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 Edinburgh 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. 



