1030 YOUNG, EDWARD YOUNG, THOMAS. the duties of this situation with a firm determination | In 1719 Dr. Young published "A Paraphrase on to correct the errors and abuses which had crept into the administration of the army; and the zeal and indefatigable attention with which he persevered in this arduous task were equalled only by the judgment which directed his labours. Part of the Book of Job," prefaced by a dedication to the lord chancellor Parker, which he omitted afterwards. Of his "Satires" it is not easy to fix the dates. They probably came out between 1725 and 1728, and were afterwards published collectively unIn 1809 the duke of York became unfavourably der the title of "The Universal Passion." In his distinguished, in the opinion of the nation, by the dis- preface he says that he prefers laughing at vice and closures of a female named Mary Anne Clarke; but folly, a different temper than that in which he wrote many of these charges remained unsubstantiated, and his melancholy "Night Thoughts." These satires his royal highness speedily resumed his place in pub- were followed by "The Installment," addressed to lic opinion, which he retained till the time of his Sir Robert Walpole, and by "Ocean, an Ode,” acdeath. This was brought about by a general break-companied by an "Ode to the King, pater patriæ" ing up of his constitution, and occurred on the 5th and an "Essay on Lyric Poetry," both afterwards of January, 1827. omitted by him. YOUNG, EDWARD, a celebrated divine and poet, who was born at Upham in 1681. He was educated for the profession of the law, but his strong bias towards religion induced him to enter holy orders, and he obtained the living of Welwyn, in Herts, and a king's chaplaincy. His first attempt at poetry was when Queen Anne added twelve to the number of peers in one day. In order to reconcile the people to one at least of the new lords, Young published in 1712 "An Epistle to the Right Hon. George Lord Lansdowne." He was strongly pressed, but declined republishing the recommendatory verses which he prefixed to Addison's "Cato" in 1713, and the following year appeared his "Poem on the Last Day." Before the queen's death appeared his "Force of Religion; or, Vanquished Love," a poem founded on the execution of Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guilford. This was ushered in by a flattering dedication to the countess of Salisbury, which he afterwards omitted, as he did soon after his extravagant panegyric on King George I. Young began his theatrical career as early as 1713, but his tragedy entitled "Busiris" was not brought upon the stage till 1719, and was dedicated to the duke of Newcastle. This dedication he afterwards suppressed. In 1721 his most popular tragedy, "The Revenge," made its appearance. Young, about 1719, had been taken into the Exeter family as tutor to the young Lord Burleigh. This circumstance transpired on a singular occasion. After the duke of Wharton's death, whose affairs were much involved, among other legal questions, the court of chancery had to determine whether two annuities granted by Wharton to Young were for legal considerations. One was dated March 24, 1719, and the preamble stated that it was granted in consideration of advancing the public good by the encouragement of learning, and of the love he bore to Dr. Young, &c. This, as his biographer remarks, was commendable, if not legal. The other was dated July 10, 1722; and Young, on his examination, swore that he quitted the Exeter family, and refused an annuity of 100l. which had been offered him for his life if he would continue tutor to Lord Burleigh, upon the pressing solicitations of the duke of Wharton, and his grace's assurances of providing for him in a much more ample manner. It also appeared that the duke had given him a bond for 600l., dated March 1721, in consideration of his taking several journeys, and being at great expenses in order to be chosen member of parliament at the duke's desire, and in consideration of his not taking two livings of 200l. and 4001. in the gift of All Souls' college, on his grace's promises of serving and advancing him in the world. May 1731, he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the earl of Lichfield, and widow of Colonel Lee. This lady died in 1741, and her death is said to have contributed to the mournful tenour of his much celebrated "Night Thoughts," which formed his next great publication, and that which will, in all probability, preserve his name the longest. The Nights" were begun immediately after his wife's death, and were published from 1742 to 1744. It has long been a popular notion that his own son was the Lorenzo of this poem, but this is totally inconsistent with the unquestionable fact that in 1741 this son was only eight years old. 66 Of this work we know of no more eloquent eulogium than that by Dr. Johnson. "In his 'Night Thoughts,"" says the critic," 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 of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage. The wild diffusion of the sentiments, and the digressive sallies of the imagination, would have been compressed and restrained by confinement to rhyme. The excellence of this work is not exactness, but copiousness: particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole, and in the whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation, the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity." By this extraordinary poem, written after he was sixty, it was the desire of Young to be principally known. He entitled the four volumes which he published himself, "The Works of the Author of the Night Thoughts." The composition of the "Night Thoughts" did not so entirely engross the author's mind as to prevent him from producing other compositions both in prose and verse. Among those is his prose work, entitled," The Centaur Not Fabulous. In six letters to a friend, on the life in vogue.” In 1759 he produced Conjectures on Original Composition." This was followed by "Resignation, a Poem," in which there is a visible decay of powers. In 1761 he was appointed clerk of the closet to her royal highness the princess dowager of Wales, which he did not long eujoy, as he died at Welwyn, April 1765, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. YOUNG, THOMAS, a distinguished physician and natural philosopher, who was educated partly at the university of Edinburgh, and partly at Göttingen. At the latter university he took his medical degree. He was for some time lecturer at the royal institution, and in 1807 he produced a work of ZENO-ZIMMERMANN, JOHN GEORGE. 1031 great merit entitled "A Course of Lectures on position; and that the system of writing used among Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts," and the ancient Egyptians was not simple and uniform, appended to them an admirable "Catalogue of but complex and composite, or, in other words, made Books," relating to the subject of which they treat. up of characters, some of which were used symboli. He was also the author of "A System of Practical cally, others mimetically, and a third class upon an Nosology with an Introduction to Medical Litera- arbitrary principle which it was then found impossiture," An Analysis of the Principles of Natural ble to explain. Dr. Young's death took place in the Philosophy," and "A Syllabus of Lectures on the year 1829. Elements of the Medical Sciences." ZENO. The founder of the sect of the stoics Dr. Young is, however, best known as a philolo- born at Citium in the island of Cyprus. The first gist and critic by his learned treatise on ancient part of his life was spent in commercial pursuits, but Egypt, inserted in the supplement to the "Encyclo- he was soon called to more elevated employments. pædia Britannica." It was in that celebrated article, As he was returning from Phoenicia a storm drove which has been read and studied in every part of the his ship on the coast of Attica, and he was shipcivilized world, that he first exhibited a digest of those wrecked near the Piræus. This moment of calamity discoveries in Egyptian literature which have immor- he regarded as the beginning of his fame. He entalized his name, and added a newly-explored region tered the house of a bookseller, and to dissipate his to the vast dominions of knowledge. And, in truth, melancholy reflections he began to read. The book none can know how much he achieved except those was written by Xenophon, and the merchant was so who have informed themselves how little was done pleased and captivated by the eloquence and beauties before him. In the multitude of vain attempts which, of the philosopher, that from that time he renounced in the course of nearly 2000 years had been made to the pursuits of a busy life, and applied himself to the decipher the inscriptions which cover the monuments, study of philosophy. Ten years were spent in freor are contained on the papyri found in the mum- quenting the school of Crates, and the same number mies of the ancient Egyptians, extravagance had suc- under Stilpo, Xenocrates, and Polemon. Perfect in ceeded extravagance, and absurdity had followed ab- every branch of knowledge, and improved from exsurdity, until the subject had at length been aban- perience as well as observation, Zeno opened a school doned as utterly hopeless and untractable. Men of at Athens, and soon saw himself attended by the sense had long been disgusted with the cabalistical great, the learned, and the powerful. His followers ravings of Kircher, the wild vagaries of Pluche, and were called Stoics, because they received the instructhe burlesque fancies of Palin, who discovered the tions of the philosopher in the portico called oroa. Psalms of David on monuments as old as the reign He was so respected during his lifetime that the of Sesostris; and in the confusion produced by these Athenians publicly decreed him a brazen statue and conflicting follies it was rashly concluded that, be- a crown of gold, and engraved their decree, to give cause none had as yet succeeded in finding a true so- it more publicity, on two columns in the academy, lution, the problem was insoluble. The accidental and in the Lyceum. His life was an example of sodiscovery of the tripartite inscription of Rosetta, in- berness and moderation, his manners were austere, deed, revived the hopes of the learned; and it was and to his temperance and regularity he was indebtexpected that, with the aid of the accompanying Greek ed for the continual flow of health which he always translation, the key which had been so long sought enjoyed. After he had taught publicly for fortyfor might at last be found. But even this hope be- eight years, he died in the ninety-eighth year of his gan at length to fade away; for, although the most age, 264 B. C., a stranger to diseases, and never inexact copies of the inscription were taken and circu commoded by a real indisposition. He was buried lated all over Europe, ten long years elapsed without in that part of the city called Ceramicus, where the the least progress being made towards deciphering it, Athenians raised him a monument. notwithstanding some of the first scholars of the age had tortured their ingenuity in repeated attempts to penetrate the mystery. At length, in 1814, Dr. Young gave his mind to the subject, and, availing himself of some hints thrown out by De Sacy and Akerblad,hints which, had they known how to pursue them, might have enabled those ingenious persons to anticipate the discovery, he soon succeeded in reading the whole of the demotic or enchorial part of the inscription, and immediately published his translation in the "Museum Criticum of Cambridge.' And having achieved this, the most difficult part of his task, the remainder was easy; for the process or method he had employed in reading off the enchorial was, from its very nature, equally applicable to the hieroglyphical branch of the inscription, which he accordingly deciphered and published. The results thus obtained were exceedingly curious; for it was proved beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the proper names in this inscription were spelt alphabetically; that from these an alphabet might be formed; that in the demotic as well as in the hieroglyphic branch, particular groups of characters represented particular words; that these groups were susceptible of decom ZEUXIS, a celebrated painter, born at Heraclea, which some suppose to be the Heraclea of Sicily. He flourished about 468 years before the Christian era, and was the disciple of Apollodorus, and contemporary with Parrhasius. In the art of painting he not only surpassed all his contemporaries, but also his master, and became so sensible, and at the same time so proud of the value of his pieces, that he refused to sell them, observing that no sum of money, however great, was sufficient to buy them. His most celebrated paintings were his Jupiter sitting on a throne surrounded by the gods; his Hercules strangling the serpents in the presence of his affrighted parents; his modest Penelope, and his Helen, which was afterwards placed in the temple of Juno Lacinia, in Italy. ZIMMERMANN, JOHN GEORGE, a distinguished German writer, who was born in 1728. He was educated for the practice of medicine, in which he made considerable progress. He published his work "On Solitude" in 1786. One of the most distinguished incidents of Zimmermann's life was the summons which he received to attend the great Frederic in his last illness in 1786. It was at once evi 1032 ZOROASTER-ZUINGLIUS, ULRICUS. dent that there was no room for the exercise of his ing the university, but did not survive that year, dymedical skill, but he improved the opportunity which ing March 1, 1660. he thus enjoyed of confidential intercourse with that illustrious character, whose mental faculties were preeminent to the last; and he derived from it the materials of an interesting narrative which he afterwards published. The partiality of this prince in his favour naturally disposed him to a reciprocal good opinion of the monarch; and in 1788 he published "A Defence of Frederic the Great against the Count de Mirabeau," which, in 1790, was followed by "Fragments on Frederic the Great." After a long and painful illness, Zimmermann died, October 7th, 1795. ZOROASTER, a king of Bactria, who is supposed to have lived in the age of Ninus, king of Assyria, some time before the Trojan war. According to Justin, he first invented magic, or the doctrines of the Magi, and rendered himself known by his deep and acute researches in philosophy, the origin of the world, and the study of astronomy. He was respected by his subjects and contemporaries for his abilities as a monarch, a lawgiver, and a philosopher; and though many of his doctrines are puerile and ridiculous, yet his followers are still found in numbers in the wilds of Persia and the extensive provinces of India. Like Pythagoras, Zoroaster admitted no visible object of devotion, except fire, which he considered as the most proper emblem of a supreme being; which doctrines seem to have been preserved by Numa, in the worship and ceremonies he instituted in honour of Vesta. According to some of the moderns, the doctrines, the laws, and regulations of this celebrated Bactrian are still extant, and they have been lately introduced in Europe in a French translation by M. Anquetil. The age of Zoroaster is so little known that many speak of two, three, four, and even six lawgivers of that name. Some authors, who suppose that two persons only of this name flourished, describe the first as an astronomer, living in Babylon 2459 years B. C., whilst the era of the other, who is supposed to have been a native of Persia, and the restorer of the religion of the Magi, is fixed 589, and by some 519 years B. C. ZOUCH, RICHARD, a civilian, who was born in 1590, and published a number of Latin works. Having studied the civil law, he took his bachelor's degree in that faculty in June 1614, and in January 1618 was admitted at Doctors' Commons, where he became an eminent advocate. In 1625 he was appointed principal of St. Alban's Hall, being then chancellor of the diocese of Oxford, and afterwards made judge of the high court of admiralty by King Charles I. He had a considerable hand in drawing up the reasons of the university of Oxford against the solemn league and covenant and negative oath in 1647, having contributed the law part. Yet he chose to submit to the parliamentary visitors the following year, and therefore held his principal and professorship during the usurpation. On the restoration he was reinstated in his post of judge of the admiralty, and was made one of the commissioners for regulat ZOUCH, THOMAS, an English divine, who was born in 1737. He was educated at Cambridge, and in 1793 was chaplain to the master of the rolls and rector of Scrayingham. By the death of his elder brother, the Rev. Henry Zouch, in 1795, he succeeded to an estate at Sandal, where he resided till his death. On the demise of Dr. Smith, the master of Trinity college, one of the most learned mathematicians of his age, he was requested by the vice-master and senior fellows to deliver a Latin funeral oration in honour of his memory, which is said to have been much admired for the classical elegance of its language. ZUCCARELLI, FRANCIS, a Florentine artist, who highly distinguished himself in this country during the last century. He came to England in 1752, and he met with much encouragement, and several of his pictures were engraved by Vivares. By the advice of some of his friends, he executed a collection of drawings which he disposed of by auction. They were well received, and produced a handsome sum. About 1773 he returned to Florence, and for some time relinquished his pencil, and lived upon his fortune; but part of that having been lost upon bad security, he again resumed his pencil, and was much employed by the English gentlemen who visited Italy. He died at Florence, at what time is not exactly known, but the event was confirmed to the royal academy in 1788. He was one of the original members, and consequently considered as one of the founders of the academy. ZUINGLIUS, ULRICUS, a distinguished reformer, who was born in 1487. He studied philosophy at Vienna, and divinity at Basle, where he was admitted doctor in 1505. He began to preach with good success in 1506, and was chosen minister of Glaris, a chief town in the canton of the same name, where he continued till 1516. Then he was invited to Zurich, to undertake the principal charge of that city, and to preach the word of God there, where his extensive learning and uncommon sagacity were accompanied with the most heroic intrepidity and resolution. After enduring cousiderable persecution from the ecclesiastical authorities, the diet of Nuremburg ordained by an 'edict "that he should go on to teach and preach the word of God, and the doctrine of the gospel, after the same manner that he had hitherto done; and that no pastors, either in the city or country, should teach any thing that could not be proved by the gospel, and should also abstain from accusations of heresy." From this time the reformation made the most rapid progress. But Zuinglius did not confine himself to preaching, as he wrote several books in support of the great cause in which he was engaged, and he died October 11, 1531, having been killed in an engagement between the catholics and protestants. His last words were-"Can this be considered as a calamity? They can indeed kill the body, but they are not able to kill the soul!" THOMS, PRINTER, 12, WARWICK SQUARE. |