1886.] on Thomas Young. 655 



development of his youtliful relative. He, nevertheless, occasion ally- 

 gives Young a rap over the knuckles for what he calls his " prudery." 

 We all know the strenuous and honourable opposition that has been 

 always offered to negro slavery by the Society of Friends. In carrying 

 out their principles, they at one time totally abstained from sugar, 

 lest by using it they should countenance the West Indian planters. 

 Young here imitated the conduct of his sect, which Dr. Brocklesby 

 stigmatised as " prudery." " My late excellent friend Mr. Day," says 

 the Doctor, " the author of ' Sandford and Merton,' abhorred the base 

 traffic in human lives as much as you can do ; and even Mr. Granville 

 Sharp, one of the earliest writers on the subject, has not done half as 

 much service as Mr. Day in the above work. And jet Mr. Day 

 devoured daily as much sugar as I do. Keformation," adds the 

 Doctor, " must take its rise elsewhere, if ever there is a general mass 

 of public virtue sufficient to resist such private interests." 



Over and above his classical reading, from 1790 to 1792, Young 

 read Simpson's Fluxions, the Principia and Optics of Newton, and 

 many of the works of other famous authors, including Bacon, Linnasus, 

 Boerliaave, Lavoisier, Higgins, and Black. He seems to have confined 

 himself to works of the highest stamp. He mastered Corneille and 

 Racine, read Shakespeare, Milton, Blackstone, and Burke. But he 

 was, adds his biographer, " contented to rest in almost entire ignorance 

 of the popular literature of the day." 



I must, however, hasten over the early years and acquirements of 

 this extraordinary personality. During his youth, he had none of the 

 assistance which is usually within the reach of persons of position in 

 England. All that I have here mentioned, and a vast deal more, he 

 had acquired without having ever entered a public school, or touched 

 a University. As a classic, he was, we are assured, both precise and 

 profound. As a mathematician, he was many-sided, original, and power- 

 ful. : Such an education, however, though well calculated to develop 

 the strength of the individual, was not, in Peacock's opinion, the best 

 calculated to put Young into sympathy with the mind of his age. 

 " He was, throughout life, destitute of that intellectual fellow-feeling 

 (if the phrase may be used), which is so necessary to form a success- 

 ful teacher or lecturer, or a luminous and successful writer." 



Young was intended for the medical profession, and his medical 

 studies began in 1792. He came to London, and attended the lectures 

 of Dr. Baily, Mr. Cruikshanks, and John Hunter. He made the 

 acquaintance of Burke, Windham, Frederick North, Sir Joshua 

 Reynolds, and Dr. Lawrence. By the advice of Burke he studied 

 the philosophical works of Cicero. The bent of Young's moral 

 character may be inferred from the quotations which he habitually 

 entered in his commonplace book. Here is one of them : — " For my 

 part," says Cicero, " I think the man who possessed that strength of 

 mind, that constitutional tendency to temperance and virtue, which 

 would lead him to avoid all enervating indulgences, and to complete 



