EARLY LIFE AND STUDIES. 251 



study he began, he never abandoned; and it was, says 

 Dean Peacock, in his " Life of Young," to his steadily 

 keeping to the principle of doing nothing by halves, 

 that he was wont in after-life to attribute a great part 

 of his success as a scholar and a man of science. 



Young's mother was the niece of Dr. Brocklesby, 

 and this eminent London physician appears to have 

 taken the greatest interest in the development of his 

 youthful relative. He nevertheless occasionally gave 

 Young a rap over the knuckles for what he called 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 princi- 

 ples, 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 ' Sanford 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 yet Mr. Day devoured daily 

 as much sugar as I do. Reformation," 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 " Prin- 

 cipia " and " Optics " of Xewton, and many of the 

 works of other famous authors, including Bacon, Lin- 

 naeus, Boerhaave, Lavoisier, Higgins, and Black. He 

 confined himself to works of the highest stamp. He 

 mastered Corneille and Racine, read Shakespeare, Mil- 

 ton, Blackstone, and Burke. But he was, adds his biog- 

 17 



