which he describes the graduated order of Nature, or the evolution of Society; the loftiness of the rhetoric in which he exalts the infinite wisdom of God; and the moral energy with which he employs his satiric genius to expose the fatuity of the pride of man, are not mere "purple patches," but episodes skilfully evolved out of the subject matter of the Essay; and prejudice alone makes Hazlitt say that "the description of the poor Indian and the lamb doomed to death, are all the unsophisticated reader ever remembers of that muchtalked-of production.' Joseph Warton was certainly no partisan of Pope, but in criticising the Essay on Man he judged his genius with more fairness:

The origin of the connections in social life, the account of the state of nature, the rise and effects of superstition and tyranny, and the restoration of true religion and just government, all these ought to be mentioned as passages that deserve high applause, nay, as some of the most exalted pieces of English poetry.2

And again :

Pope has practised the great secret of Virgil's art, which was to discover the very single epithet that precisely suited each occasion. If Pope must yield to other poets in point of fertility of fancy, or harmony of numbers, yet in point of propriety, closeness, and elegance of diction he can yield to none.3

Let the two following passages which are only samples of the many excellences of the Essay on Man be taken as evidence of the justice of Warton's criticism : Far as creation's ample range extends,

The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends :
Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race
From the green myriads in the peopled grass;
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain and the lynx's beam :
Of smell the headlong lioness between

And hound sagacious on the tainted green :

1 Lectures on the English Poets, p. 378.

2 Cited in Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vol. ii. p. 408-footnote 6.

3 Ibid. p. 365-foot-note 1.

And

Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,

To that which warbles through the vernal wood!
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line :
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grov'ling swine,
Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier!
For ever separate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied;

What thin partitions sense from thought divide ;
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass the insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected these to those, or all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these powers in one? 1

Who taught the nations of the field and flood
To shun their poison, or to choose their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
Who made the spider parallels design,

Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the stork, Columbus-like, explore

Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the council, states the certain day,

Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way ? 2

The social atmosphere which encouraged the Deistic movement was also, indirectly, the inspiring source of one who, as an original thinker, was much superior to Pope; who was not inferior to him in wit and satiric power; but who was far from being his equal in his mastery of the art of poetry. At the close of the first section of his Night Thoughts, Edward Young makes a clear reference to the Essay on Man

Dark, though not blind, like thee, Maeonides!
Or Milton, thee! Ah could I reach your strain !

Or his who made Maeonides our own!

Man too he sung: immortal man I sing :

Oft bursts my song beyond the bounds of life;

1 Essay on Man, Epistle i. 207-232.

2 Ibid. Epistle iii. 99-108.

What now but immortality can please?

O had he pressed his theme, pursued the track,
Which opens out of darkness into day;

O had he mounted on his wing of fire,
Soared where I sink, and sung immortal man ;
How had it blessed mankind and rescued me!

Pope could not have sung "immortal man man" without subverting the system of Bolingbroke, which was the basis of his whole poem; but Bolingbroke and all his works were an abomination to the author of the above lines. He was the son of Edward Young, Rector of Upham in Hampshire, where he was born in June 1681. Educated on the foundation at Winchester, he entered New College on the 13th of October 1703 as a Commoner, but soon removed to Corpus Christi College, where he remained till 1708, when he was nominated to a law Fellowship at All Souls by Archbishop Tenison. While he was at Oxford, Tindal the Deist, also a Fellow of All Souls, exercised a considerable intellectual influence through the University, but it appears from the testimony of the latter that he could make little impression on the mind of Young, who was then best known among his companions for his witty extemporary epigrams.

Young was more than thirty years old when, in 1712, he published his first poem, An Epistle to the Right Hon. George, Lord Lansdown, on the subject of the approaching Peace, aimed at by the Tory Ministry. In 1713 appeared his poem on the Last Day, which he dedicated to the Queen, who was his godmother, and a a few months later was issued another religious work by him, The Force of Religion, or Vanquished Love, the subject being the execution of Lady Jane Grey. He took the degree of B.C.L. in 1714, and in the following year was appointed tutor to Philip, afterwards Marquis and then Duke of Wharton. The latter, who succeeded to the title of Marquis in 1715, was fond of the poet's society, and in 1716 sent for him to be his companion in Ireland, when he himself returned thither after many escapades on the Continent. Young, being at the

time tutor to the son of the Marquis of Exeter, complied with his first pupil's request and resigned his position, a sacrifice in return for which Wharton in 1719 granted him an annuity. He also used his influence to promote the success of the poet's tragedy, Busiris, which, having been begun in 1713, was completed and brought upon the stage in 1719; in that year also Young was granted the degree of D.C.L. His tragedy called Revenge was produced in 1721; and soon afterwards the Duke (for to this rank Wharton had been raised in 1718) gave him a bond for £600, to compensate him for travelling expenses and for his refusal (though he was not yet ordained) of more than one living in the gift of his College.

In 1722 Young spent a considerable time at Eastbury, the seat of Bubb Dodington, who had been his contemporary at New College, and there he met Voltaire. Their meeting seems to have been memorable. Joseph Warton says:

Nobody ever said more brilliant things in conversation than Dr. Young. The late Lord Melcombe informed me that when he and Voltaire were on a visit to his Lordship at Eastbury, the English poet was far superior to the French in the variety and novelty of his bon-mots and repartees.

He continued to be a close companion of the Duke of Wharton till 1725 when the latter, after wasting almost all his substance in riotous living, went abroad. Young now turned his attention seriously to composition. Between 1725 and 1730 he produced several of his lyrical poems (1728)-a style of writing for which he was entirely unqualified-his excellent satires on The Universal Passion (1725-7), and his Epistle to Pope (1730). The merits of his work, joined to the servile flattery, which he had practised from his first appearance as a writer, at length procured him the pension at which he had been so long aiming. It amounted to £200, and the warrant for it is dated 3rd May 1726. Swift no doubt alludes to it in his Rhapsody on Poetry when he says that

In 1728 he was ordained, and in 1730 was presented by his college to Welwyn, a rectory worth £300 a year. Beyond this he obtained no preferment, though he must often have applied for it at Court, having perhaps made the mistake, like many other suitors, of overrating the influence of Lady Suffolk with George II. A letter without date, but probably written soon after the King's accession in 1727, as it is addressed to "Mrs. Howard,” dwells on the writer's claim to advancement and concludes:

As for zeal, I have written nothing without showing my duty to their Majesties, and some pieces are dedicated to them. This, Madam, is the short and true state of my case. They that make their court to the Ministers, and not to their Majesties, succeed better. If my case deserves some consideration, and you can serve me in it, I humbly hope and believe you will.

en

Disappointment, thinly veiled, often makes itself visible in Night Thoughts, as under the philosophic moralisings of the following passage:-

Indulge me, nor conceive I drop my theme:
Who cheapens life, abates the fear of death.
Twice-told the period spent on stubborn Troy,
Court-favour, yet untaken, I besiege;
Ambition's ill-judged effort to be rich.
Alas! Ambition makes my little less

Embittering the possessed. Why wish for more?
Wishing of all employments is the worst;
Philosophy's reverse and health's decay:
Were I as plump as stalled Theology,

Wishing would waste me to this shade again.1

But he had good cause to think religiously. In 1731 (or according to some authorities 1732) he was married to Lady Elizabeth Lee-daughter of the Earl of Lichfield and widow of Colonel Lee-with whom he lived happily at Welwyn Rectory. His wife had a daughter by her first husband, who, after being married to a son of Lord Palmerston for only fifteen months, was carried off by consumption in 1736, at Lyons, while Young was taking her to Nice. Owing to difficulties made by the authorities,

1 Night Thoughts, Night iv. 64-74.