One obftacle muft have ftood not a little in the way of that preferment after which his whole life panted. Though he took Orders, he never intirely fhook off Politics. He was always the Lion of his master Milton, pawing to get free his hinder parts. By this conduct, if he gained fome friends, he made many enemies. Again, Young was a poet; and again, with reverence be it spoken, poets by profeffion do not always make the best clergyIf the author of the Night Thoughts compofed many fermons, he did not oblige the public with many. Befides, in the latter part of life, Young was fond of holding himself out for a man retired from the world. But he feemed to have forgotten that the fame verfe which contains oblitus meorum, contains also oblivifcendus & 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 veffel which is failing from the fhore, it only appears that the fhore alfo recedes; in life it is truly thus. thus. He who retires from the world, will find himself, in reality, deferted as fast, if not faster, by the world. The publick is not to be treated as the coxcomb treats his miftrefs-to be threatened with defertion, in order to increase fondness. Young feems to have been taken at his word. Notwithstanding his frequent complaints of being neglected, no hand was reached out to pull him from that retirement of which he declared himself enamoured. Alexander affigned no palace for the refidence of Diogenes, who boasted his furly fatisfaction with his tub,' Of the domestick manners and petty habits of the author of the Night Thoughts, I hoped to have given you an account from the best authority; but who fhall dare to fay, Tomorrow I will be wife or virtuous, or tomorrow I will do a particular thing? Upon enquiring for his housekeeper, I learned that she was buried two days before I reached the town of her abode. In a Letter from Tfcharner, a noble foreigner, to Count Haller, Tfcharner fays, he has has lately spent four days with Young at Welwyn, where the author tastes all the ease and pleasure mankind can defire. " Every 66 thing about him fhews the man, each in“dividual being placed by rule. All is neat "without art. He is very pleasant in con"versation, and extremely polite." This, and more, may poffibly be true; but Tfcharner's was a firft vifit, a visit of curiofity and admiration, and a vifit which the author expected. Of Edward Young an anecdote which wanders among readers is not true, that he was Fielding's Parfon Adams. The original of that famous painting was William Young. He too was a clergyman. He supported an uncomfortable existence by tranflating for the bookfellers from Greek; and, if he was not his own friend, was at leaft no man's enemy. Yet the facility with which this report has gained belief in the world, argues, were it not fufficiently known, that the author of the Night Thoughts bore fome refemblance to Adams. The The attention Young beftowed upon the perufal of books is not unworthy imitation. When any paffage pleafed him, he appears to have folded down the leaf. On these pasfages he bestowed a second reading. But the labours of man are too frequently vain. Before he returned, a fecond time, to much of what he had once approved, he died. Many of his books, which I have seen, are by those notes of approbation fo fwelled beyond their real bulk, that they will not shut. What though we wade in wealth, orfoar in fame! Earth's highest station ends in Here be lies! And duft to duft concludes her noblest song! The author of these lines is not without his bic jacet. By the good fenfe of his fon, it contains none of that praise which no marble can make the bad or the foolish merit; which, without the direction of a ftone or a turf, will find its way, fooner or later, to the deferving. M. S. M. S. Optimi parentis EDWARDI YOUNG, LL. D. Et Elizabethæ fæm. prænob. Conjugis ejus amantiffimæ Filius fuperftes. Is it not ftrange that the author of the Night Thoughts has infcribed no monument to the memory of his lamented wife? Yet what marble will endure as long as the poems ? Such, my good friend, is the account I have been able to collect of Young. That it may be long before any thing like what I have just transcribed be neceffary for you, is the fincere wish of, Dear Sir, Lincoln's Inn, Your greatly obliged Friend, HERBERT CROFT, Jun. P. S. |