Biograplticcd Memoir ofDr Thomas Young. 237 



doors of Westminster Abbey, so accessible to titled mediocrity, 

 remained closed against the man of genius. The remains of 

 Young were deposited at the village of Farnborough, in the 

 quiet tomb of the family of his wife. The indifference of the 

 British nation to labours which have added so much to its glory, 

 is a very singular phenomenon, of which we may well be curious 

 to know the causes. 



I should fail in fairness, and should be the panegyrist rather 

 than the historian, if I did not avow, that, in general, Dr Young 

 did not sufficiently consult the intelligence of his readers, and 

 that the greater number of his writings on science are faulty by 

 being to a certain extent obscure. And still, the neglect in which 

 for a long time they have been permitted to fall, has not been 

 owing solely to this cause. 



The exact sciences have an advantage over the works of art 

 and imagination, which has often been pointed out. The truths 

 of which they consist endure for ages, without suffering from the 

 caprices of fashion, or from any depravation of taste. But it 

 is also true, that, so soon as they rise to a certain point of eleva- 

 tion, the number of those who can judge respecting them becomes 

 exceedingly limited. When Richelieu let loose against the great 

 Corneille a crowd of men whom his merit had made furious, the 

 Parisians repelled with indignation these hornets of the despotic 

 cardinal, and applauded the poet. But this satisfaction is re- 

 fused to the geometrician, the astronomer, and the philosopher, 

 who cultivate the highest departments of science. Those who are 

 competent to appreciate their labours, throughout the whole ex- 

 tent of Europe, never exceed the number of some eight or ten. 

 If, then, we should suppose that these individuals were unjust, 

 or indifferent, or it might be jealous, for I fear this may some- 

 times be witnessed, the public, reduced to the necessity of taking 

 everything on their testimony, might be ignorant that d' Alembert 

 had connected the great phenomena of the precession of the equi- 

 noxes with the principle of universal gravitation ; that Lagrange 

 had succeeded in assigning the physical cause of the libration of 

 the moon ; and that, since the researches of Laplace, the accele- 

 rated movement of this luminary is found to be connected with 

 a particular change in the form of the orbit of the earth, &c. &c. 

 The scientific journals, when they are conducted by men of 



