ambition for a more bustling life, or more active scenes, and I believe I am as happy as a person so old in soul is capable of being. In mental faculties I am not yet old, and I amuse myself almost daily with some petty bonnes fortunes among some of the nine sisters. I hear nothing whatever from the Admiralty, and so much the better, except receiving 3001. a year instead of four. As for Croker, I never believe a word of his going out, and he may remain in for aught I care, and be Lord Melville's master if he chooses; for the stronger of two heads will generally direct the weaker in the long run. I am deep in the value of life, and I really begin to think that people do live longer than was formerly supposed, though not in the extravagant degree that was asserted.

In 1828, at the Royal Society, when the President, Davies Gilbert, announced Wollaston's donation of 2,000l. for the promotion of scientific research and his own gift of 1,000l., Young, as senior officer, returned thanks for the Society. He tells Mr. Gurney, 'I summoned up courage to take the first opportunity of muttering out, "Mr. President, a gentleman on my right says he never heard me make a speech."

In January 1829 he wrote:

Our new Committee of Longitude is settled, at least for the present, though the radical abuse of the 'Nautical Almanac is likely to continue; but, fortunately for my security, they have put the Admiralty and the 'Nautical Almanac' together; so they may do their worst. Croker has appointed Sabine and Faraday and me to constitute a scientific committee to advise the Admiralty, which was all that the Board of Longitude would do, and it is better that things should be called by their right names.

Immediately a memorial was sent to the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, against the Nautical

Almanac.' A report on this paper was made by Dr. Young in February.

Though his health was at this time rapidly declining, his observations were written with his usual precision and ability, giving way in one instance only to feelings of personal resentment, if a stronger term may not be used, which had been provoked by attacks of unusual violence and bitterness. It is hardly necessary to add that he adhered substantially to the views which he had previously maintained. His death, which took place on May 10, put an end to the contest.

The life of Dr. Young began, continued, and ended strangely. Throughout he was a phenomenon. His course was very different from what might have been expected and quite opposed to that which would have been most suited to him.

He was the great physicist of his time, and yet 'at no period of his life was he fond of repeating experiments or even of originating new ones. He considered that, however necessary to the advancement of science, they demanded a great sacrifice of time; and that, when a fact was once established, that time was better employed in considering the purposes to which it might be applied or the principles which it might tend to elucidate.' He was kind by nature and a Quaker by education, and yet he was always at war for his discoveries. He never was free from a scientific or literary controversy. As a professor at the Royal Institution, as a hospital physician at St. George's, and still more as a practitioner of medicine in London. and Worthing, his powers were entirely misdirected.

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; nevertheless he was content; and nothing shows that he foresaw or wished for that great reputation which has gradually 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 universal 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 Royal Society, in his speech from the chair on the death of Young, said:

He came into the world with a confidence in his own talents, growing out of an expectation of excellence entertained in common by all his friends, which expectation was more than realised in the progress of his future life. The multiplied objects which he pursued were carried to such an extent, that each might have been supposed to have exclusively occupied the full powers of his mind; knowledge in the abstract, the most enlarged generalisations, and the most minute and intricate details were equally effected by him; but he had most pleasure in that which appeared to be most difficult of investigation. The example is only to be followed by those of equal per

CHAPTER V.

THE PROGRESS OF THE INSTITUTION TO THE TIME OF

FARADAY.

1804 to 1814.

The

IN 1804 the change in the original management and objects of the Royal Institution was completed. place which Rumford, with the help of Sir Joseph Banks, had held was taken by Mr. Bernard, who was supported by Sir John Hippesley. He knew nothing of science but much of the world, and his aim for the Institution can be given in his own words. The object has been great and important, not less than that of giving fashion to science.'

In the spring the report of the visitors reflected the picture of Mr. Bernard's management, but the shadow of future greatness was there. Mention was made of the intention to carry on original inquiries upon new objects of science.

The visitors said:

There is every reason to suppose that a general interest in favour of the establishment has been created among the inhabitants of the metropolis.

The laboratory has been enlarged by the old workshop; some of the space has been filled up with seats as a theatre for those who attend the experiments of research; an arched opening is being made in the wall in front of the