Chapter IV (2)

The reviewer has thought proper to unite, in several instances,
with his invectives against me some ridicule of the objects of the
Royal Institution of Great Britain--an Institution in which its
managers have studied to concentrate all that is useful in science
or elegant in literature. This connexion appears to him to add so
much weight to his arguments that he has chosen, without further
provocation, to insinuate its existence more than a year after
it has been dissolved. I accepted the appointment of Professor
of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution as an occupation
which would fill up agreeably and advantageously such leisure
hours as a young practitioner of physic must expect to be left
free from professional cares. I was led to hope that I should
be able to impress an audience, formed of the most respectable
inhabitants of the metropolis, with such a partiality as the
moderately well-informed are inclined to entertain for those who
appear to know even a little more than themselves of matters of
science. While I held the situation I wished to make my lectures as
intelligible as the nature of the subjects permitted; but I must
confess that it was not my ambition to render them a substitute
for those of any superficial experimenter that was in the habit
of delivering courses of natural philosophy for the amusement
of boarding schools. Whatever may have been the imperfections
of my lectures, it cannot be asserted, except perhaps in the
‘Edinburgh Review,’ that they were fit for audiences of ladies of
fashion only. After fulfilling for two years the duties of the
professorship, I found them so incompatible with the pursuits of
a practical physician that, in compliance with the advice of my
friends, I gave notice of my wish to resign the office.[22]

In March the Select Committee made their second report.

It recommended the supply and completion of the library, and the formation of an _additional_ collection of books for the reference of scientific men, as one of the measures most likely to give permanency and stability to the Royal Institution.

On March 21 Mr. Bernard laid before a meeting of the managers and visitors a plan for these libraries which he had prepared. By April 4 he had obtained subscriptions to the amount of 2,828_l._, and at a meeting of the subscribers they appointed a select committee to consider and report upon the arrangements proper to be made. On April 14 another general meeting of subscribers to the library and collection of reference decided on an address to the proprietors and subscribers to the Royal Institution. Further resolutions were adopted on April 20 and on April 29, the subscriptions having reached 3,798_l._ Regulations were drawn up, and ultimately bye-laws regarding the library and collection of books of reference were made on May 2. The total subscriptions to February 6, 1806, came to 5,395_l._ 10_s._

This library and collection was an institution within an institution. It had its chief patron, chairman, deputy chairman, treasurer, secretary, and other patrons, its general committee and sub-committees, its accounts, its bankers. Its great object, in addition to the immediate completion of the library, was ‘the formation of an extended collection of books of reference, comprehending not only the best publications in practical science, but a library of general and authentic history, political economy, finances, topography, and other departments of knowledge that may be useful to individuals of the United Kingdom, and also to scientific persons of other nations.’

This was formed in the room which is now the upper library. Before the theatre was built it had been the lecture room.

In June Mr. Harris, who had been employed at Mr. Egerton’s, the bookseller in Whitehall, was engaged to correct and arrange the library, and to buy the London Library, in Hatton Garden, if he thought it was desirable to do so. It was found to be in a very bad state and was declined.

On July 27, 1803, at the meeting of the general committee of the patrons of the library and collection of reference of the Royal Institution, a letter was read from Mr. Dibden to Mr. Bernard, applying for the situation of principal librarian of the Royal Institution.

Being a married man with a young family, and having a particular
partiality to the study of bibliography, such a situation would be
an eligible one and agreeable to my general habits and pursuits.

He enclosed a testimonial from Dr. Jenner.

It was resolved that Mr. Dibden be informed ‘that it is not intended to proceed to the choice of a librarian until after Christmas next.’

At the end of April Mr. Hatchett laid before the managers a report on the chemical department of the Institution. He said:

Chemistry was always a primary object of the Institution. A
laboratory was therefore erected at an early period, and was
furnished with such apparatus as was immediately requisite; but, as
the Institution was then in a nascent state, great attention was
paid to economy in the chemical department, and although much was
in reality wanted to render the laboratory complete, yet nothing
more was expended on this part than was absolutely necessary to the
immediate demands of the lectures delivered in the Institution.
On this account the laboratory has remained in a state inferior
to that which might justly be expected in such a liberal and
splendid establishment; but, as some extension may now be expected
in a department so instructive, so interesting, and so eminently
useful, the following intended regulations are submitted to the
consideration of the Committee of Managers: 1st. That the workshop
lately occupied by Mr. Feetham shall in future be annexed to the
laboratory. 2nd. The forge to be adapted to chemical purposes.
3rd. An air-furnace and reverberatory furnace to be built. 4th.
Presses and shelves to be added to contain vessels and chemical
preparations.

This laboratory will be equal, or indeed superior, to any in this
country, and probably to any on the Continent. Such a laboratory,
therefore, will accord with the respectability and liberal views
of this Institution, which, on the other hand, may henceforward
regard this part of its establishment not only as very conducive
to its honour, but as likely to produce real and substantial
advantages. But to procure these some further regulations appear
necessary: 1. Crude materials to prepare pure products should be
bought. 2. The Professor shall be assisted by a person well versed
in practical chemistry, who shall be expressly engaged to attend
the laboratory and assist in the chemical lectures. 3. Operations
in the laboratory should be taught. The Institution will derive
therefrom honour and profit, and, as far as chemistry is concerned,
that one of its chief purposes will be accomplished--the diffusion
of knowledge and the application of science to the improvement of
arts and manufactures.

On May 2 it was resolved ‘that a Committee of Science should be appointed from among the managers to regulate the lectures and public experiments; to direct the publication of the Journals; and to report as to any experiments, or additions to apparatus, or models.’ It was to meet weekly and be appointed monthly. Spencer, Banks, Cavendish, Hatchett, Symonds, formed the first committee.

On May 16 the managers resolved ‘that the Committee of Science should carry out improvements in the laboratory, that the workshops should be thrown into the laboratory and fitted up as a lecture room for 120 persons.’ For nearly sixty years this laboratory theatre remained unchanged.

Other traces of the activity of this Committee of Science are to be found. On May 27 Sir Joseph Banks, in the name of the Committee of Science of the Royal Institution, wrote to the Board of Agriculture:

The Committee do not expect in agricultural analysis the same
degree of precise accuracy as is necessary in that intended to
illustrate philosophical experiments; it will be enough for them if
the component parts of substances and their respective proportions
to each other are marked with sufficient precision to demonstrate
the probable effects on vegetables.

The Committee are aware that at present the science of agricultural
chemistry is in its infancy, and that till it has been more matured
each analysis will take up a considerable portion of time; they
trust, however, that it will not be long before Mr. Davy himself,
or some one named by him and acting under his superintendence,
will undertake the business of analysing soils and manures for
individuals at a moderate fixed price for each substance that shall
be brought to them.

The Royal Institution wish to have Mr. Davy’s lectures repeated
at their house, and have desired me to ask whether the Board of
Agriculture have any objection to a measure which appears to them
likely to extend still further.

* * * * *

Having been requested to suggest what I think a proper recompense
to Mr. Davy on account of his six lectures delivered at the Board,
and also a plan for securing his services in future to the Board
of Agriculture, I beg leave to propose that sixty guineas be given
by the Board to Mr. Davy as a remuneration for his six lectures,
being at the rate of ten guineas for each lecture, and that the
office of Professor of Chemical Agriculture to the Board, with a
salary of 100_l._ a year, be offered to his acceptance; the duty
of his professorship to consist of reading lectures in the spring
at such time as shall be fixed by the Board, on the application
of chemistry to the improvement of the art of agriculture, and in
making an analysis of such substances as shall be put into his
hands by the Committee, in case he is of opinion that the result of
such analysis is likely to throw light on the theory and practice
of that most useful art.

This Committee of Science also, as early as July 18, proposed that in the ensuing session Mr. Dalton should be engaged to lecture.

The form which the Institution was at this time about to take is well seen in the joint report of the committees of science and accounts on the plan of the lectures and experiments and other proposed arrangements for the ensuing year. This was made on November 28, 1803; the reporters were Sir Joseph Banks, Henry Cavendish, Sir J. Hippesley, Mr. Bernard, Mr. Sullivan.

They said:

With regard to the lectures on Natural Philosophy, it is presumed
that the subjects may be advantageously arranged in the three
distinct courses. The first should be a complete course of
experimental philosophy; the second should relate to practical
mechanics; and the third should be on optics and astronomy.

Abstruseness should in all cases be avoided, the processes of the
arts should be particularly described, and the operations should
be on such a scale as to instruct by their applications and to
interest and amuse by the distinctness and brilliancy of their
appearance.

The lectures on Chemistry, it is supposed, may be included in two
courses. The first would relate to the chemistry of natural history
and the chemical economy of nature, and the second to theoretical
and practical chemistry. From the progression of this branch of
knowledge it will be easy to develope in both these courses many
new objects, and it is supposed that they may at once be rendered
useful and made to excite attention and gratify curiosity.

It would be very advantageous to institute a particular and
distinct series of public experimental operations, showing such new
facts in elementary and natural philosophy as are connected with
splendid and curious phenomena or highly useful applications.

During the season it was proposed that there should be one hundred
lectures and twenty public experiments--about four lectures weekly.

For affording more practical and minute information concerning the
objects of science, first, in relation to mechanical sciences and
arts, the models of useful inventions should be increased and made
more available; second, in relation to chemistry, the examination
of the private experimental processes performed in the laboratory
might be given as private instruction, for which those who thought
proper to attend should make some annual contribution for defraying
the extra expense, as it would be impossible to admit all the
proprietors and subscribers.

With the reduction of expenses and the strict economy that has
taken place in the establishment, it is submitted to the managers
that it will not be necessary to increase at present the annual
subscription.

The Committee concludes the report with observations on the
progress which has been recently made and is now making in the
Institution. After mentioning the lectures and the apparatus for
the lectures, it is said the laboratory for experimental processes
has been enlarged by the addition of the former workroom, and has
been improved by many new arrangements, and provision has been
made in it for preparing the different reagents and tests employed
in philosophical chemistry and for carrying on various new and
interesting researches.

The foundation of a mineralogical collection has been laid by the
exertions of Mr. Professor Davy. For the purpose of extending it
one proprietor has offered 100_l._, and others promised to give
minerals. A collection of fossils was also made.

The reading library is now completed. The room for the collection
of reference, fitted up for 10,000 volumes, some part of which are
already purchased. It was proposed to open it to the proprietors
and subscribers early in the ensuing season. The funds subscribed
amounted to 4,368_l._ 15_s._ As this would not be sufficient to
purchase the whole of the desired collection, it was hoped that
other proprietors and subscribers ‘would enjoy the pleasure of
adding their contributions.’

On November 24 Mr. Dalton wrote to Mr. Savage, the clerk:

RESPECTED FRIEND,--As it will not be convenient to me to be in town
before the 17th or 18th of next month, I should be glad to know
previously whether my accommodation as to board and lodging would
be in the Institution; if not, whether you know of any place in
the vicinity where the same would probably be procured. It will
be necessary for me to spend a considerable portion of time to
make myself acquainted with the structure and use of some of the
apparatus, and therefore I am the more solicitous on the above
heads. Pray, what is the usual duration of a lecture--one or two
hours? An immediate reply to these inquiries will much oblige,

Yours respectfully,
J. DALTON.

Apartments were ordered by the managers to be prepared in the house for Mr. Dalton before December 17.

On Monday, December 22, at two, he gave the introduction to a course of four lectures on Mechanics and Physics. In this lecture he dwelt on the objects of natural philosophy, division of the science, utility of the study, plan of the lectures. The second lecture was on Monday, 26, at eight P.M., on the Properties of Matter; extension, impenetrability, divisibility, inertia, various species of attraction and repulsion, _motion_, _forces_, composition of forces, _collision_, _pendulums_. The third lecture was on Wednesday, 28, at two. _Projectiles_; resistance of the air, _mechanic powers_, strength of timber. The fourth on Thursday, at two. Pneumatics; nature of electric fluids, the atmosphere, air-pump, spring and weight of the air proved by experiments, barometer. The last lecture was given on Saturday, 31, at eight. This was followed by other courses, making altogether twenty lectures.

After his return to Manchester Dalton wrote to his brother, February 1, 1804:

DEAR BROTHER,--I have the satisfaction to inform thee that I
returned safe from my London journey last seventh day, having been
absent six weeks. It has on many accounts been an interesting
_vocation_ to me, though a very laborious one. I went in a great
measure unprepared, not knowing the nature and manner of the
lectures at the Institution nor the apparatus. My first was on
Thursday, December 22, which was introductory, being entirely
written, giving an account of what was intended to be done; and on
natural philosophy in general. All lectures were to be one hour
each, or as nearly as might be. The number attending were from one
to three hundred of both sexes, usually more than half men. I was
agreeably disappointed to find so _learned_ and _attentive_ an
audience, though many of them of rank. It required great labour
on my part to get acquainted with the apparatus and to draw up
the order of experiments and repeat them in the intervals between
the lectures, though I had one pretty expert to assist me. We
had the good fortune, however, never to fail in any experiment,
though I was once so ill prepared as to beg the indulgence of the
audience as to part of the lecture, which they most handsomely and
immediately granted me by a general plaudit. The scientific part of
the audience was wonderfully taken with some of my original notions
relative to heat, the gases &c., some of which had not before been
published. Had my hearers been generally of the description I had
apprehended, the most interesting lectures I had to give would have
been the least relished; but, as it happened, the expectation
formed had drawn several gentlemen of first-rate talents together,
and my eighteenth, on Heat and the Laws of Expansion, &c., was
received with the greatest applause; with very few experiments.
The one that followed was on _Mixed Elastic Fluids_, in which
I had an opportunity of developing my ideas, that have already
been published on the subject, more fully. The doctrine has, as
I apprehended it would, excited the attention of philosophers
throughout Europe. Two journals in the German language came into
the Royal Institution whilst I was there from Saxony, both of which
were about half filled with translations from the papers I have
written on this subject and comments upon them.

Dr. Ainslie was occasionally one of my audience, and his sons
constantly. He came up at the concluding lecture, expressed his
high satisfaction, and he believed it was the same sentiment with
all or most of the audience.

I saw my successor, William Allen, fairly launched. He gave his
first lecture on Tuesday, preceding my conclusion. I was an
_auditor_ in this case--the first time--and had an opportunity
of surveying the audience. Amongst others of distinction the
Bishop of Durham was present. In lecturing on optics I got six
ribbands--blue, pink, lilac, red, green, and brown--which matched
very well, and told the various audience so. I do not know whether
they generally believed me to be serious, but one gentlemen came up
immediately after and told me he perfectly agreed with me. He had
not remarked the difference by candle light.

Throughout the year 1803 scarcely a trace of Count Rumford’s name can be found in the records of the Institution. On January 24, when writing from Munich to the clerk, Mr. Savage, about his house in Brompton Row, he only begs his compliments to Dr. Young and to Mr. Davy, and on November 11, the clerk having asked him about an account relating to the Institution, he wrote from Paris:

I assure you that I have not the smallest recollection of having
received from Mr. Hunter, the solicitor of the Institution, the
account you mention in your letter of the 7th ult.; and had I in
fact received it, I should most undoubtedly have laid it before
the managers of the Institution. I can imagine no reason which
could have induced me to keep it back; and, as all the affairs of
the Institution in my hands were kept with the utmost care and
regularity, as you can testify, it is not likely that I should have
mislaid and forgotten it. This is all I can say on the subject, and
I hope and trust that this declaration will be satisfactory to the
managers of the Royal Institution and to Mr. Hunter.

I expect to be in England in the course of the winter.

Gradually the ‘usefulness of science to the poorer classes and to the common purposes of life’ ceased to be the prime object of the Institution. The school for mechanics, the workshops, and the models, the kitchens and the Journals, died away; and the laboratory, the lectures, and the library became the life of the new Institution, and its object became ‘the diffusion of knowledge and the application of science to the improvement of arts and manufactures.’

The most memorable scientific incident in the history of the Rumford Institution was its relationship with Dr. Thomas Young. His lectures on physics must even now be held to rank as the greatest work in the literature of the Institution. As Professor and Superintendent of the House he had no great success; and he had no great influence on its fortunes; but by his genius he anticipated the progress of science, and his reputation has risen until it now ranks with that of Davy and Faraday.

A short sketch of his life will bring this period of the history of the Institution to a close.

Thomas Young was born in Somersetshire on June 13, 1773. Both his parents were Quakers, and to their tenets he was accustomed to attribute his resolution to effect any object on which he was engaged. This determination he brought to bear on all he did, and by this he educated himself almost from infancy ‘with little comparative assistance or direction from others.’

His earliest years were passed with a grandfather, a merchant at Minehead, who had some classical taste. He encouraged his precocious grandchild and often repeated to him that--

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.

From 1780 to 1787 (7 to 14) he was chiefly at school. He gives an account of his acquirements in an autobiography written in Latin at this time--writing, arithmetic, Latin, Greek, mathematics, natural philosophy, introduction to the Newtonian philosophy, turning, telescope making, bookbinding, colour making, drawing, Hebrew, botany, fluctions, Priestly on Air, Italian, Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan. He was a prodigy at fourteen.

His father had a neighbour, a man of great ingenuity, by profession a land-surveyor, in whose office during the holidays the boy was given the use of mathematical and philosophical instruments and the perusal of three volumes of a dictionary of arts and science. He got some practical knowledge of land-surveying. This led him to botany; and to examine his plants he made a microscope. This required a knowledge of optics, and thence he went to mathematics and fluctions.

From 1787 to 1792 (14 to 19) his studies and his position were equally extraordinary. He became classical tutor to a boy a year and a half his junior. Mr. Barclay, of Youngsbury, took him as companion to his grandson, Hudson Gurney, who had a tutor. Young taught the tutor Greek, and taught his companion Latin and Greek, whilst he taught himself Latin, French, Italian, mathematics, natural philosophy, botany, and entomology.

When 16 (1789) he was threatened with consumption. His uncle, Dr. Brocklesby, the friend of Burke, attended him, and through him Burke and Porson and others became interested in the great classical knowledge of the youth, and encouraged him in his translations of Shakespear into Greek iambics.

It was at this period that his character was most strongly formed:

He was never known to relax in any object which he had once
undertaken. During the whole term of these five years he was never
seen by anyone on any occasion to be ruffled in temper. Whatever he
determined on he did. He had little faith in any peculiar aptitude
being implanted by nature for any given pursuits. His favourite
maxim was, that whatever one man had done another might do; that
the original difference between human intellects was much less than
it was generally supposed to be; that strenuous and persevering
attention would accomplish almost anything; and at this season, in
the confidence of youth and consciousness of his own powers, he
considered nothing that had been compassed by others beyond his
reach to achieve; nor was there anything which he thought worthy to
be attempted which he was not resolved to master.

In 1792 he entered the medical profession, learning anatomy from Hunter in London.

In 1793 he became a pupil at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and on May 30 he had a paper read to the Royal Society on the ‘Structure of the Crystalline Lens,’ which he thought to be muscular. Hunter claimed the discovery as his, and was only prevented by death from giving the Croonian lecture at the Royal Society in proof of his right. Sir E. Home, in the Croonian lecture the following year, stated that neither Young nor Hunter was right.

In 1794 (æt. 21) he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

About this time the Duke of Richmond, at Bath, thus wrote to Dr. Brocklesby:

Bath, May 5, 1794.

I need not write much about myself, as your nephew, who dined with
us yesterday, will give you a good account of my health. I have,
however, still returns of head-ache, and my legs continue very
weak. But I must tell you how much pleased we all are with Mr.
Young. I really never saw a young man more pleasing and engaging.
He seems to have already acquired much knowledge in most branches
and to be studious of obtaining more; it comes out without
affectation on all subjects he talks upon. He is very cheerful and
easy without assuming anything, and even on the peculiarity of his
dress and Quakerism he talked so reasonably that one cannot wish
him to alter himself in any one particular. In short, I end as I
began, by assuring you that the Duchess and I are quite charmed
with him, and shall be happy to renew our acquaintance with him
when we return to London.

Later in the autumn the Duke, who was Master-General of the Ordnance, offered to make him his private secretary.

In a letter to his mother Young says:

I have very lately refused the pressing offer of a situation which
would have been the most favourable and flattering introduction to
political life that a young man in my circumstances could desire.
I might have lived at a duke’s table, with a salary of 200_l._
a year, as his secretary, and with hopes of a more lucrative
appointment in a short time. I should have been in an agreeable
family, have had time enough for study, a library, a laboratory,
and philosophical apparatus at my service; and I was not ashamed to
allege my regard for our society as a principal reason for my not
accepting the proposal.

In the winter of 1794-5 he went to Edinburgh to study medicine. He learnt Spanish, German, music in theory and by playing the flute, dancing; and he went as much as he could into society and to the play.

Soon after he left Edinburgh in June he wrote to his friend and fellow-student Dr. Bostock:

I have seen Mrs. Siddons in ‘Douglas,’ the ‘Grecian Daughter,’ the
‘Mourning Bride,’ the ‘Provoked Husband,’ the ‘Fatal Marriage,’
‘Macbeth,’ and ‘Venice Preserved.’ She was neither below nor much
above my expectation. I can form an idea of something more perfect.
My friend Cruikshanks, when I went to take my leave of him, took
me aside and, after much preamble, told me he heard I had been
at the play, and hoped that I should be able to contradict it. I
told him ‘I had been several times, and thought it right to go,’
&c. &c., as civilly as I could. ‘I know you are determined to
discourage my dancing and singing, and I am determined to pay no
regard whatever to what you say. You think I shall never be able to
play the flute well, and I am pretty sure that I may if I choose;
as to dancing, the die is cast.’

At this time he gave up the dress and all the other peculiarities of the Quakers.

On June 5 he started on a journey through the Highlands ‘in se totus teres atque rotundus,’ as a friend described him.

I was mounted on a stout, well-made black horse, fourteen hands
high, young and spirited, which I had purchased from my friend
Cathcart. I had before me my oiled linens, the spencer with a
separate camlet cover; under me a pair of saddle-bags, well filled
with three or four changes of linen, a waistcoat, and breeches;
materials for writing and for drawing; paper, pens, ink, pencils,
and colours; packing-paper and twine for minerals; soap, brushes,
and a razor; a small edition of Thomson’s ‘Seasons,’ a third
flute in a bag; some music, principally Scotch, bound with some
blank music-paper; wafers; a box for botanising; a thermometer;
two little bottles with spirits for preserving insects; a bag
for picking up stones; two maps of Scotland--Ainslie’s small one
and Sayer’s; letters of recommendation. The bags had pockets at
the end, one containing a pair of shoes, the other boards with
straps and paper for drying plants. I found my bags at first an
encumbrance, but became afterwards more reconciled to them. They
are to a saddle what pockets are to a coat; and who objects to
wearing pockets? But they were wetted the first day and stained
their contents. This will make me more careful in future.

Some of his notes at Gordon and Inverary Castles are cabinet pictures.

It was Lady Georgina’s birthday (afterwards Duchess of Bedford);
the flag was hoisted. Lord Alexander’s regiment of little boys was
paraded, and employed in racing and dancing on the green, and in
the evening a ball was given to the servants; all the family went
downstairs and amused themselves with observing the agility of the
lads and lasses. Every person employed about the house, except
one man, is married, and most of them are descended from those
who have served the family before them. The Duchess proposed, in
honour of the day, that Sir George Abercrombie and I should dance
a reel with the two younger ladies; for they danced nothing but
reels. Afterwards the Duke danced with one of the upper servants.
Some time after our party joined again in the amusement at the same
time with two others; when it was late, and Sir George was tired,
we took a girl in his place and resumed the sport. Lady Madeline
(Sinclair) sat by, and made the music play till the other sets
quitted the field, and left us victorious to reel through the whole
room. I have now written as much of dancing in my tour as Johnson
has in his, and as much more as a young man may be expected to
write of it than an old one.

At Inverary [he writes] after breakfast the party were to ride, and
the Doctor gravely submitted to my determination whether I would go
at a slow pace with him and the Duke to view the country leisurely
on the way, or ride with the ladies and be galloped over. I told
him that of all things I liked to be galloped over, and therefore
should be of the youthful party....

After dinner the Duke rode again, and the younger men of the party
took a walk. I left them about nine, and joined the ladies at
tea. I was showing Lady Charlotte some of my sketches; she begged
to see my notes, and I showed the greatest part of them. All the
family are musical; the ladies sing admirably. Cards and a fine
piano occupied the evening. After supper, besides other songs, I
heard a most beautiful canzonet by Jackson, beginning ‘Love in thy
eyes.’ It was twelve o’clock when we retired. After breakfast I
took my leave, not without regretting that I had so little time to
observe the beauties of Inverary. Lady Charlotte is handsomer than
Lady Augusta: she sings better, but she has less good sense and
less sweetness. An innocent girlishness sometimes gives her the
appearance of a little affectation. She is to Lady Augusta what
Venus is to Minerva. I suppose she wishes for no more. Both are
goddesses.

On October 7 he left London to graduate at Göttingen; he went by Hamburg.

On December 14 he wrote to Dr. Bostock:

You will be pleased, as a lover of the fine arts, to hear that I am
taking lessons in drawing. You will not be surprised that I receive
in this study, as well as in music and dancing, full approbation
from my masters for application and accuracy. At the same time they
honestly tell me that ease is wanting, and you will also readily
believe that I have the assurance not to be discouraged with this
character, while they all assert that I may confidently expect
sufficient advancement in due time....

I have not exhibited myself at a public dance. My master, who is a
very sensible fellow, advising me against it, as he observed that a
person seldom loses the character which he obtains from the first
impressions; but we have agreed that I may venture at the next
_pique nique_.

On the alternate Sundays we have a dance: either a tea dance or
a supper dance; one from four to eight, and the other from five
to one. This is called a _pique nique_, and in its constitution
resembles a Scotch oyster dance.

Soon after, to his uncle, he says:

Blumenbach has shown me many civilities, but I am most at home
at Arnemann’s, under whose roof I live, and who has been long in
Britain, and brought an English wife home with him. You need not be
afraid of my following his example and marrying a German lady. I am
not likely to lose my heart here, though there are some tolerably
agreeable girls with whom I wish to be more acquainted for the sake
of exercise in the language; for conversation with women gives both
a fluency of expression and a delicacy of manners which are never
to be learned from men.

On April 30 he passed his examination before the Medical Faculty.

I made [says he] no preparatory study, as is usual here, and
also at Edinburgh not uncommon, under the name of grinding. The
examination lasted between four and five hours. The four examiners
were seated round a table, well furnished with cakes, sweetmeats,
and wine, which helped to pass the time agreeably. The questions
were well calculated to sound the depth of a student’s knowledge
in practical physics, surgery, anatomy, chemistry, materia medica,
and physiology; but the professors were not very severe in exacting
accurate answers. Most of them were pleased to express their
approbation of my replies. We were all previously obliged to give a
summary account of the manner in which our lives had been spent.

He wrote to his uncle towards the close of his residence in Göttingen thus:

I have this morning been upon the back of the Springer. To mount
this terrestrial Pegasus is considered here something like
_Summos in re equestri honores_, and is seldom attained without
long practice. I finish my lessons this week and look back with
satisfaction on the health and amusement which have repaid
my time and money. It might, perhaps, be more useful to me to
take some instruction how to sit in a doctor’s chariot; but it
is impossible to possess any qualification which one may not
want, and capabilities are but light burdens. We have another
fashionable exercise, which I think adequately corresponds to the
athletic schools of the ancients--vaulting on a wooden horse in
various positions--and I am much more known among the students for
excelling in this than for writing Greek, of which they have little
knowledge and not much more respect.

After being nine months at Göttingen he returned by Brunswick, Gotha, Weimar, Jena, Dresden, and Berlin to England in February 1797. At Brunswick he had a favourable opportunity of exhibiting his personal agility at a court masquerade, where he made his appearance with great success in the character of Harlequin.

From Berlin he wrote, December 12, to his uncle: ‘You say my Thesis (for his medical degree, on the conservative forces of the human body) is caviare to the general; but do not you think people have a greater respect for anything out of the common way? It seems a fatality that almost everything I do, or produce, should be termed stiff; in this case it may arise from my having been obliged to treat the subject in a short compass.’

Finding, when he came back from Germany, that the College of Physicians of London required two years’ continuous attendance at one university for a licence to practise, and shut out from the Fellowship all who were not graduates at Cambridge or Oxford, he went as fellow-commoner to Emmanuel College, Cambridge; and the account given by one who was afterwards tutor of the college brings the Professor of the Royal Institution most clearly into view.

When the Master [says the writer] 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.

He had a high character for classical learning before he came to
Cambridge; but I believe he did not pursue his classical studies
in the latter part of his life--he seldom spoke of them, but I
remember his meeting Dr. Parr in the College Combination Room;
and when the Doctor had made, as was not unusual with him, some
dogmatical observation on a point of scholarship, Young said
firmly, ‘Bently, 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.’

He had a great talent for Greek verse, and on one occasion I
remember a young lady had written on the walls of the summer-house
in the garden the following lines:--

Where are these hours on airy pinions borne,
That brought to every guiltless wish success,
When pleasure gladdened each succeeding morn,
And every evening closed with dreams of peace?

On the next morning appeared a translation in Greek elegiacs,
written under them in Young’s beautiful characters.

It may be here mentioned that when his mode of writing Greek was
laid before Porson, he said that if he had seen it before he would
have adopted it.

The views, objects, character, and arguments 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 Vince afterwards returned the compliment.

He never obtruded his various learning in conversation, but if
appealed to on the most difficult subject he answered in a quick,
flippant, derisive 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 particular
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 deserved anything, 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 anyone in
_statu pupillari_, and he would not converse with anyone but as an
equal.

It is 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 upon 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
future exhibition.

He seldom gave an opinion, and never volunteered one. He never laid
down the law like other learned doctors, or uttered apophthegms
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. Of the last I never heard him say a word, nothing in
favour of any sect, or in opposition to any doctrine; at the same
time, no sceptical doubt, no loose assertion, no idle scoff, ever
escaped him.

On July 8, 1799, he sent from Emmanuel College a paper to the Royal Society, entitled ‘Outlines of Experiments and Inquiries respecting Sound and Light.’ In it he established the great principle of the interference of sounds, and he wrote one section on the analogy of sound and light. In 1800 he referred, in the ‘British Magazine,’ to a young gentleman of Edinburgh ‘who certainly promises, in the course of time, to add considerably to our knowledge of the works of nature, but who had a paper in the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1798, in which what was new was not true, and what was true was not new.’ Dr. Robison, in his article on Music in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ criticised Young’s papers. In Nicholson’s ‘Philosophical Journal’ for 1801 Young answered Robison, and published an extension of the principles of interferences from sound to light. This was the preliminary announcement of his views regarding the undulatory theory of light.

His first paper on the ‘Theory of Light and Colours’ was read to the Royal Society, November 12, 1801. His second paper on this subject was read July 1, 1802, and his third November 24, 1803. His ‘Syllabus of Lectures at the Royal Institution,’ dated January 19, 1802, p. 116, gives the first printed account of his views. He says, ‘Speaking of Newton’s views, it will be sufficient for our present purpose to enumerate the respective explanations of the principal phenomena of light as they are furnished by the Newtonian system, and by the theory lately submitted to the Royal Society’; and (p. 117) he says, ‘The colours of thin and of thick plates, and the fringes produced by inflection, are referred by Newton to the very complicated effects of an undulating medium on the corpuscles of light, but without any attempt to accommodate the explanations to the measures obtained from his own accurate and elegant experiments; those of striated surfaces he has not noticed. But the general law by which all these appearances are governed may be very easily deduced from the interference of two coincident undulations which either co-operate or destroy each other in the same manner as two musical notes produce an alternate intermission and remission in the beating of an imperfect unison.’

‘The young gentleman of Edinburgh,’ afterwards known as Lord Brougham, in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ January 1803, criticised the Royal Society papers.

It is difficult [he said] to argue with an author whose mind is
filled with a medium of so fickle and vibratory a nature. Were we
to take the trouble to refute him, he might tell us, _My opinion
is changed_, and _I have abandoned that hypothesis, but here is
another for you_. We demand if the world of science which Newton
once illuminated is to be as changeable in its modes as the world
of taste, which is directed by the nod of a silly woman or a
pampered fop? Has the Royal Society degraded its publications into
bulletins of new and fashionable theories for the ladies who attend
the Royal Institution? _Proh pudor!_ Let the Professor continue
to amuse his audience with an endless variety of such harmless
trifles, but, in the name of science, let them not find admittance
into that venerable repository which contains the works of Newton,
and Boyle, and Cavendish, and Maskelyne, and Herschel.

Young’s most famous experiment of stopping the rays which passed on one side of a thin card exposed to a sunbeam in a dark chamber Brougham threw aside, with the assertion that the experiment was inaccurately made. Dr. Young replied:

The reviewer has here afforded me an opportunity for a triumph, as
gratifying as any triumph can be where an enemy is so contemptible.
Conscious of inability to explain the experiment, too ungenerous to
confess that inability, and too idle to repeat the experiment, he
is compelled to advance the supposition that it was incorrect. ‘Let
him make the experiment, and then deny the result if he can.’

He took no special means to make his answer known, and only one copy of his reply was sold. The poison sank deep into the public mind, and Dr. Young’s researches remained comparatively unnoticed until Arago, in 1815, when reporting upon the optical discoveries of Fresnel, showed that a greater discoverer than Newton had anticipated the researches of the French philosopher.

Dr. Young gives the following account of his discovery of the general law of the interference of light:

It was in May 1801 that I discovered, by reflecting on the
beautiful experiments of Newton, a law which appears to me to
account for a greater variety of interesting phenomena, than any
other optical principle that has yet been made known. I shall
endeavour to explain this law by a comparison:--Suppose a number of
equal waves of water to move upon the surface of a stagnant lake,
with a certain constant velocity, and to enter a narrow channel
leading out of the lake; suppose, then, another similar cause to
have existed, another equal series of waves will arrive at the
same channel with the same velocity, and at the same time with
the first. Neither series of waves will destroy the other, but
their effects will be combined. If they enter the channel in such
a manner that the elevations of one series coincide with those of
the other, they must together produce a series of greater joint
elevations; but if the elevations of one series are so situated as
to correspond to the depressions of the other, they must exactly
fill up those depressions, and the surface of the water must remain
smooth; at least I can discover no alternative either from theory
or from experiment.

Now I maintain that similar effects take place whenever two
portions of light are thus mixed, and this I call the general law
of the interference of light.

Within three months he became Professor at the Royal Institution.

In 1801, on the 6th of July, Count Rumford reported to the managers that, ‘at the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, he had had a conversation with Dr. Young respecting his engaging as Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution and Editor of the Journals, together with a general superintendency of the house, and it appearing from the report of Count Rumford that Dr. Young is a man of abilities equal to these undertakings, it was resolved that Count Rumford be authorised to engage Dr. Young in the aforesaid capacities at a salary of 300_l._ per annum.’[23]

On August 3, at the managers’ meeting (Count Rumford in the chair; present, Henry Cavendish, R. J. Sullivan; secretary J. P. Auriol), Count Rumford reported that, agreeably to the authority granted him by the managers, he had engaged Dr. Thomas Young. A copy of his letter to Dr. Young, expressing the conditions of his engagement, was at the same time laid before the committee.

The first number of the Journal had been published by Rumford on April 5, 1800. Dr. Young alone edited the fourth number in the autumn of 1801, the fifth number in December 1801, and, after editing two more numbers alone, he joined with Davy in the editorship till the Journal stopped in 1803.

On January 19 Dr. Young printed, at the press of the Royal Institution, a syllabus of his first course of lectures.

The first part was on Natural Philosophy; the second part on Hydrodynamics; the third part on Physics; and the fourth part on Mathematical Elements.

Each had a Greek or Latin motto prefixed, and the following advertisement to the first part was printed:

In order to adapt the delivery of these lectures as much as
possible to the convenience of different persons who may be
disposed to attend them, they will be divided into three parts
of nearly equal magnitude, and in great measure independent of
each other. Two parts will be delivered in succession on Mondays
and Wednesdays, at two o’clock, and the third on Friday evenings
at eight. And in future winters, each part will be taken in turn
for the evening lecture, so that the whole course may be heard at
either hour. The fourth part contains all the preliminary knowledge
that is necessary for those who may wish to enter mathematically
on the various subjects of the lectures; it will save considerable
pains in consulting other authors, and the most experienced may
often find it convenient for occasional reference. It was the
more desirable that something of this kind should be inserted, as
mathematical arguments will be avoided as much as possible in the
lectures; and for this reason the demonstrations which occur in the
syllabus are distinguished from the principal text by a smaller
type, and a separate place in the page. In a future edition a fifth
part will probably be added, containing a catalogue of the best
authors, with references to their works upon each subject. One
acknowledgment must, however, be inserted here for the extensive
use that has been made of the valuable articles contributed by
Professor Robison to the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’

Royal Institution, Albemarle Street,
January 19, 1802.

The volume forms an octavo of upwards of 250 pages; and it is quite evidence enough that the matter, no less than the manner of the lectures of Dr. Young, were more fitted for Cambridge than for the Royal Institution.

Dr. Paris thus contrasts Davy’s manner with that of Young:

To judge fairly of the influence of a popular style we should
acquaint ourselves with the effects of an opposite method, and, if
an appeal be made to experience, I may very safely abide the issue.
Dr. Young, whose profound knowledge of the subjects he taught no
one will venture to question, lectured in the same theatre, and to
an audience similarly constituted to that which was attracted by
Davy, but he found the number of his attendants diminish daily, and
for no other reason than that he adopted too severe and didactic a
style.

The first afternoon lecture was given by Dr. Young, on Wednesday, January 20, 1802, and the first evening lecture on Friday, January 22.

At the commencement he gave an introductory view of the nature and objects of the Royal Institution and of the particular plan of the lectures. Afterwards he proceeded to the subject of mechanics with the doctrine of motion.

In the introductory lecture, when dwelling on the objects of the Royal Institution and the dissemination of elementary knowledge, he said: