YOUNG.

TH

HE following life was written, at my request, by a gentleman who had better information than I could easily have obtained; and the publick will perhaps wish that I had folicited and obtained more fuch favours from him.

"DEAR SIR,

In confequence of our different converfations about authentick materials for the Life of Young, I fend you the following detail. It is not, I confefs, immediately in the line of my profeffion; but hard indeed is our fate at the bar, if we may not call a few hours now-and-then our own.

Of great men, fomething must always be faid to gratify curiofity. Of the great author of the Night Thoughts much has been told of which there never could have been proofs; and little care appears to have been taken to tell that of which proofs, with little trouble, might have been procured.

EDWARD YOUNG was born at Upham, near Winchester, in June, 1681. He was the fon of Edward

ward Young, at that time Fellow of Winchefter Col lege and Rector of Upham; who was the fon of Jo. Young of Woodhay in Berkshire, ftyled by Wood gentleman. In September 1682 the Poet's father was collated to the prebend of Gillingham Minor, in the church of Sarum, by bifhop Ward. When Ward's faculties were impaired by age, his duties were neceffarily performed by others. We learn from Wood, that, at a vilitation of Sprat, July the 12th, 1686, the prebendary preached a Latin fermon, afterwards published, with which the Bifhop was fo pleafed, that he told the Chapter he was concerned to find the preacher had one of the worst prebends in their church. Some time after this, in confequence of his merit and reputation, or of the intereft of Lord Bradford, to whom, in 1702, he dedicated two volumes of fermons, he was appointed chaplain to King William and Queen Mary, and preferred to the deanery of Sarum. Jacob, who wrote in 1720, fays, he was chaplain and clerk of the ciofet to the late Queen, who honoured him by standing godmother to the Poet. His fellowship of Winchester be refigned in favour of a Mr. Harris, who married his only daughter. The Dean died at Sarum, after a thort illnefs, in 1705, in the fixty-third year of his age. On the Sunday after his deccafe Bishop Burnet preached at the cathedral, and began his fermon with faying, "Death has been "of late walking round us, and making breach upon breach upon us, and has now carried away the head "of this body with a ftroke; fo that he, whom you "faw a week ago diftributing the holy mysteries, is "now laid in the duft. But he fill lives in the many

"excellent

* excellent directions he has left us, both how to live "and how to die."

The Dean placed his fon upon the foundation at Winchester College, where he had himself been edu cated. At this school Edward Young remained till the election after his eighteenth birth-day, the period at which those upon the foundation are fuperannuated. Whether he did not betray his abilities early in life, or his masters had not skill enough to discover in their pupil any marks of genius for which he merited reward, or no vacancy at Oxford afforded them an opportunity to bestow upon him the reward provided for merit by William of Wykeham; certain it is, that to an Oxford fellowship our Poet did not fucceed. By chance, or by choice, New College does not number among its Fellows him who wrote the Night Thoughts.

On the 13th of October, 1703, he was entered an Independent Member of New College, that he might live at little expence in the Warden's lodgings, who was a particular friend of his father, till he fhould be qualified to ftand for a fellowship at All-fouls. In a few months the warden of New College died. He then removed to Corpus College. The Prefident of this Society, from regard alfo for his father, invited him thither, in order to leffen his academical expences. In 1708, he was nominated to a law fellowship at Allfouls by Archbishop Tenifon, into whofe hands it came by devolution.-Such repeated patronage, while it juftifies Burnet's praise of the father, reflects credit on the conduct of the fon. The manner in which it was exerted feems to prove, that the father did not leave behind him much wealth,

VOL. IV.

On

On the 23d of April, 1714, Young took his degree of Batchelor of Civil Laws, and his Doctor's degree on the 10th of June, 1719.

Soon after he went to Oxford, he discovered, it

is faid, an inclination for pupils. Whether he ever commenced tutor is not known. None has hitherto boafted to have received his academical inftruction from the author of the Night Thoughts.

It is certain that his college was proud of him no lefs as a scholar than as a poet; for, in 1716, when the foundation of the Codrington Library was laid, two years after he had taken his Batchelor's degree, he was appointed to speak the Latin oration. This is at least particular for being dedicated in English To the Ladies of the Codrington Family. To thefe Ladies he says, "that he was unavoidably flung into a fingularity, by being obliged to write an epistle-dedicatory void of common-place, and fuch an one as was never published before by any author whatever :that this practice abfolved them from any obligation of reading what was prefented to them ;-and that the bookfeller approved of it, because it would make people ftare, was abfurd enough, and perfectly right."

Of this oration there is no appearance in his own edition of his works; and prefixed to an edition by Curll and Tonfon, in 1741, is a letter from Young to Curll, if Curll may be credited, dated December the 9th, 1739, wherein he fays he has not leifure to review what he formerly wrote, and adds, "I have "not the Epifle to Lord Lanfdowne. If you will take "my advice, I would have you omit that, and the "oration on Codrington. I think the collection will "fell better without them."

There

There are who relate, that, when first Young found himself independent, and his own master at All-souls, he was not the ornament to religion and morality which he afterwards became.

The authority of his father, indeed, had ceased fome time before by his death; and Young was certainly not ashamed to be patronized by the infamous WharBut Wharton befriended in Young, perhaps, the poet, and particularly the tragedian. If virtuous authors must be patronized only by virtuous peers, who fhall point them out?

Yet Pope is faid by Ruffhead to have told Warburton, that "Young had much of a fublime genius, though without common fenfe; fo that his genius, having no guide, was perpetually liable to degenerate into bombaft. This made him pafs a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets: but his having a very good heart enabled him to fupport the clerical character when he affumed it, first with decency, and afterwards with honour."

They who think ill of Young's morality in the early part of his life, may perhaps be wrong; but Tindal could not err in his opinion of Young's warmth and ability in the cause of religion. Tindal used to spend much of his time at All-fouls. "The other "boys," faid the atheift, "I can always anfwer, be"cause I always know whence they have their arguments, which I have read an hundred times; but "that fellow Young is continually peftering me with fomething of his own."

After all, Tindal and the cenfurers of Young may be reconcileable. Young might, for two or three years, have tried that kind of life, in which his na