248 THOMAS YOUNG. 



1886. 



THOMAS YOUNG. 1 



Early Life and Studies. 



FOUR great names are indissolubly associated with 

 the establishment in which we are here assembled 

 — its founder, Benjamin Thompson, better known as 

 Count Rumford; its Chemical Professor, Humphry 

 Davy; its Professor of Natural Philosophy, Thomas 

 Young ; and, finally, the man whom so many of us have 

 the privilege to remember, Michael Faraday. Of the 

 character and achievements of the third of the great 

 men here named, less seems to be publicly known than 

 ought to be known. Even a portion of this audience 

 may possibly have some addition made to its knowledge 

 by reference to the life of a man who served the In- 

 stitution in the opening of the present century. I 

 therefore thought that such a brief account of him as 

 could be compressed into an hour might not be without 

 interest and instruction at the present time. 



Thomas Young was born at Milverton, in Somerset- 

 shire, June 13, 1773. His parents were members 

 of the Society of Friends. Nearly seven years of 

 his childhood were spent with his maternal grand- 

 father. He soon evinced a precocity which might have 

 been expected to run to seed and die rapidly out. 

 When he was two years old he was able to read with 

 considerable fluency, and before he had attained the 



1 My last lecture in the Royal Institution, delivered Jan. 22, 

 1886. Chief authority : Dean Peacock's Life of Young. 



