from follies which, if it may be thought blame- I able in a boy to have committed them, it is surely praiseworthy in a man to lament, and certainly not only unnecessary, but cruel in a biographer to record. Of the "Night Thoughts," notwithstanding their Author's professed retirement, all are inscribed to great of to growing names. He had not yet weaned himself from earls and dukes, from the speakers of the House of Commons, lords commissioners of the Treasury, and chancellors of the Exchequer. In "Night Eight" the politician plainly betrays himself Think no post needful that demands a knave: Yet it must be confessed, that at the conclusion of "Night Nine," weary perhaps of courting earthly patrons, he tells his soul, Henceforth Thy patron he, whose diadem has dropt The "Fourth Night" was addressed by "a much-indebted Muse" to the Honourable Mr. Yorke, now Lord Hardwicke, who meant to have laid the Muse under still greater obligation, by the living at Shenfield, in Essex, if it had become vacant. The "First Night" concludes with this passage Dark, though not blind, like thee, Meonides: To the Author of these lines was dedicated, in 1756, the first volume of "An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope," which attempted, whether justly or not, to pluck from Pope his "Wing of Fire," and to reduce him to a rank at least one degree lower than the first class of English poets. If Young accepted and approved the dedication, he countenanced this attack upon the fame of him whom he invokes as his Muse. Part of "paper-sparing" Pope's Third Book of the "Odyssey," deposited in the Museum, is written upon the back of a letter signed "E. Young," which is clearly the handwriting of our Young. The letter, dated only May the 2d, seems obscure; but there can be little doubt that the friendship he requests was a literary one, and that he had the highest literary opinion of Pope. The request was a prologue, I am told. "DEAR SIR, "May the 2d. "Having been often from home, I know not if you have done me the favour of calling on me. But, be that as it will, I much want that instance of your friendship Í mentioned in my last; a friendship I am very sensible I can receive from no one but yourself. I should not urge this thing so much but for very particular reasons; nor can you be at a loss to conceive how a 'trifle of this nature' may be of serious moment to me; and while I am in hopes of the great advantage of your advice about it, I shall not be so absurd as to make any further step without it. to Nay, even after Pope's death, he says, in "Night Seven,” Pope, who could'st make immortals, art thon dead? Either the "Essay," then, was dedicated to a patron who disapproved its doctrine, which I have been told by the author was not the case, or Young appears, in his old age, to have bartered, for a dedication, an opinion entertained of his friend through all that part of life when he must have been best able to form opinions. short passages, which stand alinost together in From this account of Young, two or three "Night Four," should not be excluded. They afford a picture by his own hand, from the study of which my readers may choose to form their own opinion of the features of his mind, and the complexion of his life. Ah me the dire effect When in his courtiers' ears I pour my plaint, And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy, Court-favour, yet untaken, I besiege. If this song lives, Posterity shall know Deduct from the writer's age "twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy," and you will still leave him more than forty when he sat down to the miserable siege of court favour.-He has before told us A fool at forty is a fool indeed. After all, the siege seems to have been raisec only in consequence of what the general thought his "death-bed." By these extraordinary poems, written after he was sixty, of which I have been led to say so much, I hope, by the wish of doing justice to the living and the dead, it was the desire of Young to be principally known. He entitled the four volumes which he published himself, "The Works of the Author of the Night Thoughts." While it is remembered that from these he excluded many of his writings, let it not be forgotten that the rejected pieces contained nothing prejudicial to the cause of virtue, or of religion. Were every thing that Young ever wrote to be published, he would only appear, perhaps, in a less respectable light as a poet, and more despicable as a dedicator; he would not pass for a worse Christian, or for a worse man. This enviable praise is due to Young. Can it be claimed by every writer? His dedications, after all, he had perhaps no right to suppress. They all, I believe, speak, not a little to the credit of his gratitude, of favours received; and I know not whether the author, who has once solemnly printed an acknowledgment of a favour, should | despair "of breaking through the frozen obstrucnot alway print it. Is it too credit or to the discredit of Young, as a poet, that of his "Night Thoughts" the French are particularly fond? Of the "Epitaph on Lord Aubrey Beauclerk," dated 1740, all I know is, that I find it in the late body of English poetry, and that I am sorry to find it there. Notwithstanding the farewell which he seemed to have taken in the "Night Thoughts" of every thing which bore the least resemblance to ambition, he dipped again in politics. In 1745 he wrote "Reflections on the Public Situation of the Kingdom, addressed to the Duke of Newcastle;" indignant, as it appears, to behold -a pope-bred Princeling crawl ashore, And whistle cut-throats, with those swords that scrap'd Their barren rocks for wretched sustenance, To cut his passage to the British throne. This political poem might be called a "Night Thought." Indeed it was originally printed as the conclusion of the "Night Thoughts," though he did not gather it with his other works. Prefixed to the second edition of Howe's "Devout Meditations" is a Letter from Young, dated Jan. 19, 1752, addressed to Archibald Macauly, Esq. thanking him for the book, which he says he shall "never lay far out of his reach; for a greater demonstration of a sound head and a sincere heart he never saw." tions of age and care's incumbent cloud, into that flow of thought and brightness of expres sion which subjects so polite require;" yet is it more like the production of untamed, unbridled youth, than of jaded fourscore. Some sevenfold volumes put him in mind of Ovid's sevenfold channels of the Nile at the conflagration: ostia septem Pulverulenta vocant, septem sine flumine valles. Such leaden labours are like Lycurgus's iron money, which are so much less in value than in bulk, that it required barns for strong boxes, and a yoke of oxen to draw five hundred pounds. If there is a famine of invention in the land, we must travel, he says, like Joseph's brethren, far for food; we must visit the remote and rich ancients. But an inventive genius may safely stay at home; that, like the widow's crusc, is divinely replenished from within, and affords us a miraculous delight. He asks why it should editions of the human mind may be the most seem altogether impossible, that Heaven's latest correct and fair? and Jonson, he tells us, was very learned, as Samson was very strong, to his own hurt. Blind to the nature of tragedy, he pulled down all antiquity on his head, and buried himself under it. Is this "care's incumbent cloud," or frozen obstructions of age?" "the Achilles into petticoats a second time:" but we are told that the dying swan talked over an epic plan with Young a few weeks before his decease. In 1753, when "The Brothers" had lain by In this letter Pope is severely censured for him above thirty years, it appeared upon the his "fall from Homer's numbers, free as air, stage. If any part of his fortune had been aclofty and harmonious as the spheres, into childquired by servility of adulation, he now deter-ish shackles and tinkling sounds; for putting mined to deduct from it no inconsiderable sum, as a gift to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. To this sum he hoped the profits of "The Brothers" would amount. In his calculation he was deceived; but by the bad success of his play the Society was not a loser. The Author made up the sum he originally intended, which was a thousand pounds, from his own pocket. The next performance which he printed was a prose publication, entitled "The Centaur not Fabulous, in Six Letters to a Friend, on the Life in Vogue." The conclusion is dated November 29, 1754. In the third Letter is described the death-bed of the "gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched Altamont." His last words were "My principles have poisoned my friend, my extravagance has beggared my boy, my unkindness has murdered my wife." Either Altamont and Lorenzo were the twin production of fancy, or Young was unlucky enough to know two characters who bore no little resemblance to each other in perfection of wickedness. Report has been accustomed to call Altamont Lord Euston. "The Old Man's Relapse," occasioned by an Epistle to Walpole, if written by Young, which I much doubt, must have been written very late in life. It has been seen, I am told, in a Miscellany published thirty years before his death. In 1758, he exhibited "The Old Man's Relapse" in more than words, by again becoming a dedicator, and publishing a sermon addressed to the King. The lively Letter in prose, "On Original Composition," addressed to Richardson, the author of "Clarissa," appeared in 1759. Though he Young's chief inducement to write this Letter was, as he confesses, that he might erect a monumental marble to the memory of an old friend. He, who employed his pious pen for almost the last time in thus doing justice to the exemplary death-bed of Addison, might probably, at the close of his own life, afford no unuseful lesson for the deaths of others. In the postscript, he writes to Richardson, that he will see in his next how far Addison is an original. But no other letter appears. The few lines which stand in the last edition, as "sent by Lord Melcombe to Dr. Young, not long before his Lordship's death," were indeed so sent, but were only an introduction to what was there meant by "The Muse's latest Spark." The poem is necessary, whatever may be its merit, since the Preface to it is already printed. Lord Melcombe called his Tusculum "La Trappe." Love thy country, wish it well, Thou its ruin didst not share. Envy's censure, Flattery's praise, Life's wide ocean trust no more; Keep thy conscience from offence, And tempestuous passions free, Easy shall thy passage be, Cheerful thy allotted stay, Truth shall lead thee to the gate, The poem was accompanied by a letter. the gods:" notwithstanding he administered consolation to his own grief in this immortal language, Mrs. Boscawen was comforted in rhyme. While the poet and the Christian were applying this comfort, Young had himself occasion for comfort, in consequence of the sudden death of Richardson, who was printing the former part of the poem. Of Richardson's death he says When Heav'n would kindly set us free, It takes the most effectual means, And robs us of a friend. To "Resignation" was prefixed an Apology "You seemed to like the ode I sent you for for its appearance: to which more credit is due your amusement: I now send it you as a pre- than to the generality of such apologies, from sent. If you please to accept of it, and are wil-Young's unusual anxiety that no more producling that our friendship should be known when we are gone, you will be pleased to leave this among those of your own papers that may possibly see the light by a posthumous publication. God send us health while we stay, and an easy journey. "My dear Dr. Young, In 1762, a short time before his death, Young published "Resignation." Notwithstanding the manner in which it was really forced from him by the world, criticism has treated it with no common severity. If it shall be thought not to deserve the highest praise, on the other side of fourscore, by whom, except by Newton and by Waller, has praise been merited? To Mrs. Montagu, the famous champion of Shakspeare, I am indebted for the history of "Resignation." Observing that Mrs. Boscawen, in the midst of her grief for the loss of the admiral, derived consolation from the perusal of the Night Thoughts," Mrs. Montagu proposed a visit to the Author. From conversing with Young, Mrs. Boscawen derived still further consolation; and to that visit she and the world were indebted for this poem. It compliments Mrs. Montagu in the following lines; Yet write I must. A lady sues: And again And friend you have, and I the same, Will bring to life those healing thoughts That friend, the spirit of thy theme Will leave to me the dreg, in thoughts tions of his old age should disgrace his former fame. In his will, dated February 1760, he desires of his executors, in a particular manner, that all his manuscript books and writings whatever might be burned, except his book of accounts. In September, 1764, he added a kind of codicil, wherein he made it his dying entreaty to his housekeeper, to whom he left 1000l. "that all his manuscripts might be destroyed as soon as he was dead, which would greatly oblige her deceased friend." It may teach mankind the uncertainty of worldly friendships, to know that Young, either by surviving those he loved, or by outliving their affections, could only recollect the names of two friends, his housekeeper and a hatter, to mention in his will; and it may serve to repress that testamentary pride, which too often seeks for sounding names and titles, to be informed that the Author of the "Night Thoughts" did "not blush to leave a legacy to his friend Henry Stevens, a hatter at the Templegate." Of these two remaining friends, one went before Young. But at eighty-four, "where," as he asks in The Centaur, "is that world into which we were born?" The same humility which marked a batter and a housekeeper for the friends of the Author of the "Night Thoughts," had before bestowed the same title on his footman, in an epitaph in his "Churchyard" upon James Baker, dated 1749; which I am glad to find in the late collec tion of his works. Young and his housekeeper were ridiculed with more ill-nature than wit, in a kind of novel published by Kidgell in 1755, called "The Card," under the names of Dr. Elwes and Mrs. Fusby. In April, 1765, at an age to which few attain, a period was put to the life of Young. He had performed no duty for three or four years, but he retained his intellects to the last. Much is told in the "Biographia," which I By the same lady I was enabled to say, in her know not to have been true, of the manner of own words, that Young's unbounded genius ap-his burial; of the master and children of a cha peared to greater advantage in the companion than even in the author; that the Christian was in him a character still more inspired, more enraptured, more sublime, than the poet; and that, in his ordinary conversation, letting down the golden chain from high He drew his audience upward to the sky. Notwithstanding Young had said, in his "Conjectures on Original Composition," that "blank verse is verse unfallen, uncurst; verse reclaimed, re-enthroned in the true language of rity school, which he founded in his parish, who neglected to attend their benefactor's corpse; and of a bell which was not caused to toll a often as upon those occasions bells usually toll. Had that humanity which is here lavished upon things of little consequence either to the living or to the dead, been shown in its proper place to the living, I should have had less to say about Lorenzo. They who lament that these misfortunes happened to Young, forget the praise he bestows upon Socrates, in the preface to "Night Seven," for resenting his friend's request about | Author of the "Night Thoughts" composed his funeral. many sermons, he did not oblige the public with many. During some part of his life Young was abroad, but I have not been able to learn any particulars. Besides, in the latter part of life, Young was fond of holding himself out for a man retired from the world. But he seemed to have forgotten that the same verse which contains "oblitus meorum," contains also "obliviscendus et illis." The brittle chain of worldly friendship and patronage is broken as effectually, when one goes beyond the length of it, as when the other does. To the vessel which is sailing from the shore, it only appears that the shore also recedes; in life it is truly thus. He who retires from the world will find himself, in reality, deserted as fast, if not faster, by the world. The public is not to be treated as the coxcomb treats his mistress; to be threatened with desertion, in order to increase fondness. In his seventh satire he says, When, after battle, I the field have seen Spread o'er with ghastly shapes which once were men. It is known also, that from this or from some other field he once wandered into the camp with a classic in his hand, which he was reading intently; and had some difficulty to prove that he was only an absent poet, and not a spy. The curious reader of Young's life will narally inquire to what it was owing, that though he lived almost forty years after he took orders, which included one whole reign uncommonly long, and part of another, he was never thought worthy of the least preferment. The Author of the "Night Thoughts" ended his days upon Young seems to have been taken at his word. a living which came to him from his college Notwithstanding his frequent complaints of be without any favour, and to which he probably ing neglected, no hand was reached out to pull had an eye when he determined on the church. him from that retirement of which he declared To satisfy curiosity of this kind is, at this dis- himself enamoured. Alexander assigned no patance of time, far from easy. The parties them-lace for the residence of Diogenes, who boasted selves know not often, at the instant, why they his surly satisfaction with his tub. are neglected, or why they are preferred. The neglect of Young is by some ascribed to his having attached himself to the Prince of Wales, and to his having preached an offensive sermon at St. James's. It has been told me that he had two hundred a year in the late reign, by the patronage of Walpole; and that, whenever any one reminded the King of Young, the only answer was, "he has a pension." All the light thrown on this inquiry, by the following letter from Secker, only serves to show at what a late period of life the Author of the "Night Thoughts" solicited preferment: "Deanery of St. Paul's, July 8, 1758. "Good Dr. Young, Of the domestic manners and petty habits of the Author of the "Night Thoughts," I hoped to have given you an account from the best an thority: but who shall dare to say, To-morrow I will be wise or virtuous, or to-morrow 1 will do a particular thing? Upon inquiring for his housekeeper, I learned that she was buried two days before I reached the town of her abode. In a letter from Tscharner, a noble foreigner, to Count Haller, Tscharner says, he has lately spent four days with Young at Welwyn, where the author takes all the ease and pleasure mankind can desire. "Every thing about him shows the man, each individual being placed by rule. All is neat without art. He is very pleasant in conversation, and extremely polite." This and more may possibly be true; but Tscharner's was a first visit, a visit of curiosity and admiration, and a visit which the Author "I have long wondered, that more suitable notice of your great merit hath not been taken by persons in power: but how to remedy the mission I see not. No encouragement hath ever been given me to mention things of this na-expected. lure to his Majesty. And therefore, in all likelihood, the only consequence of doing it would be weakening the little influence which I may possibly have on some other occasions. Your fortune and your reputation set you above the need of advancement; and your sentiments, above that concern for it, on your own account, which, on that of the public, is sincerely felt by "Your loving brother, Of Edward Young an anecdote which wan ders among readers is not true, that he was Fielding's Parson Adams. The original of that famous painting was William Young, who was a clergyman. He supported an uncomfortable existence by translating for the booksellers from Greek; and, if he did not seem to be his own friend, was at least no man's enemy. Yet the facility with which this report has gained belief in the world argues, were it not suffi ciently known, that the Author of the "Night Thoughts" bore some resemblance to Adams. The attention which Young bestowed upon the perusal of books is not unworthy imitation. When any passage pleased him he appears to have folded down the leaf. On these passages he bestowed a second reading. But the labours of man are too frequently vain. Before he returned to much of what he had once approved, he died. Many of his books, which I have seen are by those notes of approbation so swelled be yond their real bulk, that they will hardly shu What though we wade in wealth or soar in fame' YOUNG. The Author of these lines is not without his Hic | yet the whole is languid; the plan is too much jacet. By the good sense of his son, it contains none of that praise which no marble can make the bad or the foolish merit; which, without the direction of a stone or a turf will find its way, sooner or later, to the deserving. Or Young's poems it is difficult to give any general character; for he has no uniformity of manner; one of his pieces has no great resemblance to another. He began to write early, and continued long; and at different times had different modes of poetical excellence in view. His numbers are sometimes smooth, and sometimes rugged; his style is sometimes concatenated, and sometimes abrupt; sometimes diffusive, and sometimes concise. His plan seems to have started in his mind at the present moment; and his thoughts appear the effect of chance, sometimes adverse, and sometimes lucky, with very little operation of judgment. He was not one of those writers whom experience improves, and who, observing their own faults, become gradually correct. His poem on the "Last Day," his first great performance, has an equability and propriety, which he afterwards either never endeavoured or never attained. Many paragraphs are noble, and few are mean, extended, and a succession of images divides and His story of "Jane Grey" was never popular. The "Universal Passion" is indeed a very To translate he never condescended, unless his He had least success in his lyric attempts, in which he seems to have been under some malignant influence: he is always labouring to be great, and at last is only turgid. In his "Night Thoughts" he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but sentiments, and the digressive sallies of imaginawith disadvantage. The wild diffusion of the tion, would have been compressed and restrained by confinement to rhyme. The excellence of this work is not exactness, but copiousness; particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a mag nificence like that ascribed to Chinese planta tion, the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity. His last poem was "Resignation;" in which he made, as he was accustomed, an experiment of a new mode of writing, and succeeded better than in his "Ocean" or his "Merchant." It was very falsely represented as a proof of decayed faculties. There is Young in every vigour. stanza, such as he often was in the highest His tragedies, not making part of the Collection, I had forgotten, till Mr. Stevens recalled them to my thoughts by remarking, that he seemed to have one favourite catastrophe, as his three plays all concluded with lavish suicide; a method by which, as Dryden remarked, a poet easily rids his scene of persons whom he wants |