554 Professor Tyndall [Jan. 22, 



Philosophy.' He read with particular delight the optical portions of 

 Martin's work. An usher of the school, named Jeffrey, taught him 

 how to make telescopes, and to bind books. Here the early years of 

 Young and Faraday inosculate, the one, however, pursuing book- 

 binding as an amusement, and the other as a profession. Young 

 borrowed a quadrant from an intelligent saddler named Atkins, and 

 with it determined the principal heights in his neighbourhood. He 

 took to botany for a time, but was more and more drawn towards 

 optics. He constructed a microscope. The disentangling of difficult 

 problems was his delight. Seeing some fluxional symbols in Martin's 

 work, he attacked the study of fluxions. Priestley on Air fascinated 

 him. The Italian language was mastered by the aid of one of his 

 schoolfellows named Fox. 



After leaving Compton, he devoted himself to the study of Hebrew. 

 Mr. Toulmin, of whom Young speaks with affection, lent him 

 grammars of the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan languages, 

 all of which he studied with diligence and delight. Mr. Toulmin 

 also lent him the Lord's Prayer in more than a hundred languages, 

 the examination of which, Young declares, gave him extraordinary 

 pleasure. Through one of those accidents which enter so largely 

 into the tissue of human life, Young found himself at Youngsbury, 

 near Ware in Hertfordshire. It was a strong testimony to his talent 

 and character, that Mr. Barclay here accepted him as the preceptor of 

 his grandson, Mr. Hudson Gurney, although Young was then little more 

 than fourteen, and his pupil only a year and a half younger than 

 himself. Thus began a life-long friendship between him and Hudson 

 Gurney. Young spent five years at Youngsbury, which he deemed 

 the most profitable years of his life. He spent the winter months in 

 London, visiting booksellers' shops and hearing occasional lectures. 

 He kept a journal in Hertfordshire, the first entry of which informs 

 us that he had written out specimens of the Bible in thirteen different 

 languages. It is recorded of Young that, when requested by an 

 acquaintance, who presumed somewhat upon his youthful appearance, 

 to exhibit a specimen of his handwriting, he very delicately rebuked 

 the inquiry by writing a sentence in his best style in fourteen different 

 languages. 



Although the catalogue of Young's books might give the impression 

 that he was a great reader, his reading was comiDaratively limited ; 

 but whatever he read, he completely mastered. Fichte comj)ared the 

 reading of reviews to the smoking of tobacco, affirming that the two 

 occuj)ations were equally pleasant, and equally profitable. Young, 

 in this sense, was not a smoker. Whatever study he began, he never 

 abandoned ,* and it was, says Dean Peacock in his ' Life of Young,' 

 to his steadily keeping to the principle of doing nothing by halves, 

 that he was wont in after life to attribute a great part of his success 

 as a scholar and a man of science. 



Young's mother was the niece of Dr. Brocklesby, and this eminent 

 London physician appears to have taken the greatest interest in the 



