be remarked, in a few words, that his humour is fometimes grofs, and feldcm fpritely.

Of the Moral Poems the first is the Choice of Hercules, from Xenophon. The numbers are smooth, the diction elegant, and the thoughts juft; but fomething of vigour perhaps is still to be wifhed, which it might have had by brevity and compreffion. His Fate of Delicacy has an air of gaiety, but not a very pointed general moral. His blank verses, thofe 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 ftand among the Moral Works, is furely the most pleafing of Shenstone's performances. The adoption of a particular style, in light and fhort compofitions, contributes much to the increase of pleasure we are entertained at once with two imitations, of nature in the fentiments, of the original author in the ftyle, and be

tween

tween them the mind is kept in perpetual employment.

The general recommendation of Shenstone is eafinefs and fimplicity; his general defect is want of comprehenfion and variety. Had his mind been better ftored with knowledge, whether he could have been I great, know not; he could certainly have been agreeable.

YOUNG.

YOU N
UN

G.

HE following life was written, at

I'my

my request, by a gentleman who had

better information than I could easily have obtained; and the publick will perhaps wish that I had folicited and obtained more fuch favours from him.

DEAR SIR,

"In confequence of our different converfations about authentick materials for the Life of Young, I send you the following detail. It is not, I confefs, immediately in the line of my profeffion; but hard indeed is our fate at the bar, if we may not call a few hours now-and-then our own.

Of great men fomething must always be faid to gratify curiofity. Of the great 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.

1

EDWARD YOUNG was born at Upham, near Winchester, in June 1681. He was the fon of Edward Young, at that time Fellow of Winchester College and Rector of Upham; who was the fon of Jo. Young of Woodhay in Berkshire, ftyled 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 by age, his duties were neceffarily performed by others. We learn from Wood, that, at a vifitation of Sprat, July the 12th, 1686, the Prebendary preached a Latin fermon, afterwards published, with which the Bishop was fo pleafed, 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 confequence of his merit and reputation, or of the interest of Lord Bradford, to whom, in 1702, he dedicated two volumes of fermons, he was appointed chaplain to King William and Queen Mary, and preferred to the deanery of Sarum. Jacob, who wrote in 1720, fays, he was chaplain and clerk of the closet to the late Queen, who honoured him by standing godmother to the Poet. His fellowship of Winchefter he refigned in favour of a Mr. Harris, who married his only daughter. The Dean died at Sarum, after a fhort illness, in 1705, in the fixty-third year of his age. On the Sunday after his decease Bishop Burnet preached at the cathedral, and began his fermon with saying, "Death has been of "late walking round us, and making breach

upon breach upon us, and has now car"ried away the head of this body with a stroke; fo that he, whom you faw a week " ago diftributing the holy mysteries, is now laid in the duft. But he still lives "in the many excellent directions he has " left us, both how to live and how to "die."