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.