256 THE KOYAL INSTITUTION. [CHAP. IV. 



With a culture like that of Newton what noble fruit 

 might not Young have brought forth ! The work he did 

 for science was undervalued during his life ; neverthe- 

 less he was content ; and nothing shows that he fore- 

 saw or wished for that great reputation which has gradu- 

 ally gathered round his name. Two years before 

 his death, writing to his sister-in-law regarding the 

 praise which Herschel had given him in his ' Treatise 

 on Light,' he said : 



I think he has divided the prize very fairly, and I dare 

 say poor Fresnel, if he had lived, would have preferred his 

 share of the honour as much as I do mine. It was before I 

 knew you that mine was earned, and acute suggestion was 

 then and indeed always more in the line of my ambition 

 than experimental illustration. But surely one that is 

 conscious that such things may be said with some truth (or 

 who imagines it) has no further temptation to be President 

 of the Royal Society even if he could. 



His character was drawn by Sir Humphry Davy 

 thus : ' A man of universal erudition and almost univer- 

 sal accomplishments. Had he limited himself to any 

 one department of knowledge he must have been first 

 in that department. But as a mathematician, a scholar, 

 and hieroglyphist he was eminent ; and he knew so 

 much that it is difficult to say what he did not know. 

 He was a most amiable and good-tempered man ; too 

 fond, perhaps, of the society of persons of rank for a 

 true philosopher.' 



Mr. Davies Gilbert, the President of the Eoyal 

 Society, in his speech from the chair on the death of 

 Young, said : 



