328 Analysis of Books, fyc. 



more candour than might have been consistent with his object, had 

 he been anxious to obtain proselytes. 



' In the summer of 1802, he accompanied the present Duke of Rich- 

 mond, and his brother Lord G. Lennox, in his medical capacity, to 

 Rouen, and in an excursion from thence to Paris, was first present at 

 the sittings of the National Institute, at that time attended by Napoleon ; 

 where he made the acquaintance of several leading members of that dis- 

 tinguished body, into which he himself was eventually elected. On his 

 return he was constituted Foreign Secretary to the Royal Society, an 

 office which he held during life, being long their senior officer, and always 

 one of the leading and most efficient members of their council.' 



In 1804, he married Eliza, daughter of J. P. Maxwell, Esq., of 

 Cavendish Square, an union to him productive of uninterrupted hap- 

 piness during the remainder of his life. At this time he resigned 

 his professorship in the Royal Institution, from an erroneous im- 

 pression that it would be likely to interfere with his success as a 

 medical practitioner. The remarks of his biographer on this occasion 

 must not be withheld. 



* His resolution at that juncture was to confine himself for the most 

 part to medical pursuits, and to make himself known to the public in no 

 other character. But he had resolved on that which to him was im- 

 possible. He never slackened either in his literary or philosophical 

 researches. He was always aiding, and always willing to be the coun- 

 sellor of any one engaged in similar investigations. He was living in the 

 first circles of London, amongst all who were the most eminent. The 

 nature of his habitual avocations was necessarily well known; and, 

 therefore, in putting forth his non-medical papers separately and anony- 

 mously, he was making a fruitless as well as voluntary sacrifice of the 

 general celebrity to which he was entitled ; and shrinking, as it were, from 

 the cumulative reputation which he must otherwise have enjoyed, he 

 waived, in some degree, the advantage which is given by a great name 

 towards the pursuit of even professional success.' 



In 1807, Dr. Young published his ' Course of Lectures on Natural 

 Philosophy and the Mechanic Arts,' in two volumes, 4to. ; a work 

 of first-rate merit, which cost him nearly five years' labour to perfect. 

 The mass of references contained in the second volume, to those 

 works which the student engaged in minute inquiries in any branch 

 may consult with advantage, atfords evidence of the extensive reading 

 and industry of this eminent philosopher. Owing to the failure of 

 the booksellers engaged in the publication of Dr. Young's Lectures, 

 the immediate sale of the work was so greatly injured that it did not 

 repay the expenses of the publication. Indeed, for some years, its 

 great merits were not so extensively appreciated in England as on 

 the Continent ; but at length justice has been done to it in the 

 country which gave it birth, it is a mine to which every one engaged 

 in scientific pursuits must have recourse with advantage, and it is no 

 less true that ' it contains the original hints of more things since 

 claimed as discoveries, than can perhaps be found in a single pro- 

 duction of any known author.' ' One of the men most distinguished 

 for science in Europe has been known to say, that if his library were 



