to which we have adverted, as connected with the progress of taste. It pleases the more before the taste has attained the period of refined cultivation, because we are then less sensible of the defects of his style, and are most susceptible of that indistinct feeling of awe which the gothic gloom of his poetry is adapted to excite, It pleases us as age advances, on account of the sympathetic views of life, which make the poetry of Young seem to an old man doubly natural. The author had passed his sixtieth year when he published the First Night; and there is, it must be owned, something of the querulousness, as well as the sageness of age, in the general strain of his sentiments. But his long Complaint terminates, as it should do, in Consolation: and the Ninth Night is the one, which, next to the first three, is the most generally read and the most frequently adverted to. Edward Young, the son of Dr. Edward Young, Dean of Sarum, was born at Upham, near Winchester, in 1681. He received his education at Winchester College, from whence he was removed to the university of Oxford, and in 1708 he was nominated to a law fellowship at All Souls, by Archbishop Tenison. In 1716, he was appointed to speak the Latin oration, on occasion of the laying of the foundation of the Codrington library. His first poetical adventure was an epistle to the Right Honourable George, Lord Lansdowne, published in 1712. In this poem, he began the siege of patronage in which we find him still engaged, and still unsuccessfully, in the very decline of life. "Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy, Young was not, however, a neglected, though he was a disappointed man. He enjoyed some splendid intimacies. Among his early patrons ranks the infamous Marquis of Wharton, with whom, in the beginning of 1717, he travelled into Ireland; but of this unenviable patronage, Young afterward took pains to efface the remembrance. While attached to the Exeter family, Young stood a contested election for Cirencester. He subsequently took orders, and became, we are informed, a very popular preacher. His satires appeared at successive intervals between the years 1725 and 1728. It is said that they produced him no less a sum than three thousand pounds; but he was a considerable loser by the "South-sea Dream." In July, 1730, he was presented by his college to the rectory of Welwyn, in Hertfordshre. In the following year he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the Earl of Litchfield, and widow of Colonel Lee. She died in 1741. Mr. and Mrs. Temple, the daughter and son-in-law of Lady Elizabeth by her former husband, are supposed to be the PHILANDER and NARCISSA of the NIGHT THOUGHTS; notwithstanding a passage which would seem to intimate that the three persons whose deaths he lamented, died within a few months of each other; whereas Mrs. Temple died of a consumption, at Lyons, in 1736, Mr. Temple, in 1740 but the variation was perhaps ventured on the ground of poetical license. The NIGHT THOUGHTS were begun immediately after the death of Lady Elizabeth. The preface to the Seventh Night is dated July the 7th, 1744. A scandalous and inhuman report has attributed to LORENZO, a real existence in the person of the author's own son. On a comparison of dates, it appears that the supposed Lorenzo was only eight years of age when young sat down to the composition of the NIGHT THOUGHTS. In 1762, he published "Resignation ;" a surprising display of unimpaired faculty at fourscore years of age! In April, 1765, he expired, having retained his intellects to the last. Only four years before, "good Dr Young," "Who thought even gold might come a day too late," was appointed clerk of the closet to the Princess Dowager. Of the only two friends whom he had to inen. tion in his will, viz. his housekeeper, and his "friend Henry Stevens, a hatter, at the Temple gate," one died a little time before him : "Ah me! the dire effect "Of loitering here, of death defrauded long.” THE COMPLAINT. NIGHT THE FIRST. ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ARTHUR ONSLOW, ESQ. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. TIRED Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep! Where Fortune smiles! the wretched he forsakes: From short (as usual) and disturbed repose, 1 wake; how happy they, who wake no more! Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave. I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought, From wave to wave of fancied misery, At random drove, her helm of reason lost. Though now restor'd, 'tis only change of pain; (A bitter change!) severer for severe : The day too short for my distress; and night, Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought The grave, your kingdom. There this frame shall fall But what are ye? THOU, who didst put to flight Primeval Silence, when the morning stars, O THOU, whose word from solid darkness struck Through this opaque of nature, and of soul, The bell strikes one. We take no note of time I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, Where are they? With the years beyond the flood How much is to be done! My hopes and fears Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour? |