EDWARD YOUNG, son of Edward Young, a fellow of Winchester College and rector of Upham, was born at Upham, near Winchester, in June, 1681. He received his early education on the foundation of Winchester College, and was afterwards transferred to New College, Oxford. In this university he obtained a Law Fellowship, and subsequently, in 1719, took the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws;-he also wrote poems at this time, and was distinguished for his Latin orations, but had not made himself eminently remarkable for the rigid morality which afterwards characterised his writings. Political connexions, as was usual in those days of party, soon wound themselves around him. He praised Addison, and was abused by Swift, who accused him of being a court pensioner. The truth of this charge is more than doubtful, since Young, shortly before the time to which it refers, had entered the Earl of Exeter's family as tutor to Lord Burleigh. After a year or two, however, it is certain that he resigned this occupation, at the pressing solicitations of the notorious Duke of Wharton, in favour of a dependance much less honourable. He now, for some years, lived upon town, and was understood to have had no small share in some of the actions which have associated the name of his noble patron with the "scorn and wonder of his days." The majority of his tragedies were written and produced during this period, and in the great success of the Revenge his reputation rose considerably. His publie notoriety now threatened to remove him for ever from the grave and learned pursuits in which his life had begun. He adventured for a seat in the House of Commons, but, though supported by all the influence of the profligate Wharton, failed. He returned, in consequence, to his poetry, and vented it characteristically enough in the shape of satire. His "Universal Passion," keenly and powerfully written, was soon after given to the world; and was immediately acknowledged with all the attention and respect which were considered due to the holder of so sharp a pen. Young instantly, though now in his fiftieth year, entered into orders, was appointed chaplain to the king, and received a small living from his college. With his new profession his habits underwent a change so extreme as to defeat the purpose he had in view; for, though from this to the close of his life he would seem to have had the constant expectation of a bishopric, the distributors of such preferment took advantage of his professed love of retirement, and his fervent assertions of the vanity of ambitious desire, to bestow their mitres elsewhere. Young's disappointment in this respect was embittered by domestic calamities. In 1731 he had married a young widow, Lady Elizabeth Lee, the daughter of the Earl of Lichfield; and the issue of the marriage was a son, whose after follies "cast a gloom over the evening of his father's days." Nor was this Young's only cause of sorrow. His wife, and two of the children of his first marriage, to whom he was strongly attached, were successively removed from him by death. "Insatiate archer! could not one suffice! Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain!" The victim of many sorrows and disappointments, Dr. Young, after publishing in a series of books his famous Night Thoughts, died in April 1765, having lived to his eighty-fourth year upon the small living granted him by his College. Dr. Young was a man of great general powers of mind. He had an admirable command of language, and may stand in the first rank of gloomy satirists. In also admitting that in his Night Thoughts are to be found numerous passages of lofty and sustained reflection, it should be added that that work, neither in plan nor in execution, deserves the reputation it has acquired. It was not worthy of Young, after the life he had lived, to sit down near its close in a fit of resentful melancholy, and strive to terrify the world with the bugbears of religious horror. This is surely not what a true poet would have done, whose duty and whose pride it is to make poetry shed light and life upon man, not darkness and death, and who never sets himself a rigid task, or shuts himself up in a world of personal and morbid feeling, but goes round worlds universal, actual, infinite, and unseen, in visions of hope and beauty. The real portion of Dr. Young's powers found vent, as we have intimated, in the satirical form, and the general style of his epistles is remarkably terse and epigrammatic. His tragedy of the Revenge has kept possession of the stage; but its character PROCRASTINATION is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. If not so frequent, would not this be strange? That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still. Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, "That all men are about to live," For ever on the brink of being born. All pay themselves the compliment to think. They one day shall not drivel: and their pride his eighty-fourth year upon the small living granted him by his College. Dr. Young was a man of great general powers of mind. He had an admirable command of language, and may stand in the first rank of gloomy satirists. In also admitting that in his Night Thoughts are to be found numerous passages of lofty and sustained reflection, it should be added that that work, neither in plan nor in execution, deserves the reputation it has acquired. It was not worthy of Young, after the life he had lived, to sit down near its close in a fit of resentful melancholy, and strive to terrify the world with the bugbears of religious horror. This is surely not what a true poet would have done, whose duty and whose pride it is to make poetry shed light and life upon man, not darkness and death, and who hever sets himself a rigid task, or shuts himself up in a world of personal and morbid feeling, but goes round worlds universal, actual, infinite, and unseen, in visions of hope and beauty. The real portion of Dr. Young's powers found vent, as we have intimated, in the satirical form, and the general style of his epistles is remarkably terse and epigrammatic. His tragedy of the Revenge has kept possession of the stage; but its character PROCRASTINATION is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. If not so frequent, would not this be strange? That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still. Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, "That all men are about to live," For ever on the brink of being born. All pay themselves the compliment to think. They one day shall not drivel: and their pride At least, their own their future selves applaud; And scarce in human wisdom, to do more. And that through every stage; when young, indeed, As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same. And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal, but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread; But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace is found. Retire; the world shut out;-thy thoughts call home;— Lock up thy senses;-let no passion stir;— |