Memoir of the Life of Dr. Thomas Young. 325 



demanded a great sacrifice of time, and that when the fact was once 

 established, that time was better employed in considering the purposes 

 to which it might be applied, or the principles which it might tend 

 to elucidate.' At Dr. Brocklesby's recommendation, and under his 

 superintendence, he now directed his views to the studies necessary 

 for the practice of physic, and made to him a regular report of his 

 literary and scientific pursuits. The Doctor lived in intimacy with 

 Mr. Burke and Mr. Windham, and having communicated to them 

 some of his nephew's Greek translations, he was introduced to those 

 two distinguished persons. Mr. Burke is said to have been so 

 greatly struck with the reach of Young's talents, and the extent of 

 his acquirements, and more particularly by his great and accurate 

 knowledge of Greek, that he was in no small degree indebted to the 

 good offices of that eminent statesman for the interest which his 

 uncle afterwards took in his future settlement in life. 



' It may probably be considered that it was at this period his character 

 received its development. He was never known to relax in any object 

 which he had once undertaken. During the whole term of these five 

 years, he never was seen by any one, on any occasion, to be ruffled in 

 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 anything ; 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 anything which he thought worthy to be attempted which he 

 was not resolved to master.' 



His biographer thinks, with justice, that ' this self- conducted 

 education in privacy was not without its disadvantages that though 

 the acquirements he was making were great, he was not gaining 

 that which is acquired insensibly in the conflict of equals in the 

 commerce of the world the facility of communicating knowledge in 

 the form that shall be most immediately comprehended by others, 

 and the tact in putting it forth that shall render its value immediately 

 appreciated.' 



His first communications to the press were made in 1791, through 

 the medium of the ' Monthly Review,' and the 4 Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine;' and towards the end of 1792 he established himself in lodgings 

 in Westminster, where he resided two years, attending the lectures 

 of Baillie and Cruickshank on anatomy, and was, during that period, 

 a diligent pupil of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. 



In 1793, he made a tour in the west of England, principally to 

 study the mineralogy of Cornwall ; and about this time the Duke of 

 Richmond, then Master- General of the Ordnance, who had long been 

 a friend of his uncle, offered him the situation of assistant- secretary 

 in his house. Mr. Burke and Mr. Windham recommended him 

 to proceed to Cambridge and study the law, but his own predilec- 



