is but justice to confefs, that he preferved neither of them; and that the ode itself, which in the first edition, and in the laft, confifts of feventy-three ftanzas, in the author's own edition is reduced to forty-nine. Among the omitted paffages is a Wish, that concluded the poem, which few would have suspected Young of forming; and of which few, after having formed it, would confefs fomething like their fhame by fuppreffion.

It ftood originally so high in the author's opinion, that he intituled the Poem, "Ocean, an Ode. Concluding with a Wish." This with confifts of thirteen ftanzas. The firft runs thus:

O may I fteal
Along the vale

Of humble life, fecure from foes!

My friend fincere,

My judgment clear,

And gentle business my repose!

The three laft ftanzas are not more remarkable for just rhymes; but, altogether, they will make rather a curious page in the life of Young.

Prophetic fchemes,

And golden dreams,

May I, unfanguine, caft away!

Have what I have,

And live, not leave,
Enamoured of the present day!

My hours my own!

My faults unknown!
My chief revenue in content!

Then leave one beam

Of honest fame!

And fcorn the laboured monument !

Unhurt

Unhurt my urn

Till that great turn

When mighty Nature's felf fhall die,

Time cease to glide,

With human pride,

Sunk in the ocean of eternity!

It is whimsical that he, who was foon to bid adieu to rhyme, fhould fix upon a measure in which rhyme abounds even to fatiety. Of this he said, in his Essay on Lyrick Poetry, prefixed to the Poem,-" For the "more harmony likewise I chose the frequent return "of rhyme, which laid me under great difficulties. "But difficulties, overcome, give grace and pleasure. "Nor can I account for the pleasure of rhyme in general (of which the moderns are too fond) but from this "truth." Yet the moderns furely deferve not much cenfure for their fondness of what, by his own confeffion, affords pleasure, and abounds in harmony.

The next paragraph in his essay did not occur to him when he talked of that great turn in the stanza just quoted. "But then the writer muft take care that the

difficulty is overcome. That is, he must make "rhyme confiftent with as perfect fenfe and expreffion, "as could be expected if he was perfectly free from "that fhackle."

Another part of this Effay will convict the following stanza of, what every reader will discover in it, "in"voluntary burlefque."

The northern blast,

The fhattered maft,

The fyrt, the whirlpool, and the rock,

The breaking spout,

The fars gone out,

The boiling ftreight, the monster's fhock.

R 2

But

But would the English poets fill quite fo many volumes, if all their productions were to be tried, like this, by an elaborate effay on each particular fpecies of poetry of which they exhibit fpecimens ?

If Young be not a Lyric poet, he is at least a critic in that fort of poetry; and, if his Lyric poetry can be proved bad, it was first proved so by his own criticism. This furely is candid.

Milbourne was ftyled by Pope the fairest of Critics, only because he exhibited his own verfion of Virgil to be compared with Dryden's which he condemned, and with which every reader had it otherwife in his power to compare it. Young was furely not the most unfair of poets for prefixing to a Lyric compofition an effay on Lyric Poetry so just and impartial as to condemn himself.

We fhall foon come to a work, before which we find indeed no critical Effay, but which difdains to fhrink, from the touchftone of the feverest critic; and which certainly, as I remember to have heard you fay, if it contains fome of the worft, contains alfo fome of the best things in the language.

Soon after the appearance of "Ocean," when he was almoft fifty, Young entered into Orders. In April 1728, not long after he put on the gown, he was appointed chaplain to George the Second.

The tragedy of The Brothers, which was already in rehearsal, he immediately withdrew from the ftage. The managers refigned it with fome reluctance to the delicacy of the new clergyman. The Epilogue to The Brothers, the only appendage to any of his three plays which he added himself, is, I believe, the only one of the kind. He calls it an hiftorical Epilogue. Find

4

ing

ing that Guilt's dreadful clofe his narrow fcene denied, he, in a manner, continues the tragedy in the Epilogue, and relates how Rome revenged the fhade of Demetrius, and punished Perfeus for this night's deed.

Of Young's taking Orders fomething is told by the biographer of Pope, which places the eafinefs and fimplicity of the poet in a fingular light. When he determined on the Church, he did not addrefs himself to Sherlock, to Atterbury, or to Hare, for the best inftructions in Theology, but to Pope; who, in a youthful frolick, advised the diligent perufal of Thomas Aquinas. With this treasure Young retired from interruption to an obscure place in the suburbs. His poetical guide to godlinefs hearing nothing of him during half a year, and apprehending he might have carried the jest too far, fought after him, and found him juft in time to prevent what Ruffhead calls an irretrievable derangement.

That attachment to his favourite study which made him think a poet the fureft guide in his new profeffion, left him little doubt whether poetry was the fureft path to its honours and preferments. Not long indeed after he took Orders, he published in profe, 1728, A true Eftimate of Human Life, dedicated, notwithstanding the Latin quotations with which it abounds, to the Queen; and a fermon preached before the Houfe of Commons, 1729, on the martyrdom of King Charles, intituled, An Apology for Princes, or the Reverence due to Government. But the "Second Difcourfe," the counterpart of his " Estimate," without which it cannot be called "a true estimate," though in 1728 it was announced as "foon to be published," never appeared; and his old friends the Mufes were not forgotten. In 1730 he

relapsed to poetry, and fent into the world Imperium Pelagi: a Naval Lyric, written im Imitation of Pindar's ' Spirit, occafioned by His Majefty's Return from Hanover, September 1729, and the fucceeding Peace. It is infcribed to the Duke of Chandos. In the Preface we are told, that the Ode is the most spirited kind of Poetry, and that the Pindaric is the moft fpirited kind of Ode. "This I fpeak," he adds, with fufficient candour," at 66 my own very great peril. But truth has an eternal "title to our confeffion, though we are fure to fuffer

by it." Behold, again, the fairest of poets. Young's Imperium Pelagi, as well as his tragedies, was ridiculed in Fielding's Tom Thumb; but, let us not forget that it was one of his pieces which the author of the Night Thoughts deliberately refused to own.

Not long after this Pindaric attempt, he published two Epiftles to Pope, concerning the Authors of the Age, 1730. Of thefe poems one occafion feems to have been an apprehenfion left, from the livelinefs of his fatires, he should not be deemed fufficiently ferious for promotion in the Church.

In July 1730 he was prefented by his College to the rectory of Welwyn in Hertfordshire. In May 1731 he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the Earl of Litchfield, and widow of Colonel Lee. His connexion with this Lady arofe from his father's acquaintance, already mentioned, with Lady Anne Wharton, who was coheiress of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley in Oxfordfhire. Poetry had lately been taught by Addifon to afpire to the arms of nobility, though not with extraordinary happiness.

We may naturally conclude that Young now gave himfelf up in fome meafure to the comforts of his new

connexion,