284 THOMAS YOUNG. . 



Young was only eight years of age, when chance, 

 whose influence in the events of man's life is more con- 

 siderable than our vanity often allows us to admit, took 

 him from studies exclusively literary, and revealed his 

 real vocation. A surveyor of much merit in the neigh- 

 bourhood took a great fancy for him ; he took him out 

 into the country sometimes on holidays, and permitted 

 him to amuse himself with his instruments of surveying 

 and natural philosophy. The operations, by whose aid 

 the young scholar saw the distances and elevations of 

 inaccessible objects determined, powerfully struck his 

 imagination. But soon several chapters of a mathe- 

 matical dictionary made all that seemed mysterious in 

 the matter disappear. From this moment, in his Sun- 

 day excursions, the quadrant took the place of the kite. 

 In the evening, by way of amusement, the engineering 

 novice calculated the heights measured in the morning. 



From the age of nine to fourteen, Young went to a 

 school at Compton in Dorsetshire, kept by Mr. Thom- 

 son, whose memory he always cherished. During these 

 five years all the pupils of the school were occupied 

 exclusively, according to the practice of English Schools, 

 in a minute study of the principal writers of Greece and 

 Rome.* Young continually maintained his place at the 

 head of his class : and yet he learned at the same time 

 French, Italian, Hebrew, Persian, and Arabic : French 

 and Italian, from the chance object of satisfying the 

 curiosity of a schoolfellow who possessed some works 



* It would appear from Young's own account, that a far more 

 liberal system was really pursued in this school. Also, the praises 

 of the usher, Josiah Je^fery, should never be omitted, who initiated 

 Young at leisure hours into a variety of experimental and practical 

 subjects, which contributed materially to his future success. See 

 Peacock's Life, p. 6. Translator. 



