EULOGY ON THOMAS YOUNG. 115 



batiou rniglit Lave greatly flattered liis vanity. Young- thus found him- 

 self at an early period in personal relation with those celebrated men, 

 Burke and Wyndham of the House of Commons, and tlie Duke of liicli- 

 mond. The last nobleman, then master of the ordnance, offered him 

 the place of private secretary. The two other statesmen, although they 

 wished him also to follow a career connected with the public adminis- 

 tration, yet advised him first to go through a course of law at Cam- 

 bridge.* With such powerful patrons. Young might reckon on one of 

 those lucrative offices which persons in power are not slow to l)estow on 

 those who will spare them all study and application, and dnily furnish 

 them with the means of shining at the court, the council, the senate, with- 

 out comjiromising their vanity by committing any indiscretion. Young, 

 hi>i)pily, had a consciousness of his powers; he perceived in himself the 

 germ of those brilliant discoveries Avhich have since adorned liis name; 

 he preferred the laborious but independent career of the man of letters 

 to the golden chains which they exhibited so temptingly to his eyes. 

 Honor be to him for such a determination ! May his example serve as a 

 lesson to so many young men whom political ambition diverts from a 

 more noble vocation to transform themselves into mere officials, but who 

 might learn, like Young, to turn their eyes to the future, and not sacri- 

 fice to the futile and transitory satisfaction of being surrounded by per- 

 sons soliciting favors the solid testimonies of esteem and gratitude which 

 the public rarely fails to offer to intellectual labors of a high order; and 

 if it happen in the illusions of inexperience that they should think too 

 heavy a sacrifice imposed on them, we would ask them to take a lesson 

 of ambition from the mouth of a great captain, whose ambition knew no 

 bounds; to meditate on the words which the First Consul, the victor of 

 Marengo, addressed to one of our most honored colleagues (M. Lemer- 

 cier) on the day when he, (}uite in accordance with his character, had 

 just refused a place then of great importance, that of councilor of state: 



"I understand, sir, you love literature, and you wish to belong alto- 

 gether to it. 1 have nothing to oppose to this resolution. Yes; I, my- 

 self, if I had not become a general-in-chief and the instrument of the 

 fate of a great nation, do you think I would have gone through the offices 

 and the salons to put myself in dependence on whoever might happen 

 to be in power in the position of minister or ambassador ? ISTo! no! I 

 would have taken to the exact sciences. I would have made my way in 

 the path of Galileo and Newton; and, since I have succeeded constantly 

 in my great enterprises, truly 1 should have been equally distinguished 

 by my scientific labors. I should have left behind me the remembrance 

 of great discoveries. No otlier kind of glory would have tempted my 

 aml)ition." 



Young made choice of the profession of medicine, in which he hoped 

 to iind fortune and independence. His medical studies were commenced 

 in London under Baillie and Cruikshank. He continued them at 

 Edinburgh, where at that time Drs. Black, Munroe, and Gregory were 

 in the height of their celebrity. It was only at Gottingen in the fol- 

 lowing year (1795) that he took the degree of doctor.t Before going 



* "Mr. Wyndham advised him not to accept the appointment, and recommended 

 him rather to proceed to Cambridge and study the laAV." (Peacock's Life, p. 45.) — 

 Translator. 



t The author has omitted that, in 1797, Young entered as a, fellow-commoner at 

 Kmanuel College, Cambridge, and in due time graduated there regularly in medicine, 

 a step at that time necessary for his admission to the College of Physicians, in order to 

 enable him to practice as a physician in Loudon. (See Peacock's Life, p. 11.^).) In the 

 university he was familiarly known by the name of " Phenomenon Young." — Trans- 

 lator. 



