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 On this reversion takes up ready praise; JASO samvua augue inuugins, uieu în aprи 1765, naving 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 of Zanga has been justly thought a vulgar caricature of Iago. 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 On this reversion takes up ready praise; At least, their own their future selves applaud; And scarce in human wisdom, to do more. All promise is poor dilatory man, 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;- As I have done; and shall inquire no more. "What am I? and from whence ?-I nothing know But that I am; and, since I am, conclude Something eternal: had there e'er been nought, And Adam's ancestors without an end ?- Whence Earth, and these bright orbs?- Eternal too? Would want some other father;-much design That can't be from themselves-or man that art To dance, would form an universe of dust: Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms If art, to form; and counsel, to conduct; * * * * * Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud, Smitten friends |