fhowed any contempt for decency and religion. His epigram, spoken extempore upon Voltaire is well known: Voltaire happening to ridicule Milton's allegorical perfonages of Death and Sin, Dr. Young thus addreffed

him :

Thou art fo witty, profligate and thin,

Thou feem'ft a Milton with his Death and Sin.

As to his character as a poet, his compofition was inftinct in his youth, with as much vanity as was neceffary to excel in that art. He publifhed a collection of fuch of his works as he thought the best, in 1761, in four volumes, in duodecimo; and another was published fince. Among thefe, his fatires, intitled, "The Love of Fame, or, The Universal Paffion, are by moft confidered as his principal performance. They are finely characteristic of that exceffive pride, or rather folly, of following prevailing fashions, and aiming to be more than we really are, or can poffibly be. They were written in early life; and, if fmoothness of style, brilliancy of wit, and fimplicity of fubject, can insure applaufe, our author may demand it on this occafion. After the death of his wife, as he had never given any attention to domeftic affairs, fo knowing his unfitnefs for it, he referred the whole care and management of his family to his housekeeper, to whom he left a handfome legacy.

It is obferved by Dean Swift, that if Dr. Young, in his fatires, had been more merry or fevere, they would have been more generally pleafing; because mankind are more apt to be pleased with ill nature and mirth than with folid fenfe and inftruction. It is alfo obferved of his Night Thoughts, that, though they are chiefly flights of thinking almoft fuper-human, fuch as the defcription of death, from his fecret ftand, noting down the follies of a Bacchanalian Society, the epitaph upon the departed world, and the iffuing of Satan from his dungeon; yet thefe, and a great number of other remarkable fine thoughts, are fometimes overcaft with an air of gloomi

nefs and melancholy, which have a difagreeable tenden cy, and must be unpleafing to a cheerful mind; howev er, it must be acknowledged by all, that they evidence a fingular genius, a lively fancy, an extenfive knowledge of men and things, especially of the feelings of the human heart, and paint, in the strongest colours, the vanity of life, with all its fading honours and emoluments, the benefits of true piety, especially in the views of death, and the most unanfwerable arguments in fupport of the foul's immortality, and a future ftate.

G. W.

*The Night Thoughts undoubtedly have their defects, as well as beauties; but it is generally allowed the latter are far more numerous, and fo remarkably ftriking and confpicuous to the dif cerning reader, as, in his view, to eclipse the failings which other-wife might be difcovered therein.

Dr. YOUNG was convinced of the impropriety of writing the Night Thoughts in a style so much above the understanding of common readers, and faid to a friend, a week or two before he died that was he to publifh fuch another treatise, (respecting fubjects) it should be in lefs elevated language, and more fuited to the capacities of all.

THE

COMPLAINT.

NIGHT THE FIRST.

ON

LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

Humbly infcribed to the Rt. Honourable

ARTHUR ONSLOW, ESQ.

Speaker of the Houfe of Commons.

PREFACE.

As the occafion of this poem was real, not fictitious; fo the method pursued in it was rather impofed by what fpontaneoufly arofe in the author's mind, on that occafion, than meditated or defigned. Which will appear very probable from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of poetry, which is from long narrations to draw fhort morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is short and the morality arifing from it makes the bulk of the poem. The reafon of it is, that the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the writer.

THE

COMPLAINT.

NIGHT THE FIRST.

TIR'D nature's fweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready vifit pays

Where fortune fmiles; the wretched he forfakes:
Swift on his downy pinions flies from woe,
And lights on lids unfully'd with a tear.

From fhort (as ufual) and disturb'd repose
I wake: how happy they who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infeft the
grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd defponding thought,
From wave to wave of fancy'd misery,

At random drove, her helm of reafon loft:
Tho' now restor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) feverer for fevere:
The day too fhort for my diftrefs; and night,
Even in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is funfhine, to the colour of my fate.

Night, fable goddefs; from her ebon throne,
In rayless majefty, now ftretches forth
Her leaden fceptre o'er a flumb'ring world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness how profound!
Nor eye, nor lift'ning ear, an object finds;

B