire. Through the intervention of Sir William Watson, it had been arranged that Young and a grandson of Mr Barclay should pursue their studies under a private tutor; but in the mean time the person who had been engaged, found a situation which appeared more advantageous; and Young, who was only about a year and a half older than his companion, began to act as his preceptor. They were afterwards joined by another youth, named Hodgkin, who was of an age somewhat more advanced, and who in 1794 published a work entitled “Calligraphia Graeca.” Young did not however relinquish his office of tutor, and he found himself capable of directing the studies of both his companions. About this early period of his life, he exhibited symptoms of what was supposed to be incipient consumption; but under the care and skill of Dr Brockelsby and Baron Dimsdale, he recovered his health without suffering any ultimate inconvenience. Nor did his studies experience any material interruption; for we are informed that he was enabled to pursue his labours through nearly the whole duration of his indisposition, and that he merely relieved his attention by what to him answered the purpose of repose, namely, a course of reading in such Greek authors as amused the weariness of his confinement. From 1787 to 1792, he resided during summer in Hertfordshire, and during winter in London. With only the occasional assistance of some masters in the metropolis, he rendered himself perfectly familiar with the great poets and philosophers of antiquity. Of his daily studies he preserved ample notes. “Of the various and conflicting opinions of the ancient philosophers,” says Mr Gurney, “he had drawn up a most admirable analysis; and as his reading was not merely the gaining words and phrases, and the minuter distinctions of dialects, but was invariably also directed to what was the end and object of the works he laboured through, it is probable that the train of thought into which [7:21:970] he was led in this analysis, was not without its effect in somewhat mitigating his attachment to the peculiar views of the sect amongst whom he had been born. He had acquired a great facility in writing Latin. He composed Greek verses which stood the test of the criticism of the first scholars of the day, and read a good deal of the higher mathematics. His amusements were the studies of botany and zoology, and to entomology in particular he at that time gave great attention....During the whole term of these five years, he never was seen by any one, on any occasion, to be ruffled in his temper. Whatever he determined on, he did. He had little faith in any peculiar aptitude being implanted by nature for any given pursuits. His favourite maxim was, that whatever one man had done, another might do; that the original difference between human intellects was much less than it was generally supposed to be; that strenuous and persevering attention would accomplish almost any thing; and at this season, in the confidence of youth and consciousness of his own powers, he considered nothing which had been compassed by others beyond his reach to achieve, nor was there any thing which he thought worthy to be attempted, which he was not resolved to master.”

It was the wish of Dr Brockelsby that he should devote himself to the medical profession; and having prepared himself by previous reading, he attended Dr Higgins’s lectures on chemistry during the winters of 1790 and 1791. He began to perform some simple experiments; but at no period of his life was he much disposed to spend his time, either in devising original experiments, or in repeating those of others. His first appearance as an author is supposed to have been in the Monthly Review for 1791, to which he communicated a short note on gum ladanum, with a verbal criticism on Longinus. The criticism, we are informed, was admitted by Dr Burney to be correct. The critic had only attained the age of eighteen. Towards the close of 1792, he took lodgings at Westminster, where he resided about two years, and pursued his medical studies. He attended the lectures of Baillie and Cruikshank in the Hunterian school of anatomy; and during that period was among the most diligent of the pupils who frequented St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He likewise attended courses of lectures on the practice of physic by Dr Crichton and Dr Latham, on midwifery by Dr Clarke and Dr Osborn, and on botany by Sir James Edward Smith.

In 1793 he varied his pursuits by making a tour in the west of England, chiefly with the view of studying the mineralogy of Cornwall. About this period he had been introduced to the duke of Richmond, to whom his uncle was well known; and the duke, then master-general of the ordnance, offered to retain him as his private secretary. Such an appointment might have conducted a young man of his talents to much higher preferment, but he was reluctant to quit the onward path of science. Mr Burke and Mr Windham, to whom he had likewise been introduced by Dr Brockelsby, recommended the plan of entering himself at Cambridge, as a preparation for the study of the law. Burke, it has been stated, “was so greatly struck with the reach of his talents and the extent of his acquirements, more particularly by his great and accurate knowledge of the Greek language, that Dr Young may be considered as in no small degree indebted to the good offices of that eminent statesman, for the extent of interest which his uncle took from this period in his future settlement in life.” Adhering to his previous choice of the medical profession, he proceeded to Edinburgh in the autumn of 1794, and there attended the lectures of Black, Monro, and Gregory. He cultivated the acquaintance of the Greek professor, Mr Dalzel, to whom he communicated some notes, as well as a Greek epigram, which were inserted in the second volume of the Collectanea Graeca. “He pursued every branch of study in that university with his accustomed intensity, but made the physical sciences more peculiarly the objects of his research. He now separated himself from the society of Quakers; and amidst his medical, scientific, and classical labours, he determined on cultivating some of those arts in which he considered that his early education had left him deficient. But every thing, be its nature what it might, was with him a science; whatever he followed, he followed scientifically. He was extremely fond of music, and of the science of music he rendered himself a master. He had at all times great personal activity, and in youth he delighted in its exercise. But perhaps it may provoke a smile, though too characteristic an anecdote to omit, that in instructing himself in the figure of a minuet, he made it the subject of a mathematical diagram.”

Towards the close of the year 1795, he removed to the university of Göttingen. Here he attended lectures on civil and natural history, as well as on different branches of medical science. Of the very extensive and well-arranged library belonging to that university, he did not fail to make an assiduous use. As he was entirely exempted from those dissipations into which so many young men fall, he had sufficient leisure for recreation as well as study; and at Göttingen, as well as at Edinburgh, he diversified his occupations by engaging in various bodily exercises. “He took lessons in horsemanship, in which he always had great pleasure, and practised under various masters all sorts of feats of personal agility, in which he excelled to an extraordinary degree.” On the 10th of July 1796 he took the degree of Μ. D. His inaugural dissertation was printed under the title, “De Corporis Humani Viribus conservatricibus Dissertatio.” Gotting. 1796, 8vo. He easily obtained a dispensation from the oath which, in this and other German universities, is very absurdly tendered to candidates, that they will not take the same degree in any other university. Having visited Dresden and Berlin, he now directed his course to England. As he could not be admitted to immediate practice as a licentiate of the College of Physicians, he entered himself as a fellow-commoner of Emanuel College, Cambridge. Dr Farmer, the master, was his uncle’s intimate friend. Here he resided three years, and afterwards kept his terms, so as in due time to take his degrees in physic. He did not attend any of the public lectures; nor is it to be supposed that a graduate who had studied at Edinburgh and Göttingen could derive much advantage from an elementary course a Cambridge.

Dr Brockelsby died in the month of December 1797, having bequeathed the larger part of his fortune to his nephew Mr Beeby. The remainder, including his house, library, and pictures, fell to the share of his grand-nephew Dr Young. At the age of twenty-four, he was thus placed in a state of comfortable independence; and after fie had completed his necessary residence at college, he established himself in Welbeck-street, and commenced the practice of physic. In 1802 his reputation as a man of science procured him the appointment of professor of natural philosophy in the Royal Institution, where for two years he was associated with Davy. Of the Journals of the Royal Institution, the first volume and a part of the second were edited and chiefly written by Young. During this year he published “A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy,” containing mathematical demonstrations of the most important theorems in mechanics and optics. Here he announced his great discovery of the general law of the interference of light; that “wherever two portions of the same light arrive at the eye by different routes, either exactly or very nearly in the same direction, the light becomes most intense when the difference of the routes is any multiple of a certain length, and least intense in the intermediate state of the interfering portions; and this length is different for light of different [7:21:971]colours.”^[1. See Dr Young’s Lectures on Natural Philosophy, vol. i. p. 464, vol. ii. p. 633. ] His lectures were too scientific and too profound to be intelligible to any considerable proportion of his auditors; and the matter was so abundant and the style so condensed, that students of a more academical training might frequently have found it extremely difficult to accompany him in his masterly discussions.

During the summer of 1802, he accompanied, in a medical capacity, the present duke of Richmond and his brother Lord George Lennox, in an excursion to France. He attended some of the meetings of the National Institute, and formed an acquaintance with several members of that learned body. On his return to London, he was elected foreign secretary of the Royal Society, of which he had been admitted a fellow at the age of twenty-one. This office he retained during the remainder of his life, and was always one of the most leading and most efficient members of the council. In the year 1804 he married Eliza the daughter of James Primrose Maxwell, Esq. of Cavendish-square; and this union is said to have been attended with uninterrupted happiness. His wife, who still survives him, had no children. Her scientific attainments have not been overlooked by Arago. After his marriage, he thought it expedient to resign his professorship, in order to present the appearance of a more entire devotion to the practice of physic; but it was impossible for such a man to withdraw himself from the pursuits of science and literature. He now occupied himself in preparing for the press a most elaborate and valuable work, “A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts.” Lond. 1807, 2 vols. 4to. This work was the result of assiduous and energetic labour for the space of five years; two of which were devoted to the preparation of the lectures as delivered, and three more to the examination and arrangement of the great body of references contained in the second volume, as well as to the improvement of the texture of the work, particularly where new materials, or new experiments, or repeated investigations, seemed to render it necessary. In a commercial point of view, the book was by no means successful. The booksellers became insolvent soon after its appearance, nor was the sale sufficient to defray the expense of the publication. Of the merits of a work so truly scientific, very few readers were competent to form an opinion; and, according to the author’s own impression, his labours first began to be generally appreciated by the philosophers of the continent.

In 1808 Dr Young was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians; and in 1810 he was elected physician to St George’s Hospital. For fourteen successive years from the period of his marriage, he passed his winters in the metropolis and his summers at Worthing. We are informed that his practice, though respectable, was never very extensive, and that he was averse to some of the ordinary methods by which practice is acquired. “He was not,” says Dr Pettigrew, “a popular physician. He wanted that confidence or assurance which is so necessary to the successful exercise of his profession. He was perhaps too deeply informed, and therefore too sensible of the difficulty of arriving at true knowledge in the profession of medicine, hastily to form a judgment; and his great love of and adherence to truth made him often hesitate where others felt no difficulty whatever in the expression of their opinion. He is therefore not celebrated as a medical practitioner, nor did he ever enjoy an extensive practice; but in information upon the subjects of his profession, in depth of research into the history of diseases, and the opinions of all who have preceded him, it would be difficult to find his equal.”^[2. Pettigrew’s Medical Portrait Gallery; Biographical Memoirs of the most celebrated Physicians, Surgeons, etc. vol. iv. Lond. 1840, 4 vols. 8vo. ] Dr Young was likewise connected with the Middlesex Hospital, where for two seasons he delivered a course of lectures, which, according to his own statement, “were little frequented, on account of the usual miscalculation of the lecturer, who gave his audience more information in a given time, than it was in their power to follow.” He printed “A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the Elements of the Medical Sciences.” Lond. 1809, 8vo. This was followed by a more elaborate publication, “An Introduction to Medical Literature, including a System of Practical Nosology.” Lond. 1813, 8vo. A second edition appeared in 1823. This volume is another monument of his indefatigable research, as well as of the sagacity and judgment which he exerted in all his investigations. After an interval of two years, he produced another professional work, which greatly extended his reputation, “A practical and historical Treatise on Consumptive Diseases.” Lond. 1815, 8vo.

His separate publications exhibit but a small portion of his literary labours. His contributions to periodical works, and to the transactions of various societies, were very numerous, and not a few of them were very elaborate. At the suggestion of his intimate friend George Ellis, he was induced to lend his powerful aid to the Quarterly Review. His first undertaking was merely to furnish notices of medical publications; but he immediately began to include other branches of science, nor did he overlook some of his favourite branches of literature. His review of Adelung’s Mithridates, inserted in the tenth volume, would alone have been sufficient, had he left no other monument of his ingenuity and learning, to procure him the character of an uncommon man. To the Imperial Review, which ran a shorter course, he likewise contributed a variety of articles. Dr Young was one of the many distinguished individuals who appeared as contributors to the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His articles, or portions of articles, sixty-three in number, relate to subjects not a little dissimilar in their nature. Most of them are reprinted in the present work, and, unless where his name is expressly mentioned, they are generally distinguished by the signature L. L. He supplied several biographical notices, not only of scientific men, but likewise of classical scholars, among whom are Bryant, Porson, and Wakefield. In his excellent notice of Porson (vol. xviii. p. 452, a.) we must here request the reader to correct a Greek quotation, which is printed in such a manner as to be altogether unintelligible. It ought to stand thus: μirζova r s 6υωet sro^us⅛ς AstfC∕or iς υiaou. He had previously written several papers on the very difficult and obscure subject of hieroglyphics; and in the article Egypt he now presented the result of his investigations. In this bewildering field of literature, the only ancient guide is Horapollo, whose work Dr Young describes as puerile, and “much more like a collection of conceits and enigmas than an explanation of a real system of serious literature.”^[3. Young’s Account of some recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature, p. 3. See likewise Mr Salt’s Essay on Dr Young and Μ. Champollion’s Phonetic System of Hieroglyphics, p. 44. Lond. 1825, 8vo. Orus, Horus, Horus Apollo, or Horapollo, is said to have been an ancient Egyptian, and to have written in his native language. The treatise which bears his name is professedly a translation from the Egyptian into the Greek tongue by a certain Philippus, who is otherwise unknown. It was first printed by Aldus, in a volume containing several other reliques of Greek literature. Venet. 1505, fol. The subsequent impressions are not numerous. An elaborate edition has recently been published by Leemans: “Horapollinis Niloi Hieroglyphica. Edidit, diversorum codicum recenter collatorum, priorumque editionum varias lectiones, et versionem Latinam subjunxit, adnotationem, item hieroglyphicoum imagines, et indices adjecit Conradus Leemans, Phil. Theor. Mag. Lit. Hum. Doch” Amet. 1835, 8vo. The Greek text, accompanied with an English version, has still mote recently ap peared, under the title of “The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous, by Alexander Turner Cory, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.” Lond. 1840, 8vo. ] The labours of many different scholars had left the subject of hieroglyphics almost as obscure[7:21:972] as they found it, when Young and Champollion,^[4. See the work of Klaproth, Examen critique des Travaux de feu Μ. Champollion sur les Hiéroglyphes. Paris, 1832, 8vo. ] l nearly at the same time, commenced their more fortunate enquiries. Dr Young afterwards published a separate work, under the title of “An Account of some recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature, and Egyptian Antiquities: including the author’s original Alphabet, as extended by Mr Champollion, with a Translation of five unpublished Greek and Egyptian Manuscripts.” Lond. 1823, 8vo. He was likewise the editor of “Hieroglyphics, collected by the Egyptian Society.” Lond. 1823, fol. This is a collection of lithographic plates, executed at the expense of the society; but the subscriptions being insufficient to defray it, the work was transferred to the Royal Society of Literature, and he still continued his superintendence. His unrivalled merits in this difficult province have been so fully estimated in the article Hieroglyphics, that it would here be superfluous to resume the subject.

Early in the year 1817, Dr Young had been called to Paris for the purpose of attending a patient; and he was much gratified by the reception which he there experienced from the most distinguished men of science. With Alexander von Humboldt, Cuvier, Arago, Biot, and Gay-Lussac, he had previously become acquainted in England. With such individuals as these it was a great pleasure to renew his personal intercourse; and in the summer of the same year he again revisited Paris, and resided there for a few weeks. In 1818 he was appointed one of the commissioners for taking into consideration the state of the weights and measures employed in Great Britain. In this commission, issued under the privy seal, he was associated with Dr Wollaston, Captain Kater, Mr Davies Gilbert, Sir Joseph Banks, and Sir George Clerk. He acted as secretary to the board, of which he appears to have been the most efficient member; for to the three Reports presented to parliament, he furnished both the scientific calculations, and the account of the various weights and measures in common use. Before the close of this year, he was appointed secretary to the Board of Longitude, with the charge of the supervision of the Nautical Almanac. In the act of parliament under which this appointment took place, he was nominated one of the commissioners. “This appointment was to him a very desirable one, though the labour in which it involved him was great, as his anxiety to increase his medical practice henceforth ceased, and it made that the business of his life which had always been his inclination.” After a period of ten years, the board was suppressed; but the Admiralty was permitted to retain the officer entrusted with the calculations of the almanac. The assistance of men of science was soon found to be necessary in other departments connected with the Admiralty; and a new council of three members, consisting of Dr Young, Captain Sabine, and Mr Faraday, was entrusted with those services which had previously been performed by the board.

After his appointment to the office of secretary, he discontinued his summer residence at Worthing. During the summer of 1819 he proceeded to Italy, where he spent about five months, and visited all the most remarkable cities. One object of peculiar interest was the examination of the Egyptian monuments preserved in that country. He returned homeward by Switzerland and the Rhine. He afterwards published a work entitled “Elementary Illustration of the Celestial Mechanics of La Place; with some additions relating to the Motion of Waves and of Sound, and to the Cohesion of Fluids.” Lond. 1821, 8vo. This volume, and the article Tides reprinted in the present work, he was disposed to regard as containing the most fortunate of the results of his mathematical investigations. During the en suing year he paid another visit to Paris; and in 1824 he made an excursion to Spa and to Holland. On his return, he undertook the scientific direction of a company for life-insurance. The rage for joint-stock schemes had about this period attained its utmost height; but he declined all participation in the commercial part of the speculation, and restricted himself to his own mathematical department He was thus induced to deviate into a new path of enquiry; and, in 1826, he contributed to the Philosophical Transactions “A Formula for expressing the Decrement of Human Life and to Brande’s Philosophical Journal, a “Practical Application of the Doctrine of Chances.” He had the satisfaction of witnessing the prosperity of the company with which he had formed this connexion.

In the course of the preceding year, he had removed from Welbeck-street to a house which he had built in Park-square; “where he continued to reside during the remainder of his life, and where, in a situation to which he was extremely attached, he led the life of a philosopher, surrounded by every domestic comfort, and enjoying the pleasures of an extensive and cultivated society, who knew how to appreciate him. He expressed himself as having now attained all the main objects which he had looked forward to in life as the subject either of his hopes or his wishes.” In 1827 he was elected one of the eight foreign members of the Royal Institute of France. But the life which had thus been so prosperous and so honourable, was not destined to be long. With the exception of the consumptive tendency which he had exhibited at an early period, his health had not been impaired by serious illness a single day. In the summer of 1828 he made an excursion to Geneva; and on his return, his friends began to perceive symptoms of decaying strength. The business entrusted to the Board of Longitude having about this time been transferred to the new council, he was subjected to the labour of drawing up various reports, when the state of his health rendered this an exertion to which he was no longer equal. From the month of February ensuing, he had repeated attacks of what he supposed to be asthma. In the beginning of April, he experienced great difficulty of breathing; and this symptom was accompanied with a habitual though not copious discharge of blood from the lungs. “Though thus under the pressure of severe illness,” says Mr Gurney, “nothing could be more striking than the entire calmness and composure of his mind, or could surpass the kindness of his affections to all around him. He said that he had completed all the works on which he was engaged, with the exception of the Rudiments of an Egyptian Dictionary, which he had brought near to its completion, and which he was extremely anxious to be able to finish. It was then in the hands of the lithographers, and he not only continued to give directions concerning it, but laboured at it with a pencil when, confined to his bed, he was unable to hold a pen. To a friend who expostulated with him on the danger of fatiguing himself, he replied it was no fatigue, but a great amusement to him; that it was a work which, if he should live, it would be a satisfaction to him to have finished, but that if it were otherwise, which seemed most probable, as he had never witnessed a complaint which appeared to make more rapid progress, it would still be a great satisfaction to him never to have spent an idle day in his life....In the very last stage of his complaint, in the last lengthened interview with the writer of the present memoir, his perfect self-possession was displayed in the most remarkable manner. After some information concerning his affairs, and some instructions concerning the hieroglyphical papers in his hands, he said that, perfectly aware of his situation, he had taken the [7:21:973]sacraments of the church on the day preceding; that whether he should ever partially recover, or whether he were rapidly taken off, he could patiently and contentedly await the issue.”^[5. Gurney’s Memoir of the Life of Thomas Young, Μ. D., etc. p. 41. Lond. 1831, 8vo. To this Memoir he has subjoined “A Catalogue of the Works and Essays of the late Dr Young,” which had been prepared by himself in 1827. ] With some slight variations, his illness continued till the morning of the tenth of May 1829, when his strength having been gradually exhausted, he expired without a struggle, before he had completed the fifty-sixth year of his age. The fatal disease was ascertained to be an ossification of the aorta, exhibiting the appearance of having been in progress for many years. His intellectual labours had been so great and so incessant as to produce the indications of an age much more advanced. His mortal remains were deposited in a vault belonging to his wife’s family, in the church of Farnborough in Kent.

The work which had engaged his attention during the last days of his life, was published under the title of “Rudiments of an Egyptian Dictionary in the Ancient Enchorial Character; containing all the Words of which the sense has been ascertained. Intended as an Appendix to Mr Tattam’s Coptic Grammar.” Lond. 1830, 8vo. It appears in the same volume with the work of Mr Tattam, “A compendious Grammar of the Egyptian Language, as contained in the Coptic and Sahidic Dialects.” This learned fellow-labourer, it may not be improper to add, has continued to prosecute his researches in the same department, and has subsequently produced a “Lexico Aegyptiaco-Latinum.” Oxonii, 1835, 8vo.

Among other advantages, Dr Young possessed that of a handsome person and prepossessing appearance. His manners were polished and even elegant, though perhaps exhibiting a very slight tendency to a scholar-like preciseness. Such at least was the impression received by the writer of the present imperfect notice. By his friend and biographer he is described as “a man in all the relations of life, upright, kind-hearted, blameless. His domestic virtues were as exemplary as his talents were great. He was entirely free from either envy or jealousy; and the assistance which he gave to others engaged in the same lines of research with himself, was constant and unbounded. His morality through life had been pure, though unostentatious. His religious sentiments were by himself stated to be liberal, though orthodox. He had extensively studied the Scriptures, of which the precepts were deeply impressed upon his mind from his earliest years; and he evidenced the faith which he professed, in an unbending course of usefulness and rectitude.” Of his merits as a man of science, it may here be sufficient to state that a very high estimate has been formed by Arago.^[6. Eloge Historique du Docteur Thomas Young, par Μ. Arago: Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences de l’Institut de France, tom. xiii. p. lvii. Of the life and scientific labours of Dr Young, an ample and satisfactory account is expected from the able pen of Dr Peacock, dean of Ely. ] s His literary attainments were equally solid and extensive; nor would it be easy to mention another individual of the present age worthy in all respects of being compared with Thomas Young. (x.)