Memoir of the Life of Dr. Thomas Young. 327 



On his return to England lie entered himself of Emmanuel Col- 

 lege, Cambridge, of which Dr. Farmer, an intimate friend of his 

 uncle, was then master. He proceeded to take his regular degrees in 

 physic in that university, but did not attend any of the public lectures, 

 contenting himself with pursuing the various studies in which he was 

 engaged, living on terms of intimacy with the most highly-gifted 

 members, and discussing subjects of science with the professors, but 

 finding no rival in the variety of his knowledge, and few compe- 

 titors in most of its branches. 



Dr. Brocklesby died in 1797: part of his fortune, his books, his 

 pictures, and his house, he left to Dr. Young, who now found him- 

 self in circumstances of independence, surrounded by a circle of 

 distinguished and highly valuable friends, which he continued to 

 prize and to enjoy through life. When his residence at college was 

 completed he settled himself as a physician in London, in Welbeck 

 Street, where he continued to reside, during twenty-five years. 



In 1801, Dr. Young was appointed Professor of Natural Philo- 

 sophy in the Royal Institution, where he continued for two years to 

 lecture alternately with Sir H. Davy. In 1802, he published his 

 4 Syllabus, a Course of Lectures on Natural and Experimental Phi- 

 losophy, with Mathematical Demonstrations of the most important 

 Theorems in Mechanics and Optics.' This syllabus contained the 

 first publication of his discovery of the general law of the Inter- 

 ference of Light, being the application of a principle which has since 

 been universally appreciated as one of the greatest discoveries since 

 the time of Newton, and which has subsequently changed the whole 

 face of optical science *. As a lecturer at the Royal Institution Dr. 

 Young was not eminently successful, for though his lectures were 

 replete with interesting original matter, he was not happy in convey- 

 ing it in a sufficiently intelligible manner to the capacities of a mixed 

 audience, consisting in a great degree of persons of fashion and of 

 the world. Dr. Young's style and manner were quite opposite to 

 those of his eminent colleague, Davy; he was compressed and 

 laconic, and presumed his audience better instructed in the arcana 

 of science than such an assembly could possibly be : it has even 

 been said that it would hardly have been possible for men of science 

 to have followed him at the moment without considerable difficulty. 



At this period Dr. Young became, jointly with Davy, editor of the 

 Journal of the Royal Institution ; the first volume, and part of the 

 second, were published under his superintendence. It was also at 

 this time that he gave his two Bakerian Lectures on the subject of 

 Light and Colours, to the Royal Society. Developing the law of 

 interference, and entering into all the details of the theory to which 

 it leads ; dwelling upon the difficult points, at the same time, with 



* It was not until the year 1827, that the importance of this law could be said 

 to be fully admitted in England : it was in that year that the Council of the 

 Royal Society adjudged Count Kumfurd's medal to M. Fresnel, for having ap- 

 plied it, with some modifications, to the intricate phenomena of polarized light. 



VOL. II. Nov. 1831. Z 



