ae 
JUSTICE FINALLY RENDERED HIM. 347 
in him an efficient orator who in parliamentary struggles 
was often the happy:antagonist of Canning ; this was the 
future President of the House of Peers,—the present 
Lord Chancellor.* How could opposition be offered to 
unjust criticisms proceeding from so high a quarter? I 
am not ignorant what firmness some minds enjoy in the 
consciousness of their being in the right; in the certainty 
that sooner or later truth will triumph; but I know also, 
that we shall act wisely in not reckoning too much on 
such exceptions. Listen, for example, to Galileo him- 
self, repeating in a whisper after his abjuration, “ E pur 
si muore!” and do not seek in these immortal words an 
augury for the future, for they are but the expression of 
the cruel vexation which the illustrious old man experi- 
enced. Young also, in writing a few pages which he 
published as an answer to the Hdinburgh Review, showed 
himself deeply discouraged. ‘The vivacity, the vehe- 
mence of his expressions, ill concealed the sentiment 
which oppressed him. In a word, let us hasten to say 
that justice, complete justice, was at length rendered to 
the great physicist. After several years the whole world 
recognized in him one of the brightest luminaries of the 
age. It is from France (and Young took pleasure in 
himself proclaiming it) that the first sign of this tardy 
reparation showed itself. I will add, that at an epoch 
considerably before the doctrine of interferences had 
made converts either in England or on the Continent, 
Young found within his own family circle one who com- 
prehended it, and whose assent to it might well console 
him for the neglect of the public. The distinguished 
person whom I here point out to the notice of the physi- 
* Lord Brougham, who held that office when this biography was 
written. ‘ 
