132 Mary Somerville. 



of science to such perfection should have been so 

 ungenerous as to ignore the assistance he had re- 



o o 



ceived from the researches of Dr. Young. When the 

 Royal Institution was first established, Dr. Young 

 lectured on natural philosophy. He proved the un- 

 dulatory theory of light by direct experiment, but as 

 it depended upon the hypothesis of an ethereal 

 medium, it was not received in England, the more 

 so as it was contrary to Newton's theory. The 

 French savans afterwards did Young ample justice. 

 The existence of the ethereal medium is now all but 

 proved, since part of the corona surrounding the 

 moon during a total solar eclipse is polarized a phe- 

 nomenon depending on matter. Young's Lectures, 

 which had been published, were a mine of riches to 

 me. He was of a Quaker family ; but although he 

 left the Society of Friends at an early age, he retained 

 their formal precision of manner to the last. He 

 was of a kindly disposition, and his wife and 

 her sisters, with whom I was intimate, were much 

 attached to him. Dr. Young was an elegant and 

 critical scholar at a very early age ; he was an 

 astronomer, a mathematician, and there were few 

 branches of science in which he was not versed. 

 When young, his Quaker habits did not prevent him 

 from taking lessons in music and dancing. I have 

 heard him accompany his sister-in-law with tho flute, 



