ordinary to George II. in April, 1728. His first work in his new character was a Vindication of Providence, published, as well as his Estimate of Human Life, in quarto. Soon after, in 1730, his College presented him to the rectory of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire, worth 300l. per annum, besides the lordship of the manor which pertained to it. He married Lady Betty Lee, widow of Col. Lee, in 1731. She was daughter of the Earl of Lichfield. By her he had a son.

Notwithstanding the high estimation in which he was held, his familiar intercourse with many of the first rank, his being a great favourite of Frederic Prince of Wales, and paying a pretty constant at tendance at court, he never rose to higher preferment; if, however, we except his being made clerk of the closet to the Princess Dowager of Wales in 1761, when he was fourscore years of age.

His fine poem of the Night Thoughts, it is well known, was occasioned by a family distress; the loss of his wife and the two children, a son and a daughter, whom she had by her first husband: these all died within a short time of each other in 1741. The son-in-law is characterized in this work by the name of Philander, and the young lady, who sunk into a decline through grief for the loss of her mother, by that of Narcissa. He removed her, in hope of her deriving benefit from a warmer climate, to Montpelier, in the south of France; but she died soon after their arrival in that city. The circumstance of his being obliged to bury her in a field by night, not being allowed interment in a church-yard, on account of her being a Protestant, is indelibly recorded in Night III. of this divine poem.

He was upwards of eighty when he wrote his Conjectures on Original Composition, in which many beauties appear, notwithstanding the age of its anthor; and Resignation, his last poem, contains proofs in every stanza, that it was not written with decayed faculties. He died at the parsonage house, at Welwyn, April 12, 1765, aged eighty-four years, and was buried under the altar-piece of that church,

by the side of his wife. By his own desire, he was followed by all the poor of the parish, without any tolling of the bells, or any person appearing at his funeral in mourning. He had caused all his manuscripts to be destroyed before his death. He left the whole of his fortune, which was pretty considerable, with the exception of a few legacies, to his son, Mr. Frederic Young, though he would never see him in his lifetime, owing to his displeasure at his imprudent conduct at college, for which he had been expelled.

His character was that of the true Christian Divine; his heart was in his profession. It is report. ed, that, once preaching in his turn at St. James's, and being unable to gain attention, he sat down, and burst into tears. His conversation was of the same nature as his works, and showed a solemn cast of thought to be natural to him: death, futurity, judgment, eternity, were his common topics. When at home in the country, he spent many hours in the day walking among the graves in the church-yard. In his garden he had an alcove, painted as if with a bench to repose on; on approaching near enough to discover the deception, the following motto was

seen:

Invisibilia non decipiunt.'

'The unseen things do not deceive us.'

In his poem of the Last Day, one of his earliest works, he calls his muse the Melancholy Maid,

whom dismal scenes delight, 'Frequent at tombs, and in the realms of night.'

Grafton is said by Spence to have made him a present of a human skull, with a candle in it, to serve him for a lamp; and he is reported to have used it. Yet he promoted an assembly and bowling-green in his parish, and often attended them. He would indulge in occasional sallies of wit, of which his wellknown epigram on Voltaire is a specimen; but

Thou art so witty, profligate, and thin,

Thou seem'st a Milton with his Death and Sin.'

perhaps there was more of indignation than plea santry in it, as his satire was ever pointed against indecency and irreligion. His satires, intituled the Love of Fame, or the Universal Passion, is a great performance. The shafts of his wit are directed against the folly of being devoted to the fashion, and aiming to appear what we are not. here with smoothness of style, pointed sentences, solid sentiments, and the sharpness of resistless truth.

We meet

The Night Thoughts abound in the most exalted flights, the utmost stretch of human thought, which is the great excellence of Young's poetry. In his Night Thoughts,' says a great critic, he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegat.. ed with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour.' It must be allowed, however, that many of these fine thoughts are overcast with the gloom of melancholy, so as to have an effect rather to be dreaded by minds of a morbid hue: they paint, notwithstanding, with the most lively fancy, the feelings of the heart, the vanity of human things, its fleeting honours and enjoyments, and contain the strongest arguments in support of the immortality of the soul.

THE COMPLAINT.

NIGHT L

ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

To the Right Honourable Arthur Onslow, Esq. Speaker of the House of Commons.

TIRED Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world; his ready visit pays

Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes:
Swift on his downy pinions flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose
I wake: how happy they who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought
From wave to wave of fancied misery

At random drove, her helm of reason lost:
Though now restored, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) severer for severe.

The day too short for my distress; and night,
E'en in the zenith, of her dark domain,
Is sunshine to the colour of my fate..

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,

In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.
Silence how dead! and darkness how profound!
Nor eye nor list'ning ear an object finds;
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the gen'ral pulse

B

Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd:

Fate drop the curtain; I can lose no more.
Silence and Darkness! solemn sisters! twins
From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought
To reason, and on reason build resolve,
That column of true majesty in man)

Assist me: I will thank you in the grave;

The grave your kingdom: there this frame shall fall A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.

But what are ye?

Thou, who didst put to flight Primeval Silence, when the morning stars,

Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball;

O Thou, whose word from solid darkness struck That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my soul; My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure, As misers to their gold, while others rest.

Through this opaque of nature and of soul, This double night, transmit one pitying ray, To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind, (A mind that fain would wander from its woe,) Lead it through various scenes of life and death, And from each scene the noblest truths inspire. Nor less inspire my conduct than my song; Teach my best reason, reason; my best will Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear: Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss: to give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours.

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
It is the signal that demands dispatch:

How much is to be done! My hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-on what? A fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!