Of the rest I cannot think any excellent; the "Skylark" pleases me best, which has however more of the epigram than of the ode.

But the four parts of his "Pastoral Ballad" demand particular notice. I cannot but regret that it is pastoral; an intelligent reader, acquainted with the scenes of real life, sickens at the mention of the crook, the pipe, the sheep, and the kids, which it is not necessary to bring forward to notice, for the poet's art is selection, and he ought to shew the beauties without the grossness of the country life. His stanza seems to have bsen chosen in imitation of Rowe's "Despairing Shepherd."

In the first part are two passages, to which if any mind denies its sympathy, it has no acquaintance with love or nature:

I priz'd every hour that went by,

Beyond all that had pleas'd me before;
But now they are past, and I sigh,

And I grieve that I priz'd them no more.

When forc'd the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt in my heart!
Yet I thought-but it might not be so,
'Twas with pain that she saw me depart.

She gaz'd, as I slowly withdrew,
My path I could hardly discern;

So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

In the second this passage has its prettiness, though it be not equal to the former:

In the third he mentions the common-places of amorous poetry with some address:

'Tis his with mock passion to glow!

'Tis his in smooth tales to unfold, How her face is as bright as the snow, And her bosom, be sure, is as cold:

How

How the nightingales labour the strain,

With the notes of his charmer to vie;
How they vary their accents in vain,

Repine at her triumphs, and die.

In the fourth I find nothing better than this natural strain of Hope:

His

Levities" are by their title exempted from the severities of criticism; yet it may be remarked in a few words, that his humour is sometimes gross, and seldom spritely,

Of the Moral Poems the first is the "Choice of Hercules," from Xenophon. The numbers are smooth, the diction elegant, and the thoughts just; but something of vigour is still to be wished, which it might have had by brevity and compression. His "Fate of Delicacy" has an air of gaiety, but not a very pointed and general moral. His blank verses, those that can read them may probably find to be like the blank verses of his neighbours. "Love and honour" is derived from the old ballad, "Did you not hear of a Spanish Lady?"—I wish it well enough to wish it were in rhyme.

The "School-mistress," of which I know not what claim it has to stand among the Moral Works, is surely the most pleasing of Shenstone's performances. The adoption of a particular style, in light and short compo sitions, contributes much to the increase of pleasure; we are entertained at once with two imitations, of nature in the sentiments, of the original author in the style, and between them the mind is kept in perpetual employment. The general recommendation of Shenstone is easiness and simplicity; his general defect is want of comprehension and variety. Had his mind been better stored with knowledge, whether he could have been great I know not; he could certainly have been agreeable.

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YOUNG.

YOUN G.

THE following life was written, at my request, by a gentleman who had better information than I could easily have obtained: and the public will perhaps wish that I had solicited and obtained more such favours from

him.

" DEAR SIR,

In consequence of our different conversations about authentic materials for the life of Young, I send you the following detail.

Of great men something must always be said to gratify curiosity. Of the illustrious 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 son of Edward Young, at that time fellow of Winchester College and rector of Upham; who was the son of Jo. Young of Woodhay in Berkshire, styled by Wood gentleman. In September, 1682, the Poet's father was collated to the prebend of Gillingham Minor, in the church of Sarum, by bishop Ward. When Ward's faculties were impaired through age, his duties were necessarily performed by others. We learn from Wood, that, at a visitation of Sprat's, July the 12th, 1686, the prebendary preached a Latin sermon, afterwards published, with which the bishop was so pleased, 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 consequence of his merit and reputation, or of the interest of Lord Bradford, to whom, in 1702, he dedicated two volumes of sermons, he was appointed chaplain to King William and Queen Mary, and preferred to the deanery of Sarum. Jacob, who wrote in 1720, says, " he was chap"lain and clerk of the closet to the late Queen, who honoured him by standing godmother to the Poet." His fellowship of Winchester he resigned in favour of a gentleman of the name of Harris, who married his only daughter. The dean died at Sarum, after a short illness, in 1705, in VOL. I.

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the

the sixty-third year of his age. On the Sunday after his decease Bishop Burnet preached at the cathedral, and began his sermon with saying "Death "has been of late. walking round us, and making breach upon breach upon "us, and has new carried away the head of this body with a stroke; so that he, whom you saw a week ago distributing the holy mysteries, is now laid "in the dust. But he still lives in the many excellent directions he has left us, both how to live and how to die."

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The dean placed his son upon the foundation at Winchester College, where he had himself been educated. At this school Edward Young remained till the election after his eighteenth birth day, the period at which those upon the foundation are superannuated. 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 succeed. By chance, or by choice, New College cannot claim the honour of numbering 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's, till he should be qualified to stand for a fellowship at All Souls. In a few months the warden of New College died. He then removed to Corpus College. The president of this society, from regard also for his father, invited him thither, in order to lessen his academical expences. In 1708, he was nominated to a law fellowship at All Souls by Archbishop Tenison, into whose hands it came by devolution. Such repeated patronage, while it justifies Burnet's praise of the father, reflects credit on the conduct of the son. The manner in which it was exerted seems to prove, that the father did not leave behind him

much wealth.

On the 23d of April, 1714, Young took his degree of batchelor of civil laws; and his doctor's degree on the roth of June, 1719.

Soon after he went to Oxford, he discovered, it is said, an inclination for pupils. Whether he ever commenced tutor is not known. None has hitherto boasted to have received his academical instruction from the author of the Night Thoughts."

"

It is probable that his college was proud of him no less 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, Young was ap-. pointed to speak the Latin oration. This is at least particular for being dedicated in English "To the Ladies of the Codrington Family." To these ladies he says, "that he was unavoidably flung into a singularity, by being obliged to write an epistle dedicatory void of common-place, and such an

one

"one as was never published before by any author whatever; that this "practice absolved them from any obligation of reading what was pre"sented to them; and that the bookseller approved of it, because it would "make people stare, was absurd 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 Tonson, in 1741, is a letter from Young to Curll, if we may credit Curll, dated December 9th, 1739," wherein he says he has not leisure to review what he formerly wrote, and' adds, "I have not the Epistle to Lord Lansdowne.' If you will take my "advice, I would have you omit that, and the oration on Codrington. I' "think the collection will sell better without them."

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, some time before, by his i death; and Young was certainly not ashamed to be patronized by the infamous Wharton. But Wharton befriended in Young, perhaps, the poet, and particularly the tragedian. If virtuous authors must be patronized only by virtuous peers, who shall point them out?

Yet Pope is said by Ruff head to have told Warburton, that "Young had much of a sublime genius, though without cominon sense; so that his genius, having no guide, was perpetually liable to degenerate into bombast. This made him pass a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets: but his having a very good heart enabled him to support the clerical character when he assumed it, first with decency, and afterwards with honor."

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 Souls. "The other boys," said the atheist, "I can always "answer, because I always know whence they have their arguments, which" "I have read a hundred times: but that fellow Young is continually pester"ing me with something of his own*.”

After all, Tindal and the censurers of Young may be reconcileable., Young might, for two or three years, have tried that kind of life, in which, his natural principles would not suffer him to wallow long. If this were so, he has left behind him not only his evidence in favour of virtue, but the potent testimony of experience against vice.

We

As my great friend is now become the subject of biography, it should be told, that, every time I called upon Johnson during the time I was employed in collecting materials for this life, and putting it together, he never suffered me to depart without some such farewell as this: "Don't forget that rascal Tindal, Sir. Be sure to hang up the Atheist." Alluding to this anecdote, which Johnson had mentioned to me.