Biographical Memoir ofDr Thomas Young. 219 



but independent career of a man of letters, to the golden chains 

 which were displayed before his eyes. His, then, be the ho- 

 nour I and let his example serve as a lesson to many of our 

 young men whom the love of power diverts from their noble 

 vocation, to transform them into the mere drudges of office ; let 

 them, like Young, fix their thoughts upon the future, and not 

 sacrifice to the worthless, and withal fleeting, satisfaction of 

 being surrounded with suitors, those proofs of esteem and gra- 

 titude which the public rarely fails to pay to intellectual labours 

 of a high character ; and if it happen that, from the illusions 

 of inexperience, they should feel that we have prescribed for 

 them too great a sacrifice, we would ask them to receive a lesson 

 concerning ambition from the mouth of that great captain, whose 

 ambition knew no bounds, — to meditate upon the words which 

 the first consul, the hero of Marengo, addressed to one of our 

 most honourable colleagues (M. Lemercier), at a time when he 

 refused (a common practice with him) a very important place, 

 that of counsellor of state: — " I understand, sir! you love let- 

 ters, and you would devote yourself entirely to them. I cannot 

 oppose this resolution. For myself, do not suppose that, had 

 I not become generalissimo, and the instrument of the desti- 

 nies of this great nation, I should ever have subjected myself 

 to the drudgeries of office, and put myself in the state of de- 

 pendence of those who do so, in the quality of minister or^of 

 ambassador ? No, no ! I should have devoted myself to the 

 study of the exact sciences. T should have followed the route 

 of Galileo and of Newton. And since I have succeeded injmy 

 grand enterprises, I should also have distinguished myself by 

 my scientific labours. I should have left the recollection of my 

 great discoveries. No other glory would have tempted my am- 

 bition.'' 



Young made choice of the medical profession, in which he 

 hoped to find fortune and independence. His medical studies 

 were begun in London, under Baillie and Cruickshank ; he con- 

 tinued them in Edinburgh, where Black, Munro, and Gregory 

 then shone ; and at Gottingen, in the year 1795, he took his 

 doctor's degree. Before submitting himself to this foolish for- 

 mality, which is nevertheless so imperiously required, Young, 

 still a youth, had made himself known to the scientific world by 



