334 History of the English Landed Intei'est. 



tainted with this influence, surely the former would have been 

 more than human had he entirely escaped. 



As for his alleged depreciation of science we have only to 

 point out what it signified in Young's day, to exonerate him 

 from all blame on this head. Science (and by the term we 

 mean what Young understood it to mean, i.e., chemistry) was 

 still enveloped in a dark shadow of mystery and failure. 

 The awe surrounding the person of the mediaeval alchemist 

 lingered in the vulgar mind about the operations of the later 

 analysts. In more enlightened understandings a sense of 

 ridicule begotten of endless failure was the most prominent 

 feature. Indeed, we should not be surprised if Boyle himself 

 was in the estimation of the majority of his countrj^men 

 either a fool or a wizard. We have already described the 

 scientific researches of Dr. Agricola and Richard Bradley, 

 and the reader will therefore not be disposed to condemn 

 Young had he rejected a science which was as yet practically 

 useless, if not mischievous, to that industry which he held so 

 dear and whose interests he watched so jealously. 



But are we right in concluding that he really did reject the 

 influences of science? Did those who elected him honorary 

 member of their learned societies regard his sentiments in this 

 light ? Did the savants of Paris, Berne, Zurich and Mannheim, 

 and the scientific experts of London, York, Manchester and 

 Dublin, refuse him the brotherhood of letters on this account ? 

 After his Irish tour, in 1779, when he had settled once more 

 at Bradfield, he himself varied the purely physical operations 

 of the farm with laborious mental research into the chemistry 

 of soils, and his ingenuity and success in this fresh departure 

 are best illustrated by the fact that he earned the honorary 

 gold medal of the Society of Arts for the result of experiments 

 on potato culture. Nor is it likely that an individual who 

 despised science would have begged Mons. de Mirveau, first 

 chemist of France, to apply his learning to experimental 

 agriculture ; or would have become the intimate of Priestley, 

 acquiring from him a taste for pneumatic chemistry, and 

 sharing with him the delights of epoch-making discovery. 

 After one of these mornings with the great English analyst, 



