The Life of Dr. Edward Young.

DR. YOUNG'S father, whose name was also Edward, was Fellow of Winchester College, Rector of Upham in Hampshire, and in the latter part of his life, Dean of Sarum; chaplain to William and Mary, and afterwards to queen Ann. Jacob tells us that the latter, when Princess Royal, did him the honour to stand godmother to our poet; and that, upon her ascending the throne, he was appointed Clerk of the Closet to her Majesty.

the witty and profligate Duke of Wharton, and his gay companions, by whom his finances might be improved, but not his morals. This is the period at which Pope is said to have told Warburton, our young author had "much genius without common sense:" and it should seem likewise that he possessed a zeal for religion with little of its practical influence; for, with all his gaiety and ambition, he was an advocate for Revelation and ChrisIt does not appear that this gentleman distin- tianity. Thus when Tindel, the atheistical philoguished himself in the Republic of Letters, other-sopher, used to spend much of his time at All wise than by a Latin Visitation Sermon, preached Souls, he complained: "The other boys I can alin 1686, and by two volumes of Sermons, printed ways answer, because I know whence they have in 1702, and which he dedicated to Lord Bradford, through whose interest he probably received some of his promotions. The Dean died at Sarum in 1705, aged 63; after a very short illness, as appears by the exordium of Bishop Burnet's sermon at the Cathedral on the following Sunday. "Death (said he) has been of late walking round us, and making breach upon us, and has now carried away the head of this body with a stroke; so that he, whom you saw a week ago distributing the holy mysteries, is now laid in the dust. But he still lives in the many excellent directions he has left us, both how to live and how to die."

Our author, who was an only son, was born at his father's rectory, in 1681, and received the first part of his education (as his father had formerly done) at Winchester College; from whence, in his nineteenth year, he was placed on the foundation of New College, Oxford; whence again, on the death of the Warden in the same year, he was removed to Corpus Christi. In 1708, Archbishop Tennison nominated him to a law fellowship at All Souls, where, in 1744, he took the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law, and five years afterward that of Doctor.

their arguments, which I have read an hundred times; but that fellow Young is continually pestering me with something of his own."

This apparent inconsistency is rendered the more striking from the different kinds of composition in which, at this period, he was engaged: viz. a political panegyric on the new Lord Lansdowne, and a sacred Poem on the Last Day, which was written in 1710, but not published till 1713. It was dedicated to the Queen, and acknowledges an obligation, which has been differently understood, either as referring to her having been his godmother, or his patron; for it is inferred from a couplet of Swift's, that Young was a pensioned advocate of government:

"Whence Gay was banished in disgrace,
Where Pope will never show his face,
Where Y must torture his invention,
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension."

This, however, might be mere report, at this period, since Swift was not over-nice in his authorities, and nothing is more common than to suppose the advocate, and the flatterer of the great, an hireling. Flattery seems indeed to have been our poBetween the acquisition of these academic hon- et's besetting sin through life; but if interest was ours, Young was appointed to speak the Latin his object, he must have been frequently disappointOration on the foundation of the Codrington Li-ed; and to those disappointments we probably owe brary; which he afterwards printed, with a dedi- some of his best reflections on human life. cation to the ladies of that family, in English. In this part of his life, our author is said not to have been that ornament to virtue and religion which he afterwards became. This is easy to be accounted for. He had been released from parental authority by his father's death; and his genius and conversation had introduced him to the notice of

S

Of his Last Day, (his first considerable performance) Dr. Johnson observes, that it "has an equability and propriety which he afterwards either

At the instigation of this peer he was once candidate for a seat in Parliament, but without success, and the expences were paid by Wharton.

never endeavoured for, or never attained. Many connexion with the Duke of Wharton, who went paragraphs are noble, and few are mean; yet the thither in 1717. But he can not have long rewhole is languid: the plan is too much extended, mained there, as in 1719, he brought out his first and a succession of images divides and weakens tragedy of Busiris, at Drury Lane, and dedicated the general conception. But the great reason why it to the Duke of Newcastle. This tragedy had the reader is disappointed is, that the thought of been written some years, though now first performThe Last Day makes every man more than poeti-ed; for it is to our author's credit, that many of cal, by spreading over his mind a general obscurity his works were laid by him a considerable time beof sacred horror, that oppresses distinction and fore they were offered to the public. Our great disdains expression." The subject is indeed truly dramatic critic pronounces this piece "too far reawful, and was peculiarly affecting to this cele- moved from known life," to affect the passions. brated critic, who never could, without trembling, His next performance was The Revenge, the meditate upon death, or the eternal world. The the dramatic character of which is sufficiently aspoet's theological system, moreover, was not, at certained by its still keeping possession of the stage. least when he wrote this, the most consistent and The hint of this is supposed to have been taken evangelical: I mean he had not those views of the from Othello; "but the reflections, the incidents, Christian atonement, and of pardoning grace, which and the diction, are original." The success of this give such a glory to his Night Thoughts, and induced him to attempt another tragedy, which would much more have illumined this composition. All the preparation he seems to have there in view, is

By tears and groans, and never-ceasing care, "And all the pious violence of prayer,"

was written in 1721, but not brought upon the stage for thirty years afterwards; and then without success, as we shall have farther occasion to observe. It has been remarked, that all his plays conclude with suicide,* and I much fear the frequent introduction of this unnatural crime upon the stage, has contributed greatly to its commission.

We have passed over our Author's Paraphrase on Part of the Book of Job, in order to bring his dramatic performances together. The Paraphrase has been well received, and has often been print

to fit himself for the Tribunal. Moreover, the project of future misery is too awful for poetic enlargement, and makes the piece too terrible to be read with pleasure; while the attempt to particularize the solemnities of judgment, lowers their sublimity, and makes some parts of the description, as Dr. Johnson has observed, appear mean, and ed with his Night Thoughts. This would be adeven bordering on burlesque. This poem, how- mired, perhaps, as much as any of his works, could ever, was well received upon the whole, and the we forget the original; but there is such a dignifibetter for being written by a layman, and it was ed simplicity even in our prose translation of the commended by the ministry and their party, be- poetic parts of scripture, that we can seldom bear cause the dedication flattered their mistress and her government-far too much, indeed, for the nature of the subject.

to see them reduced to rhyme, or modern measures. His next, and one of his best performances, is entitled The Love of Fame the Universal Passion, Dr. Young's next poem was entitled, the Force in seven characteristic Satires, originally publishof Religion, and founded on the deaths of Lady ed separately, between the years 1725 and 1728. Jane Grey and her husband. "It is written with This, according to Dr. Johnson, is a very great elegance enough," according to Dr. Johnson; but performance. It is said to be a series of epigrams, was "never popular:" for "Jane is too heroic to be and if it be, it is what the author intended: his pitied." The dedication of this piece to the count- endeavour was at the production of striking disess of Salisbury was also inexcusably fulsome, tichs, and pointed sentences; and his distichs have and, I think, profane. Indeed, the author himself the weight of solid sentiment, and his points the seems afterwards to have thought so; for when he sharpness of resistless truth. His characters are collected his smaller picces into volumes, he very judiciously suppressed this and most of his other dedications.

In some part of his life, Young certainly went to Ireland, and was there acquainted with the eccentrical Dean Swift; and his biographers seem agreed, that this was, most probably, during his

• From his seventh Satire it appears also, that he was once abroad, probably about this time, and saw a field of battle covered with the slain; and it is affirmed that once, with a clas sic in his hand, he wandered into the enemy's encampment, and had some difficulty to convince them, that he was only an absent poet, and not a spy.

often selected with discernment, and drawn with nicety; his illustrations are often happy, and his reflections often just. His species of Satire is between those of Horace and Juvenal: he has the gaiety of Horace without his laxity of numbers; and the morality of Juvenal, with greater variety of images." Swift, indeed, has pronounced of these Satires, that they should have been either more merry, or more severe :" in that case, they

* Our author seems early to have been enamoured with the Tragic Muse, and with the charms of melancholy. Dr. Ridley relates, that, when at Oxford, he would sometimes shut up his room, and study by a lamp at mid-day

might probably have caught the popular taste more; as his visiter was a man of rank, his patron, and but this does not prove that they would have been his friend; and as persuasion had no effect on him, better. The opinion of the Duke of Grafton, they took him, one by the right hand, and the other however, was of more worth than all the opinions by the left, and led him to the garden gate. He of the wits, if it be true as related by Mr. Spence, then laid his hand upon his heart, and in the exthat his grace presented the author with two thou-pressive manner, for which he was so remarkable, sand pounds. "Two thousand pounds for a po- uttered the following lines: em!" said one of the Duke's friends: to whom his grace replied, that he had made an excellent bargain, for he thought it worth four.

"Thus Adam look'd when from the garden driven,
And thus disputed orders sent from Heav'n;
Like him 1 go, but yet to go am loth:

On the accession of George I., Young flattered Like him I go, for angels drove us both. him with an Ode, called Ocean, to which was preHard was his fate, but mine still more unkind: His Eve went with him, but mine stays behind." fixed an introductory Ode to the King, and an essay on Lyric Poetry: of these the most observa- in reference to Voltaire: who, while in England, Another striking instance of his wit is related ble thing is, that the poet and the critic could not (probably at Mr. Doddington's seat in Dorsetshire,) agree: for the Rules of the Essay condemned the ridiculed, with some severity, Milton's allegorical Poetry, and the Poetry set at defiance the maxims of the Essay. The biographer of British Poets who was one of the company, immediately adpersonages, Sin and Death; on which Young, has truly said, "he had least success in his lyric dressed him in the following extemporaneous disattempts, in which he seems to have been under tich: some malignant influence: he is always labouring to be great, and at last is only turgid."

"Thou art so witty, profligate, and thin,

these lines,

"On Dorset downs, when Milton's page

Thou seem'st a Milton, with his Death and Sin." We now leave awhile the works of our author, Soon after his marriage, our author again in to contemplate the conduct of the man. About dulged his poetical vein in two odes, called The this time his studies took a more serious turn; and, Sea Peace, with a poetical Dedication to Voltaire forsaking the law, which he had never practised, in which the above incident seems alluded to in when he was almost fifty, he entered into orders, and was, in 1728, appointed Chaplain to the King. One of Pope's biographers relates, that, on this occasion Young applied to his brother poet for direction in his studies, who jocosely recommended Thomas Aquinas, which the former taking seriously, he retired to the suburbs with the angelic doctor, till his friend discovered him, and brought him back.

With Sin and Death provok'd thy rage." which afterward, with several of his smaller pieces, In 1731 he printed an Argument for Peace, and most of his dedications, was consigned by his own hand to merited oblivion: in which circumstance he deserves both the thanks and imitation of posterity.

His Vindication of Providence, and Estimate of Human Life, were published in this year; they lose his wife; her daughter by Colonel Lee, and About the year 1741 he had the unhappiness to have gone through several editions, and are gene- this daughter's husband, Mr. Temple. What afrally regarded as the best of his prose compositions: fiction he felt for their loss, may be seen in his but the plan of the latter never was completed. Night Thoughts, written on this occasion. They The following year he printed a very loyal sermon are addressed to Lorenzo, a man of pleasure, and on King Charles' Martyrdom, entitled, An Apo- of the world; and who, it is generally supposed, logy for Princes. In 1730, he was presented by was his own son, then labouring under his father's his college to the rectory of Welwyn, in Hertford- displeasure. His son-in-law is said to be characshire, worth about 3001. a year, beside the lordship terized by Philander, and his lady's daughter was of the manor annexed to it. This year he relaps- certainly the person he speaks of under the appeled again to poetry, and published a loyal Naval lation of Narcissa.-(See Night III.) In her last Ode, and Two Epistles to Pope, of which nothing illness, which was a consumption, he accompaniparticular need be said. He was married, in 1731, to Lady Elizabeth Lyons, in the south of France, at which place she ed her to Montpellier, or, as Mr. Croft says, to Lee, widow of Colonel Lee, and daughter to the died soon after her arrival. Earl of Litchfield; and it was not long before she brought him a son and heir.

Sometime before his marriage, the Doctor walking in his garden at Welwyn, with his lady and another, a servant came to tell him a gentleman wished to speak to him. "Tell him," said the Doctor, "I am too happily engaged to change my situation." The ladies insisted that he should go,

Being regarded as an heretic, she was denied to steal a grave, and inter her privately with his christian burial, and her afflicted father was obliged own hands;* (See Night III.) In this celebrated poem he thus addresses Death:

written by Mr. W. Taylor, from Montpellier, to his sister, I take the liberty of inserting here a passage from a letter

"Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain; And thrice, ere thrice yor, moon had filled her horn." These lines have been universally understood of the above deaths; but this supposition can no way be reconciled with Mr. Croft's dates, who says, Mrs. Temple died in 1736, Mr. Temple in 1740, and Lady Young in 1741. Which quite inverts the order of the poet, who makes Narcissa's death follow Philander's:

"Narcissa follows e'er his tomb is closed."

Night Thoughts was written; for Night Seventh is dated, in the original edition, July 1744.

For the literary merits of this work we shall again refer to the criticism of Dr. Johnson, which is seldom exceptionable, when he is not warped by political prejudices. "In his Night Thoughts," says the Doctor, speaking of our author, "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 Night III. of every odour. This is one of the few poems in There is no possible way to reconcile these con- which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme, tradictions: either we must reject Mr. Croft's but with disadvantage. The wild diffusion of the dates, for which he gives us no authority, or we sentiments and the digressive sallies of imaginamust suppose the characters and incidents, if not tion, would have been compressed and restrained entirely fictitious, as the author assures us that by confinement to rhyme. The excellence of this they are not, were accommodated by poetic licence work is not exactness, but copiousness: particular to his purpose. As to the character of Lorenzo, lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whether taken from real life, or moulded purely in whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence the author's imagination, Mr. Croft has sufficiently like that ascribed to Chinese plantations, the magproved that it could not intend his son, who was nificence of vast extent and endless diversity." but eight years old when the greater part of the

Mrs. Mouncher, in the preceding year 1789, which may be considered as curious, and will be interesting and affecting to the admirers of Dr. Young and his Narcissa:

"I know you, as well as myself, are not a little partial to

So far Dr. Johnson-Mr. Croft says, "Of these poems the two or three first have been perused more eagerly and more frequently than the rest. When he got as far as the fourth or fifth, his original motive for taking up the pen was answered: his grief was naturally either diminished or exhausted. We still find the same pious poet; but we hear less of Philander and Narcissa, and less of the mourner whom he loved to pity."

Dr. Young. Had you been with me in a solitary walk the other day, you would have shed a tear over the remains of his dear Narcissa. I was walking in a place called the King's Garden; and there I saw the spot where she was interred. Mr. J, Mrs. H—, and myself, had some conversation Notwithstanding one might be tempted, from with the gardener respecting it; who told us, that about 45 years ago, Dr. Young was here with his daughter for her some passages in the Night Thoughts, to suppose health; that he used constantly to be walking backward and he had taken his leave of terrestrial things, in the forward in this garden (no doubt as he saw her gradually de-alarming year 1745, he could not refrain from reclining, to find the most solitary spot, where he might show turning again to politics, but wrote Poetical Rehis last token of affection, by leaving her remains as secure flections on the State of the Kingdom, originally as possible from those savages, who would have denied her a

christian burial: for at that time, an Englishman in this appended to the Night Thoughts, but never recountry was looked upon as an heretic, infidel, and devil. printed with them. They begin now to verge from their bigotry, and allow them In 1753, his tragedy of The Brothers, written at least to be men, though not christians, I believe;) and that thirty years before, now first appeared upon the he bribed the under gardener, belonging to his father, to let stage. It had been in rehearsal when Young took him bury his daughter, which he did; pointed out the most

solitary place, and dug the grave. The man, through a private door, admitted the Doctor at midnight, bringing his beloved daughter, wrapped up in a sheet, upon his shoulder: he laid her in the hole, sat down, and (as the man expressed it) 'rained tears!' With pious sacrilege a grave I stole.' The

orders, and was withdrawn on that occasion. The Rector of Welwyn devoted 1000l. to "The Society for the propagation of the Gospel," and estimating the probable produce of this play at such a man who was thus bribed is dead, but the master is still living. sum, he perhaps thought the occasion might sanctiBefore the man died, they were one day going to dig, and set fy the means; and not thinking so unfavourably some flowers, &c. in this spot where she was buried. The of the stage as other good men have done, he comman said to his master, 'Don't dig there; for, so many years mitted the monstrous absurdity of giving a play for ago, I buried an English lady there.' The master was much the propagation of the gospel! The author was, surprised; and as Doctor Young's book had made much noise in France, it led him to inquire into the matter: and only two years ago it was known for a certainty that that was the place, and in this way: There was an English nobleman here, who was acquainted with the governor of this place; and wishing to ascertain the fact, he obtained permission to dig up the ground, where he found some bones, which were examined by a surgeon, and pronounced to be the remains of a human body: this, therefore, puts the authenticity of it beyond a doubt." See Evan. Mag. for 1797, p. 444.

(as is often the case with authors) deceived in his calculation. The Brothers was never a favourite with the public: but that the society might not suffer, the doctor made up the deficiency from his own pocket.

His next was a prose performance, entitled, "The Centaur not fabulous; in Six letters to a Friend on the Life in Vogue." The third of these

letters describes the death-bed of "the gay, young, April 12, 1765, and was buried, according to his noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched desire, by the side of his lady, under the altar-piece Altamont," whom report supposed to be Lord of that church, which is said to be ornamented in Euston. But whether Altamont or Lorenzo were real or fictitious characters, it is certain the author could be at no loss for models for them among the gay nobility, with whom he was acquainted.

a singular manner with an elegant piece of needlework by Lady Young, and some appropriate inscriptions, painted by the direction of the doctor. His best monument is to be found in his works; In 1759, appeared his lively "Conjectures on but a less durable one in marble was erected by Original Composition;" which, according to Mr. [his only son and heir, with a very modest and senCroft, appear "more like the production of untam- sible inscription. This son, Mr. Frederick Young, ed, unbridled youth, than of jaded fourscore." This had the first part of his education at Winchester letter contains the pleasing account of the death of Addison, and his dying address to Lord Warwick,-"See how a Christian can die!"

school, and becoming a scholar upon the foundation, was sent, in consequence thereof, to New College, in Oxford; but there being no vacancy (though In 1762, but little before his death, Young pub- the society waited for one no less than two years) lished his last, and one of his least esteemed poems, he was admitted in the mean time in Baliol, where "Resignation," which was written on the follow- he behaved so imprudently as to be forbidden the ing occasion:-Observing that Mrs. Boscawen, in college. This misconduct disobliged his father so the midst of her grief for the loss of the admiral, much, that it is said he would never see him afterderived consolation from a perusal of the Night wards: however, by his will he bequeathed to him Thoughts, her friend Mrs. Montague, proposed a the bulk of his fortune, which was considerable, revisit to the author, by whom they were favourably serving only a legacy to his friend Stevens, the hatreceived; and were pleased to confess that his "un- ter at Temple-gate, and 1000l. to his house-keeper, bounded genius appeared to greater advantage in with his dying charge to see all his manuscripts dethe companion than even in the author; that the stroyed; which may have been some loss to posChristian was in him a character still more inspir- terity, though none, perhaps, to his own fame. ed, more enraptured, more sublime than the poet, and that in his ordinary conversation,

Dr. Young, as a christian and divine, has been reckoned an example of primeval piety. He was "Letting down the golden chain from high, an able orator, but it is not known whether he He drew his audience upward to the sky." composed many sermons, and it is certain that he On this occasion, at the request of these ladies, published very few. The following incident does the author produced his Resignation, above-men- honour to his feelings: when preaching in his turn tioned, and which has been so unmercifully treated one Sunday at St. James's, finding he could not by the critics, but it has, in some measure, been gain the attention of his audience, his pity for rescued from their hands by Dr. Johnson, who says, "It was falsely represented as a proof of decayed faculties. There is Young in every stanza, such as he often was in his highest vigour."

their folly got the better of all decorum; he sat back in the pulpit, and burst into a flood of tears.

INVISIBILIA NON DECIPIUNT.

His turn of mind was naturally solemn; and he usually when at home in the country, spent many We now approach the closing scene of our au- hours walking among the tombs in his own church thor's life of which, unhappily, we have few par- yard. His conversation, as well as writings, had ticulars. For three or four years before his death, all a reference to a future life; and this turn of he appears to have been incapacitated, by the in- mind mixed itself even with his improvements in firmities of age for public duty; yet he perfectly en- gardening; he had, for instance, an alcove, with a joyed his intellects to the last, and even his vivaci- bench so well painted in it, that at a distance it ty; for in his last illness, a friend mentioning the seemed to be real; but upon a nearer approach the recent decease of a person who had long been in a deception was perceived, and this motto appeared: decline, and observing "that he was quite worn to a shell before he died;" "very likely," replied the doctor; "but what is become of the kernel ?"—He is said to have regretted to another friend, that his Night Thoughts, of all his works most calculated to do good, were written so much above the understanding of common readers, as to contract their sphere of usefulness: This, however, ought not, perhaps to be regretted, since there is a great sufficiency of good books for common readers, and the style of that work will always introduce it where plainer compositions would not be read.

He died at the Parsonage House, at Welwyn,

The things unseen do not deceive us.

In another part of his garden was also this inscription:

Mr. Croft denies this circumstance, and calls the poet's son his friend. He does not, however, pretend to vindicate the conduct of the youth; but he relates his repentance and regret, which is far better. Perhaps it is not possible wholly to vindicate the father. Great genius, even accompanied with piety,

is not always most ornamental to domestic life; and "the

prose of ordinary occurrences," says Croft, "is beneath the dignity of poets."