2J52 Biographical Memoir of Br Thomas Young, 



cceded in doing what had been done before him. This experi- 

 ment need not have been cited here, had it not been again re- 

 peated first at Edinburgh, and then at Gottingen, and push- 

 ed farther than would perhaps be generally credited. In one 

 of these towns, Young, after a very short preparation, made 

 a trial of his skill with a renowned rope-dancer ; in the other, 

 and always in consequence of a challenge being made him, he 

 acquired the art of horsemanship to a most extraordinary ex- 

 tent, and which certainly attracted attention, in the midst of 

 first-rate performers, whose feats every evening attracted nu- 

 merous spectators to the Circus of Eranconi. Thus, those who 

 delight in making contrasts may, on one side, picture to them- 

 selves Newton, the timid Newton, apprehensive of entering a 

 carriage, lest it should be overturned, with his arms extended, 

 and his two hands grasping the doors ; and, on the other, his 

 illustrious rival galloping erect upon two horses, with all the 

 confidence of a professional equestrian. 



In England, a physician, if he wishes not to lose the public 

 confidence, must abstain from engaging in all scientific and lite- 

 rary research which appears to be foreign to the healing art. 

 For long, Young sacrificed to this prejudice, and his writings 

 appeared anonymously. This veil, it is true, was very thin ; 

 two contiguous letters of a certain Latin device successively ser- 

 ved, in a regular order, as the signature for each memoir ; but 

 Young communicated the three Latin words to all his friends, 

 domestic and foreign, without imposing secrecy. Besides, who 

 could be ignorant that the illustrious author of the Theory of 

 Interferences was the foreign secretary of the Royal Society of 

 London ; that he gave in the amphitheatre of the Royal Insti- 

 tution a general course of mathematical physics; that, associated 

 with Sir H. Davy, he published the Journal of Science, &c. &c. ; 

 and besides, we must remark that the anonymous character was not 

 regularly maintained, except for his lesser memoirs. On important 

 occasions, as for example, when there appeared, in 1807, the two 

 volumes in 4to of 800 or 900 pages each, where all the branches 

 of natural philosophy are treated in a manner so new and pro- 

 found, the amour-propre of the author obliterated the interests 

 of the physician, and the name of Young, in large characters, re- 

 placed the two small italic letters, whose turn it was to have then 



