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Alter fome difficulties, he complied; the officer felt how impertinent he had been, and acknowledged the juftice of the treatment he had met with.

One Sunday, preaching in office at St. James's, he found, that though he ftrove to make his audience attentive, he could not prevail; upon which his pity for their folly got the better of all decorum, and he fat back in the pulpit, and burst into a flood of tears.

The writings of Young may be diftinctly confidered, as comprifing effays, plays, and poems. As an effayift, his Centaur not Fabulous and his Conjectures on Original Comp fition, are his moft confiderable productions. Of the one, it must be confeffed, that though its general tendency is favourable to religion and morality, the pictures it exhibits of the life in vogue, are often overcharged, and the diction, though fometimes animated and energetic, is commonly inflated and affected, or harsh and fevere Of the other, though the ftyle is vitiated by affectation, and the expreffion is fometimes hyperbolical, the fentiments are frequently bold, original, penetrating, brilliant, and fublime. Though he defpair of breaking through the frozen ocean of age and care's incumbent cloud, into that flow of thought and brightness of expreffion, which fubjects fo polite require;" yet it fhows no marks of exhausted genius. It is more like the production of untamed, unbridled youth, than of jaded fourscore.

As a dramatist, he has not been fuccefsful in imitating the beauties of art, with the energies of natural fire and spirit. He is, without doubt, superior to his contemporaries, Rowe and Congreve, in strength and warmth of conception; but he is inferior to them in elegance and neatness of diction, beauty of cadence, correctness, chastity, and regularity. None of his dramas, except The Revenge, are in poffeffion of the stage. Though they are animated, brilliant, and claffical; though they paint, in glowing language, the fury of rage and revenge, and the agonies of jealoufy, love, and despair; yet, it must be confeffed, their beauties are difgraced by puerile rant and conceit, and, occafionally, by fuftian and bombaft. In Carey's "Chrononhotonthologos," his dramatical eccentricities are pourtrayed in caricature, particularly the violent fpeech on the blow, which furnished a plot to The Revenge. Bombardinian, the general, on receiving a box on the ear from his royal mafter, breaks out into the most furious hyperbole; calls on the fun and moon to put themselves into eclipse; bids hills, dales, feas, and cities, run together, and into chaos pulverize the world, because Bombardinian hath received a blow.

As a poet, his compofitions difcover more fancy than judgment, more originality and invention, than correctness of taste and variety and extent of knowledge. He poffeffed, as Addison says of Lee, true poetic fire, though clouded and obfcured by thick volumes of fmoke. But he has merit of the highest kind. He is an original, though an unequal writer. It would be difficult to point out a fingle line or expreßion that he has borrowed from any other English writer. His defects and beauties are alike his own. Of the epigrammatic tenor of his Satires, there is no example; nor was he indebted to any poet, ancient or modern, for the plan of his Night Thoughts. The lyric mufe has always been peculiarly unfavourable to him. He has fame of the greatest beauties, and fome of the greateft abfurdities which English poetry affords. The general character of his verfification is that of harshness and ruggedness, though many paffages may be produced as exceptions. Of his earlier poetical productions, his Laft Day, Vanquished Love, and Paraphrafe on Job, have defervedly obtained the greatest popularity. They have all their brighter paffages. In the Laft Day, and the Paraphrafe in particular, there are some admirable lines. But they are in general stiff, unpleafing, and incorrect. Inftead of endeavouring to fupport the glow of imagery, he feems rather fedulous to gather the ornaments of wit; and thus, while he aims at the fancy, he miffes the heart.

His Univerfal Paffion was published before Pope's Satirical Epiftles made their appearance; and has therefore the merit of giving the lead to that kind of writing. It contains much juft fatire, good veríe, and laughable humour. The country 'fquire, who welcomes his friend with a thump upen the back; the coffee-house beau, who values himself upon the learning of his heels; and the lady on horfeback, who whistles fweet her diuretic trains, are justly conceived, and happily expreffe 1. But its character is debility--it wants point and terfenefs. The fatirift, as Swift has justly said, should have either been more angry or more merry. He has the fault of Seneca, of Ovid, of Cowley; a profufion and an unfeafonable application of wit. A lover of originality, he did not regard models. Had he endeavoured to imitate Juvenal and Perfius, he would have avoided this fault.

VOL. X.

that

Those great masters were too much engreffed by the importance of their fabjects, to fall into the pue-ility of witticifm. There is fomething in the verfification, which a good ear does not approve. For his Night Thoughts, that fpecies of compofition which he may be said to have created mass of the gra and richeft poetry which human genius has ever produced, the applause which he has received is unbounded. "The unhappy bard, whofe griefs in melting numbers flow, and melancholy joys diffuse around," has been fung by the profane, as well as the pious. It is to this work, begun when

He long had buried what gives life to live,
Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought,

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that he deferves, and will continue to deferve his reputation. He appears to have been conscious of its merit, when he called his collected compofitions The Works of the Author of the Night Thoughts. Seafons." One deIt may not improperly be confidered as a good poetical contrait to Thomson's lighted as much to exhibit the gloomy, as the other the cheertul face of things. In the article of fublimity, it may vie with "Paradife Loft itself," though in every other refpe& it would be absurd The beauties of the Night Thoughts are numerous, and its to attempt a comparifon between them. blemishes are not few. Among its diftinguishing excellencies, are the fpirit of fublime piety and ftrict morality, which breathes through the whole; dignity of thought and language, bold and lively defcriptions, proper and well fupported fimiles, and striking repetitions, or breaks in the expreffion. Among its principal faults, are the unneceffary repetition of the fame ideas and images, redundancy of metaphor, bombaft, and extravagant ideas and expreffions, crowded and ill-choten epithets, allufions drawn out beyond their proper bounds; a puerile play on words, the ufe of grofs and inelegant images or terms, and negligence in the harmony of verfification. Its principai excellence, the prefent writer apprehends to be-elevation and dignity of thought and expreffion; its capital defect-elevation and dignity purfued into extravagance or bombaft. It abounds in unnatural flights of fancy. is often obfcure, and sometimes unintelligible; and the poet, occasionally, perplexes both himself and the reader, in a playfome purfuit of trifling figures, allegories, and allufions, not always apt. Yet, with all its faults, it irrefiftibly feizes the mind of the reader, arrefts his attention, and powerfully interefts him in the midnight forrows of the plaintive bard; it has a merit which no production, but those of real genius, ever poffeffes: with scarce any facts or incidents to awaken curiofity, it fpeaks to the heart through the medium of the imagination; it inftructs, but does not fatigue us; it amufes, but never is languid.

The fimile of the
His view of

The pathetic and fublime paffages in the Night boughts, are familiar to the general readers of poetry. Amidst the profusion of beauties which may be produced, his defcription of Death from his fecret fland, noting down the follies of a Bacchanalian fociety, the epitaph upon the departed world; the iffuing of Satan from his dungeon on the day of judgment, are diftinguished by great ftrength and boldness of invention, and rife, in many parts, to the terrible and fublime. traveller, with which The Confolation opens, is highly pleafing ftriking, and beautiful. the nature and faculties of an immortal foul, of different natures, marvellovfly mixed, clogged by the finite and perishable materials of its house of clay, is profound, striking, comprehensive, and, what in him is rare, clofely comprehenfive. His arguments in favour of infinite duration in a future ftate, though not logically conclufive, are beautifully poetic.

O ye bieft scenes of permanent delight,-
Could ye fo rich in rapture fear an end;
That ghafly thought would drink
And quite unparadife the realms of light.

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all your joy,

Who does not regret, that fuch a powerful though gloomy advocate for religion and morality, hould degrade himself by proftituting his poetry to the fervile purposes of adulation; or that his addiction to licentious flattery fhould have induced him to dress up his patron in the attributes of a Being, whofe greatness and whose goodness admit of no approximation!

Wits fpare not heaven, O Wilmington nor thee.

His Refignation was reprefented on its first appearance, as a friking inflance of the fenefcence of genius. It has never obtained much popularity; though the fentiments are strongly characteristic The fyle alfo is like that of the of their author, and many of them are beautiful and new. author of the Night Thoughts, but the refemblance is rather in its blemishes than its beauties. Here is the fame fondness for antithefes, the fame hunting down of figures, and lownefs of metaphors, that are to be found in his other poems, but little of their strength or harmony remains. His cx.

changing the folemn plaintive species of verse, peculiar to himself, for the easy measure of lyric poetry, was an unfortunate determination. Of his fmaller poems, the Epifles to Pape, and the Epitaph un Lord Aubry Beauclerc, are entitled to particular commendation. Of those puerile trifles, his Odes, Sea-Piece, &c. in which words over-power ideas, and loyalty triumphs at the expence of imagination, the prefent writer is no admirer.

Yet, excepting his licentious flattery, which appears in the body of his works, as well as in his fulfome dedications, a few of his tragical rants, his poetical flights into the obfcure, and the imbecilities of his age, which his friends ought to have suppressed, Young is entitled to the rare but important praise of not having left a line, which, for moral or religious reafons, on his death-bed, he could wish to have erafed.

"If the friendship, with which Dr. Young honoured me," fays Dr. Warton, “does not mislead me, I think I may affirm, that many high strokes of character in his Zanga, many fentiments and images in his Night Thoughts, and many ftrong and forcible defcriptions in his Paraphrafs on Job, mark him for a fublime and original genius. Though, at the fame time, I am ready to confefs, that he is not a correct and equal writer, and was too often turgid and hyperbolical.”

"Among moral and didactic poets, Dr. Young is of too great eminence," fays Dr. Blair, "to be paffed over without notice. In all his works, the marks of ftrong genius appear. His Univerfal Pafton poffeffes the full merit of that animated concifenefs of ftyle, and lively defeription of chạracters, which I mentioned, as particularly requifite in fatirical and didactic compofitions. Though his wit may often be thought too sparkling, and his sentences too pointed, yet the vivacity of his fancy is fo great as to entertain every reader. In his Night Thoughts, there is much energy of expreffion; in the three first there are several pathetic paffages, and scattered through them, all happy images and allufions, as well as pious reflections occur; but the fentiments are frequently overftrained and turgid, and the style is too harsh and obfcure to be pleasing."

"There is in the Night Thoughts," says Mr. Bofwell," a power of the pathetic beyond almost any example that I have feen. He who does not feel his nerves fhaken, and his heart moved by many paffages in this extraordinary work, particularly by that most affecting one, which describes the gradual torment suffered by the contemplation of an object of affectionate attachment, visibly and certainly decaying into diffolution, must be of a hard and obftinate frame.

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* To all the other excellencies of the Night Thoughts, let me add the great and peculiar one that they contain not only the noblest sentiments of virtue and the immortality of the foul; but the Chriftian facrifice, the divine propitiation, with all its interefting circumstances and confolations to " a wounded fpirit,” folemnly and poetically displayed in fuch imagery and language, as cannot fail to exalt, animate, and footh the truly pious. No book whatever can be recommended to young perfons, with better hopes of feasoning their minds with vital religion, thon Young's Night Thoughts."

His poetical character is delineated by Dr. Johnfon with impartiality and precision.

"Of 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 refemblance 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 fometimes smooth, and fometimes rugged; his ftyle is fometimes concatenated, and fometimes abrupt; fometimes diffufive, and fometimes concife. His plan feems to have started in his mind at the prefent moment, and his thoughts appear the effect of chance, fometimes adverfe, and fometimes lucky, with very little operation of judgment.

"He was not one of the writers whom experience improves, and who obferving 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 Faragraphs are noble, and few are mean, yet the whole is languid; the plan is too much extended, and a fucceffion of images divides and weakens the general conception; but the great reafon why the reader is disappointed, is, that the Last Day makes every man niore than poetical, by spreading over his mind a general obscurity of facred horror, that oppreffes diftinction, and difdains ex, preffion.

"His ftory of Jane Gray was never popular. It is written with elegance enough, but Jane is too heroic to be pitied.

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"The Universal Passion is indeed a very great performance. It is faid to be a series of epigrams: but if it be, it is what the author intended: his endeavour was at the production of striking diftichs and pointed fentences; and his diftichs have the weight of folid fentiment, and his points the fharpness of refiftless truth

"His characters are often felected with discernment, and drawn with nicety; his illustrations are often happy, and his reflections often juft. His fpecies of fatire is between thofe of Horace and Juvenal; and he has the gaiety of Horace without his laxity of numbers, and the morality of Juvenal with greater variation of images. He plays, indeed, only on the furface of life; he never penetrates the receffes of the mind, and therefore the whole power of his poetry is exhausted by a fingle perufal; his conceits pleafe only when they furprise.

"To tranflate he never condefcended, unless his Paraphrafe on Job may be considered as a version; in which he has not, I think, been unsuccessful; he indeed favoured himself, by choosing those parts which most easily admit the ornaments of English poetry.

"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 difplay of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allufions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy fcatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verfe could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage. The wild diffusion of the sentiments, and the digreffive fallies of imagination, would have been compreffed and restrained by confinement to rhyme. The excellence of this work is not exactness, but copioufnels; particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole, and in the whole there is a magnificence like that afcribed to Chinese plantation, the magnifience of vaft extent and endless diversity.

"His last poem was the Refignation; in which he made, as he was accustomed, an experiment of a new mode of writing, and fucceeded better than in his Ocean or his Merchant. It was very falfely reprefented as a proof of decaying faculties. There is Young in every stanza, such as he often was in his highest vigour.

"It must be allowed of Young's poetry, that it abounds in thought, but without much accuracy or felection. When he lays hold of an illustration, he purfues it beyond expectation, fometimes happily, as in his parallel of Quickfilver with Pleasure, which is very ingenious, very fubtle, and almost exact; but sometimes he is lefs lucky, as when, in his Night Thoughts, having dropped it into his imind, that the orbs, floating in fpace, might be called the cluster of creation, he thinks on a cluster of grapes, and fays, that they all hang on the great vine, drinking the "nectareous juice of im

"mortal life."

"His conceits are fometimes yet lefs valuable. In the Laft Day, he hopes to illustrate the re-assembling of the atoms that compofe the human body at the “ bees into a fwarm at the tinkling of a pan. Trump of Doom," by the collection of

"The Prophet fays of Tyre, that "her Merchants are Princes." Young fays in his Merchant

Her Merchants Princes, and each dech a Throne.

Net burlefque try to go beyond him.

"He has the trick of joining the turgid and familiar: to buy the alliance of Britain, "Climes were paid down." Antithefis is his favourite. "They for kindness hate," and "because she's "right fhe's ever in the wrong."

"His verfification is his own; neither his blank nor his rhyming lines have any refemblance to thofe of former writers; he picks up no hemiftichs, he copies no favourite expreffions; he seems to have laid up no ftores of thought or diction, but to owe all to the fortuitous fuggeftions of the preYet I have reafon to believe that, when once he had formed a new defign, he then laboured it with very patient industry, and that be compofed with great labour, and frequent revifions.

fent moment.

"His verfes are formed by no certain model: for he is no more like himself in his different productions than he is like others. He feems never to have ftudied profody, nor to have had any direalion but from his own car. But with all his defects, he was a man of genius and a poet.”

THE WORKS OF YOUNG.

VERSES TO THE AUTHOR.

Now let the Athieft tremble; thou alone
Can bid his conscious heart the Godhead own.
Whom fhalt thou not reform? O thou haft feen,
How God defcends to judge the souls of men.
Thou heard'st the sentence how the guilty mourn,
Driven out from God, and never must return.

Yet more, behold ten thousand thunders fall, And fudden vengeance wrap the flaming ball: When nature funk, when every bolt was hurl'd, Thou faw'ft the boundless ruins of the world.

When guilty Sodom felt the burning rain,
And fulphur fell on the devoted plain;
The patriarch thus, the fiery tempest past,
With pious horror view'd the desert waste;
The reitlefs fmoke ftill wav'd its curls around,
For ever rising from the glowing ground.

But tell me, oh! what heavenly pleasure tell,
To think fo greatly, and defcribe fo well!
How waft thou pleas'd the wondrous theme to try,
And find the thought of man could rife fo high?
Beyond this world the labour to purfue,
And open all eternity to view?

But thou art beft delighted to rehearse
Heaven's holy dictates in exalted verfe :

O thou haft power the harden'd heart to warm,
To grieve, to raife, to terrify, to charm;
To fix the foul on God; to teach the mind
To know the dignity of human kind;
By ftricter rules well-govern'd life to fean,
And practife o'er the angel in the man.
Magd Coll.
Oxon.

MADAM,

TO A LADY,

T. WARTON.

WITH THE LAST DAY.

HERE, facred truths, in lofty numbers told,
The profpect of a future ftate unfold:
The realms of night to mortal view display,
And the glad regions of eternal day.
This daring author fcorns, by vulgar ways
Of guilty wit, to merit worthlefs praife.
VOL. X.

Full of her glorious theme, his towering muse,
With gen'rous zeal, a nobler fame pursues:
Religion's caufe her ravish'd heart inspires,
And with a thousand bright ideas fires;
Transports her quick, impatient, piercing eye,
O'er the ftrait limits of mortality,

To boundless orbs, and bids her fearless foar,
Where only Milton gain'd renown before;
Where various fcenes alternately excite
Amazement, pity, terror, and delight.

Thus did the mufes fing in early times,
Ere fkill'd to flatter vice and varnish crimes:
Their lyres were tun'd to virtuous fongs alone,
And the chafte poet, and the priest, were one.
But now, forgetful of their infant ftate,
They foothe the wanton pleasures of the great:
And from the prefs, and the licentious stage,
With luscious poifon taint the thoughtless age;
Deceitful charms attract our wondering eyes
And fpecious ruin unfufpected lies.

So the rich foil of India's blooming shores,
Adorn'd with lavish nature's choiceft ftores, [fight,
Where ferpents lurk, by flowers conceal'd from
Hides fatal danger under gay delight.

Thefe purer thoughts from grofs alloys refin'd, With heavenly raptures elevate the mind: Not fram'd to raise a giddy short-liv'd joy, Whofe falfe allurements, while they please destroy; But blifs refembling that of faints above, Sprung from the vifion of th' Almighty love: Firm, folid blifs, for ever great and new, The more 'tis known, the more admir'd, like you; Like you, fair nymph, in whom united meet Endearing fwectnefs, unaffected wit, And all the glories of your sparkling race, While inward virtues heighten every grace. By thefe fecur'd, you will with pleasure read "Of futurejudgment, and the rifing dead; [thrown "Of time's grand period, heaven and earth o'er"And gafping nature's last tremendous groan." Thefe, when the stars and fun fhall be no more, Shall beauty to your ravag'd form restore, Then fhall you fhine with an immortal ray, Improv'd by death, and brighten'd by decay. T. TRISTRAM

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