In 1795 Young embarked for Germany, to perfect his medical studies at Göttingen. He gives amusing accounts of his impressions as to the general tone of society and state of literature and science in that celebrated seat of learning. The programme of his course of study is somewhat remarkable from the large admixture of other lessons with the medical; music, drawing, dancing, and above all equitation, including the most remarkable feats of horsemanship, form essential parts of the academical curriculum; every one of them being set down as to be followed up with a seriousness and spirit of emulation fully equalling that displayed in the pursuit of the legitimate objects of medical education. Greek versification continued to be a prominent and favourite occupation, as well as lectures on politics and general literature. The confidence and decision with which he gives his criticisms on the several professors seem fully sustained by the proficiency which all seem to admit he evinced in these singularly diversified branches of accomplishment; and at length, with a characteristic sketch of the mode in which an examination was conducted in those days, we find him emerging in the full honours of the medical degree.

After evincing his wonderful powers of agility, not only in riding two horses at once and other like feats, but in enacting with unparalleled applause at a court masquerade at Brunswick the character of Harlequin, we find him continuing his travels through most of the German principalities, and meditating a still more extended tour; which, however, was put a stop to by the approaching symptoms of war: and in 1797 he returned to England.

He was now twenty-four years of age; but in order to obtain the footing of a physician practising in London, it was necessary, according to the then existing regulations, that he should graduate at one of the English universities. Why he did not at an earlier period, and more suitable age, take the step of entering at one of those seats of learning, does not appear; but he perhaps had not at first any very settled plans, and this may have been an after-thought. The University of Cambridge at that time allowed of some modifications in its usual routine, by which students of the class in which he would be ranked were permitted certain indulgences in regard to the usual requirements of the academical course. Some colleges held out particular attractions in this respect, and he therefore, immediately after his return, entered himself as a Fellow Commoner at Emmanuel College.

From recollections of his mode of life when at Cambridge, a fellow of his college has put on record a highly characteristic sketch of Young's peculiarities, to which he was by no means inclined to be indulgent. We will give a few extracts from the most striking parts:

"When the master introduced Young to his tutors, he jocularly said, 'I have brought you a pupil qualified to read lectures to his tutors.' This, however, as might be concluded, he did not attempt: and the forbearance was mutual; he was never required to attend the common duties of the college.

....

I remember his meeting Dr. Parr in the college combinationroom; and when the doctor had made, as was not unusual with him, some dogmatical observation on a point of scholarship, Young said firmly, Bentley, sir, was of a different opinion,' immediately quoting his authority, and showing his intimate knowledge of the subject. Parr said nothing; but when Dr. Young retired, asked who he was; and though he did not seem to have heard his name before, he said, 'A smart young man that.'

... The views, objects, character, and acquirements of our mathematicians were very different then to what they are now, and Young, who was certainly beforehand with the world, perceived their defects. Certain it is that he looked down upon the science, and would not cultivate the acquaintance of any of our philosophers. Wood's books I have heard him speak of with approbation; but Vince he treated with contempt, and he afterwards returned the compliment. I recollect once asking Vince his opinion of Young; he said, he knew nothing correctly. What can you think,' says he, 'of a man writing upon mechanics who does not know the principle of a coach-wheel?' alludes to a mistake of Dr. Young's on this subject in his Natural Philosophy.

This

I remember having invited him to meet at dinner Mr. Whiter, of Clare Hall, who, though an admirable scholar, was a wit and a bonvivant, while Young took no delight in the pleasures of the table, and never could either make a joke or understand one. Whiter quoted something from the Oxford Sausage; and when our philosopher betrayed his ignorance of the existence of such a work, with his total inability to taste or relish the allusion, it was almost painful to witness the ridicule which he was obliged to sustain; but, to do him justice, he did sustain it with perfect good-humour.

He never obtruded his various learning in conversation; but if appealed to on the most difficult subject, he answered in a quick, flippant, decisive way, as if he was speaking of the most easy; and in this mode of talking he differed from all the clever men that I ever saw. His reply never seemed to cost him an effort, and he did not appear to think there was any credit in being able to make it. He did not assert any superiority, or seem to suppose that he possessed it; but spoke as if he took it for granted that we all understood the matter as well as he did. He never spoke in praise of any of the writers of the day, even in his own peculiar department, and could not be persuaded to discuss their merits. He was never personal. He would speak of knowledge in itself, of what was known or what might be known, but never of himself, or any other, as having discovered any thing, or as likely to do so.

His language was correct, his utterance rapid, and his sentences,

though without any affectation, never left unfinished. But his words were not those in familiar use, and the arrangement of his ideas seldom the same as those he conversed with. He was, therefore, worse calculated than any man I ever knew for the communication of knowledge. . . . . I remember his taking me with him to the Royal Institution to hear him lecture to a number of silly women and dilettante philosophers. But nothing could show less judgment than the method he adopted; for he presumed, like many other lecturers and preachers, on the knowledge, and not on the ignorance of his hearers.

In his manners he had something of the stiffness of the quaker remaining; and though he never said or did a rude thing, he never made use of any of the forms of politeness. Not that he avoided them through affectation; his behaviour was natural without timidity, and easy without boldness. He rarely associated with the young men of the college, who called him, with a mixture of derision and respect, 'Phenomenon Young;' but he lived on familiar terms with the fellows in the common room. He had few friends of his own age or pursuits in the university; and not having been introduced to many of those who were distinguished either by their situation or talent, he did not seek their society, nor did they seek him. They did not like to admit the superiority of any one in statu pupillari; and he would not converse with any one but as an equal.

It was difficult to say how he employed himself; he read little, and though he had access to the college and university libraries, he was seldom seen in them. There were no books piled on his floor, no papers scattered on his table, and his room had all the appearance of belonging to an idle man. I once found him blowing smoke through long tubes, and I afterwards saw a representation of the effect in the Transactions of the Royal Society, to illustrate one of his papers on sound; but he was not in the habit of making experiments. He walked little, and rode less; but having learnt to ride the great horse abroad, he used to pace round Parker's Piece on a hackney; he once made an attempt to follow the hounds, but a severe fall prevented any further exhibition.

He seldom gave an opinion, and never volunteered one. He never laid down the law like other learned doctors, or uttered apothegms or sayings to be remembered. Indeed, like most mathematicians-though we hear of abstract mathematics-he never seemed to think abstractedly. A philosophical fact, a difficult calculation, an ingenious instrument, or a new invention, would engage his attention; but he never spoke of morals, of metaphysics, or of religion."-Life, p. 116.

When in Germany, he casually mentions, among his other studies, his varied feats of horsemanship and tight-rope dancing, attendance on lectures and iambic effusions, that he read Kant, but speaks of him in a very slighting tone; which fully accords with the observation of his Cambridge friend.

These recollections, characteristic as they manifestly are, seem to require some little qualification before we can entirely adopt the portrait; especially in respect to Young's employment

of his time. That he did not pile books on his floor, or litter his table with papers, is merely an instance of his characteristic minute neatness and attention to order. It would have been altogether at variance with his unalterable habits that he should be an idle man at any time, more especially in the midst of a place furnishing such ample means and inducements for study. In fact, he must at this time have been engaged on the subjects of many of those essays and communications which so soon afterwards appeared in memoirs of societies or the scientific periodicals. It was, however, quite in character that he should carefully avoid all affectation of being a studious man, or all display of the apparatus of study.

Soon after he was settled at Cambridge (in December 1797), a material change was made in Young's prospects by the death of his uncle, Dr. Brocklesby, who bequeathed him a handsome fortune, not indeed very large, but apparently sufficient to render him independent in his choice of a course of life. We have no evidence put before us by his biographer as to the motives which may have actuated him; but we find him still regularly continuing to keep his terms at Cambridge-though residing much in London-until in due course he passed through the requisite degrees in arts, and subsequently in medicine. In 1800 he first commenced practice in London, though he had not as yet actually graduated as M.D., having taken up his abode in a house in Welbeck Street, which he continued to occupy for twenty-five years. His attention was certainly distracted from purely medical pursuits, as it always had been, by an extensive devotion to a variety of literary and scientific subjects, more especially those of a mathematical and physical kind; which it would seem hardly possible for him not to have seen must tend to interfere with his professional success, dependent as it necessarily is in so large a degree on the mere caprice of the public, especially dependent on the notion, often extremely ill-founded, of the degree in which the practitioner exclusively devotes himself to professional avocations; a notion which would hardly be modified by the transparent anonymous disguise which he assumed in his various publications.

In 1799 he communicated to the Royal Society his paper on "Sound and Light," containing the germ of his after-discoveries. In the following year it appeared in the Transactions, and was succeeded by several others on allied subjects, to which we shall refer more particularly in the sequel. A number of minor essays on mathematical, physical, and literary subjects were soon after given to the world in periodicals.

But the great work in which he engaged at this period was his Lectures on Natural Philosophy; the substance of a course which he delivered in the theatre of the Royal Institution, where he had

been appointed professor in that department. The fate of the lectures and of the work has been very different: the former were ill-attended, and soon ceased to attract; while the latter has become more highly valued the more it has been known, as containing the condensed results of profound and extensive inquiries into all branches of physical science, and of which it has been truly observed, even at the present day, no student in any branch ought to be ignorant; as, from the number of profound suggestions and the accumulated references to all that has been done in each subject, it will always form an invaluable source of information, and must be regarded as a standard work in our scientific literature. That lectures of so profound and condensed a character should not have been popular, is easily understood; they were beyond the capacity of the audience, and were not set off by any attractions in the manner of the lecturer. The style was indeed precise, and clear to one conversant with the subject; but wholly wanting in that freedom of illustration, discursive allusion, and simplicity of structure, which are requisite to arrest and retain the attention of a mixed audience. The lectures, moreover, were written out in extenso, and read, not spoken; which alone would deprive them of that life and familiarity which is so essential in this kind of delivery.

These lectures occupied the year 1802, in which year also he was named Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society-an office which he continued to hold through his life. Ten years later he was urged to accept the principal secretaryship; but declined, on the ground that it might interfere with his professional success; an apparently somewhat strange allegation, when his pursuits altogether seemed to have so decided a tendency of the same kind.

In 1804 he resigned the professorship at the Royal Institution. The lectures were 'not published till 1807. His Syllabus of the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy was printed in 1802, and afterwards incorporated in his Illustrations of Laplace in 1821; a work on which Dr. Peacock makes some critical remarks, questioning its utility in a way natural to one accustomed to the more rigid school of mathematics, but, perhaps, hardly enough allowing for the requirements of general readers, whose object may be to attain a comprehensive view of the foundations of science rather than the regular exercise of mathematical habits of investigation.

Young's essay on Cohesion of Fluids was communicated to the Royal Society in 1804, and was followed by the publication of some severe criticisms on the subsequent investigations of Laplace, as well as some minor contributions: this, however, was but one of the many and varied researches on physical sub* Life, p. 191.