408 Memoir of Dr. Thomas Young. 



him to rise and use a pen, he corrected the proofs with a 

 pencil. One of the last acts of his life was to request the 

 suppression of a talented paper, written by a friend, against 

 all those who had contributed to the destruction of the 

 Board of Longitude. 



Young died in the midst of a family by whom he was 

 beloved, on the 10th of May, 1829, about the age of 56 

 years. The inspection of his body after death shewed that 

 his aorta was ossified. 



Young is, in the eyes of the men of science of France, 

 one of the most illustrious philosophers of whom England 

 can boast. The previous details would lead us to infer 

 that just honours have been paid to the author of such a 

 fine discovery as the Law of Interferences. These antici- 

 pations, I am sorry to say, have not been realized. The 

 death of Young made but little stir in his own country. 

 The doors of Westminster, hitherto so accessible to per- 

 sons destitute of merit, but with titles, have remained 

 closed to the man of genius, who was not a baronet. It is 

 at the village of Farnborough, in the modest vault of his 

 wife's family, that the remains of Thomas Young have 

 been deposited. The indifference of the English nation to 

 labours which add so much to its honour, is a very ano- 

 malous circumstance, of which one is naturally curious to 

 know the cause. 



I should be deficient in candour — I should be a pane- 

 gyrist instead of a historian — if I did not admit that Young 

 did not in general carry with him the intelligence of his 

 readers, and that most of his writings are distinguished by 

 a certain degree of obscurity. 



The exact sciences possess an advantage over works of 

 art or imagination, which has been often pointed out. The 

 truths of which they consist pass through ages, without 

 suffering from the caprice of fashion, or the depravity of 

 taste. But when we attain a certain height, upon how 

 many judges can we depend? When Richelieu let loose 

 upon the great Corneille a number of those individuals 

 whom the merit of another renders furious, the inhabitants 

 of Paris hissed the adherents of the bishop, and applauded 

 the poet. This homage is denied to the geometrician, the 

 astronomer, and the natural philosopher, who cultivate the 



