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. Young is faid to have been engaged at a settled ftipend as a writer for the Court. Yet who fhall fay this with certainty? In all modern periods of this country, the writers on one fide have been regularly called Hirelings, and on the other Patriots.

Of the dedication, however, the complexion is clearly political. It speaks in the higheft terms of the late peace ;-it gives her Majefty praife indeed for her victories, but fays that the author is more pleased to see her rife from this lower world, foaring above the clouds, paffing the firft and fecond heavens, and leaving the fixed ftars behind her; nor will he lose 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

stretch 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 are of little confequence. If Young thought the dedication contained only the praise of truth, he should not have omitted it in his works. Was he confcious 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 ministry, 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 hufband Lord Guildford in 1554-a story chofen for the fubject of a tragedy by Edmund Smith, and wrought into a tragedy by Rowe. The dedication of it to the countefs of Salif

bury 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 behold," he proceeds, " a perfon only virtuous, ftirs in us a prudent

regret; to behold a perfon only amiable to "the fight, warms us with a religious indignation; but to turn our eyes on a "Countess of Salisbury, gives us pleasure “and improvement; it works a fort of mi"racle, occafions the biafs of our nature to "fall off from fin, and makes our very

fenfes and affections converts to our reli

gion, and promoters of our duty." His flattery was as ready for the other fex as for ours, and was at least as well adapted.

Auguft the 27th, 1714, Pope writes to his friend Jervas, that he is juft arrived from Oxford that every one was much concerned for the Queen's death, but that no panegyricks were 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 late 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 something 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 praise for a King as for a Queen. To difcover, at the very outset of a foreigner's reign, that the Gods blefs his new fubjects in fuch a King, is fomething more than praise. Neither was this deemed one of his excufeable pieces. We do not find it in his works.

Young's father had been well acquainted with Lady Anne Wharton, the first wife of Thomas Wharton, Efq; afterwards Marquis of Wharton-a Lady celebrated for her poetical talents by Burnet and by Waller. To the Dean of Sarum's vifitation fermon, already mentioned, were added fome copies of verses" by that excellent poetess Mrs. "Anne Wharton," upon its being tranflated into English, at the inftance of Waller, by Atwood. Wharton, after he became ennobled, did not drop the fon of his old friend. In him, during the fhort time he Bb 3 lived,

lived, Young found a patron, and in his diffolute defcendant a friend and a companion. The Marquis died in April 1715. The beginning of the next year the young Marquis fet out upon his travels, from which he returned in about a twelvemonth. The beginning of 1717 carried him to Ireland; where, fays the Biographia, on the score "of his extraordinary qualities, he had the "honour done him of being admitted, "though under age, to take his feat in the "Houfe of Lords."

With this unhappy character we might have prefumed, almost without evidence, that Young went to Ireland. From his Letter to Richardfon on Original Compofition, it is clear he was, at fome period of his life, in that country. "I remember," fays he, in that Letter, fpeaking of Swift, " as I and "others were taking with him an evening "walk, about a mile out of Dublin, he stopt "fhort; we paffed on; but, perceiving he "did not follow us, I went back, and found " him fixed as a statue, and earnestly gazing

upward at a noble elm, which in its up"permost branches was much withered and