260 THOMAS YOUNG. 



thing more. Their significance at that time had not 

 been revealed. Hearing Kant so much spoken of in 

 Germany, Young naturally attacked the ' Critique of 

 Pure Reason,' but his other studies prevented hirn from 

 devoting much time to the Critical Philosophy. To 

 the portion of it which he read he attached no high 

 value. He admitted Kant's penetration, but dwelt 

 upon his confusion of ideas. The language of the 

 * Critique ' he thought unpardonably obscure. 



He visited Brunswick, where, clothed in the proper 

 costume, he was presented at Court. After the recep- 

 tion came a supper, about twenty ladies sitting on one 

 side of a table, and twenty gentlemen on the other. 

 He endeavoured to converse with his neighbour, but 

 found him either sulky or stupid. The dowager duchess, 

 whom he likened to a spectre, made her appearance 

 and began to converse pleasantly. When told that 

 Young had studied at Gottingen, and that he was a 

 doctor of medicine, she asked him whether he could 

 feel a pulse, and whether the English or the Germans 

 had the best pulses. Young replied that he had felt 

 but one pulse in Germany the pulse of a young lady, 

 and that it was a very good pulse. Gottingen was then 

 the foremost school of horsemanship in Europe. Young 

 was passionately fond of this exercise, and there were 

 no feats of horsemanship, however daring or difficult, 

 which he did not attempt or accomplish. His muscu- 

 lar power had been always remarkable, and he could 

 clear a five-barred gate without touching it. He was 

 better known among the students for his vaulting on a 

 wooden horse than for writing Greek. At a Court 

 masquerade he appeared in the character of harlequin, 

 which gave him an excellent opportunity of exhibiting 

 his personal activity. Notwithstanding all this, he did 

 not quite like his life in Gottingen. The professors ofr 



