tural principles would not fuffer him to wallow long. If this were fo, he has left behind him not only his evidence in favour of virtue, but the potent teftimony of experience against vice.

We fhall foon fee that one of his earliest productions was more ferious than what comes from the generality of unfledged poets.

Young perhaps afcribed the good fortune of Addifon to the Pocm to his Majefty, prefented, with a copy of verfes, to Somers; and hoped that he alfo might foar to wealth and honours on wings of the fame kind. His first poetical flight was when Queen Anne called up to the Houfe of Lords the fons of the Earls of Northampton and Ayletbury, and added, in one day, ten others to the number of peers. In order to reconcile the people to one at leaft of the new Lords, he published, in 1712, in Epistle to the Right Honourable George Lord Landowne. In this compofition the poet pours out his panegyrick with the extravagance of a young man, who thinks his prefent ftock of wealth will never be exhaufted.

The poem feems intended also to reconcile the publick to the late peace. This is endeavoured to be done by thewing that men are flain in war, and that in peace barvets wave, and commerce fwells ber fail. If this be humanity, is it politicks? Another purpofe of this epiftle appears to have been, to prepare the publick for the reception of fome tragedy of his on. His Lordship's patronage, he fays, will not let him repent his paflion for the stage ;-and the particular praif beflowed on Othello and Oroonoko looks as if fome. fuch character as Zarga was even then in contempla. tion. The affectionate mention of the death of his

friend Harrison of New College, at the clofe of this poem, is an instance of Young's art, which difplayed itself so wonderfully fome time afterwards in the Night Thoughts, of making the publick a party in his private forrow,

Should justice call upon you to cenfure this poem, it ought at least to be remembered that he did not infert it into his works; and that in the letter to Curll, as we have seen, he advises its omiffion. The bookfellers, in the late body of English Poetry, fhould have distinguished what was deliberately rejected by the refpective authors. This I fhall be careful to do with regard to Young. "I think," fays he, "the follow"ing pieces in four volumes to be the most excufe"able of all that I have written; and I wifh lefs apology "was needful for thefe. As there is no recalling what "is got abroad, the pieces here republifhed I have "revifed and corrected, and rendered them as pardon"able as it was in my power to do."

Shall the gates of repentance be fhut only against literary finners?

When Addifon published Cato in 1713, Young had the honour of prefixing to it a recommendatory copy of verfes. This is one of the pieces which the author of the Night Thoughts did not republifh.

On the appearance of his Poem on the Laf Day, Addifon did not return Young's compliment; but The Englishman of October 29, 1713, which was probably written by Addifon, fpeaks handfomely of this poem. The Last Day was published foon after the peace. The vice-chancellor's imprimatur, for it was firft printed at Oxford, is dated May the 19th, 1713. From the Exordium Young appears to have spent fome time on

the compofition of it. While other bards with Britain's bero fet their fouls on fire, he draws, he says, a deeper fcene. Marlborough bad been confidered by Britain as her hero; but, when the Laft Day was publifhed, female cabal had blafted for a time the laurels of Blenheim. This ferious poem was finished by Young as early as 1710, before he was thirty; for part of it is printed in the Tatler. It was infcribed to the Queen, in a dedication, which, for fome reason, he did not admit into his works. It tells her, that his only title to the great honour he now does himself is the obligation he formerly received from her royal indulgence.

Of this obligation nothing is now known, unless he alluded to her being his godmother. He is faid indeed to have been engaged at a fettled ftipend as a writer for the court. In Swift's "Rhapfody on poetry" are thefe lines, fpeaking of the court

Whence Gay was banith'd in difgrace,
Where Pope will never fhow his face,
Where Y- muft torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lofe his penfion.

That Y

means Young is clear from four

other lines in the fame poem.

Attend, ye Popes and Youngs and Gays,
And tune your harps and ftrew your bays;
Your panegyricks here provide;

You cannot err on flattery's fide.

Yet who fhall fay with certainty, that Young was a penfioner? In all modern periods of this country, have not the writers on one fide been regularly called Hirelings, and on the other Patriots?

Of

Of the dedication the complexion is clearly political. It speaks in the highest terms of the late peace ;---it gives her Majefty praise indeed for her victories, but fays that the author is more pleased to fee her rife from this lower world, foaring above the clouds, paffing the first and second heavens, and leaving the fixed ftars behind her;-nor will he lofe her there, but keep her ftill in view through the boundless spaces on the other fide of Creation, in her journey towards eternal blifs, till he behold the heaven of heavens open, and angels receiving and conveying her ftill onward from the ftretch of his imagination, which tires in her purfuit, and falls back again to earth.

The Queen was foon called away from this lower world, to a place where human praise or human flattery even less general than this are of little confequence. If Young thought the dedication contained only the praife of truth, he should not have omitted it in his works. Was he conscious of the exaggeration of party? Then he fhould not have written it. The poem itself is not without a glance to politicks, notwithstanding the fubject. The cry that the church was in danger, had not yet fubfided. The Last Day, written by a layman, was much approved by the miniftry, and their friends,

Before the Queen's death, The Force of Religion, or Vanquished Love, was fent into the world. This poem is founded on the execution of Lady Jane Gray and her husband Lord Guildford in 1554-a ftory chofen for the subject of a tragedy by Edmund Smith, and wrought into a tragedy by Rowe. The dedication of it to the countefs of Salisbury does not appear in his own edition. He hopes it may be fome excufe for

his prefumption that the ftory could not have been read without thoughts of the Countess of Salisbury, though it had been dedicated to another. "To be"hold," he proceeds, "a perfon only virtuous, ftirs ❝in us a prudent regret; to behold a perfon only ami"able to the fight, warms us with a religious indig"nation; but to turn our eyes on a countefs of Salif"bury, gives us pleasure and improvement; it works

a fort of miracle, occafions the biafs of our nature "to fall off from fin, and makes our very fenfes and "affections converts to our religion, and promoters "of our duty." His flattery was as ready for the other fex as for ours, and was at leaft as well adapted.

Auguft the 27th, 1714, Pope writes to his friend Jervas, that he is just arrived from Oxford-that every one is much concerned for the Queen's death, but that no panegyricks are ready yet for the King. Nothing like friendship had yet taken place between Pope and Young; for, foon after the event which Pope mentions, Young published a poem on the Queen's death, and his Majefty's acceffion to the throne. It is infcribed to Addifon, then fecretary to the Lords Juftices. Whatever was the obligation which he had formerly received from Anne, the poet appears to aim at fomething of the fame fort from George. Of the poem the intention feems to have been, to fhew that he had the fame extravagant strain of praife for a King as for a Queen. To difcover, at the very outfet of a foreigner's reign, that the Gods ble's his new fubjects in fuch a King, is fomething more than praife. Neither was this deemed one of Lis excuftable picres. We do not find it in his works.

Young's