poem was probably finished by Young as early as 1710; for part of it is printed in the Tatler. It was infcribed to the Queen, in a dedication, which, for fome reafon, 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 fettled 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

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 fee her rife from this lower world, foaring above the clouds, paffing the first and fecond heavens, and leaving the fixed stars 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 still onward from the 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 praife or human flattery are of little confequence. If Young thought the dedication contained only the praife of truth, he fhould not have omitted it in his works. Was he conscious of the exaggeration of party? Then he should not have written it. The poem itself is not without a glance to politicks, notwithftanding the fubject. The cry that the church was in danger, had not yet fubfided. The Laft 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

on the execution of lady Jane Gray and her husband lord Guilford in 1554-a ftory chofen for the fubject of a tragedy by Edmund Smith, and wrought into a tragedy by Rowe. The dedication of it to the countess of Salisbury does not appear in his own edition. He hopes it may be fome excufe for his prefumption that the story could not have been read without thoughts of the Countess of Salisbury, though it had been dedicated to another. "To behold," he proceeds,

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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 Salifbury, gives us pleasure and improve,

"ment; it works a fort of miracle, oc"cafions the biafs of our nature to fall

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"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 least as well adapted.

Auguft the 27th, 1714, Pope writes to his friend Jervas, that he is just 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 Ma

5

jefty's