The praises Thomson bestows but a few lines before on Philips, the second

Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfetter'd verse,
With British freedom sing the British song,

added to Thomson's example and success, might perhaps induce Young, as we shall see presently, to write his great work without rhyme.

In 1734 he published "The Foreign Address, or "the best Argument for Peace, occasioned by the "British Fleet and the Posture of Affairs. Written "in the Character of a Sailor." It is not to be found in the author's four volumes.

He now appears to have given up all hopes of overtaking Pindar, and perhaps at last resolved to turn his ambition to some original species of poetry. This poem concludes with a formal farewell to Ode, which few of Young's readers will regret:

My shell, which Clio gave, which Kings applaud,
Which Europe's bleeding Genius call'd abroad,
Adieu !

In a species of poetry altogether his own, he next tried his skill, and succeeded.

Of his wife he was deprived in 1741. Lady Elizabeth had lost, after her marriage with Young, an amiable daughter, by her former husband, just after she was married to Mr. Temple, son of Lord Palmerston. Mr. Temple did not long remain after his wife, though he was married a second time, to a daughter of Sir John Barnard's, whose son is the present peer. Mr. and Mrs. Temple have generally been considered as Philander and Narcissa. From

the great friendship which constantly subsisted between Mr. Temple and Young, as well as from other circumstances, it is probable that the poet had both him and Mrs. Temple in view for these characters; though at the same time some passages respecting Philander do not appear to suit either Mr. Temple or any other person with whom Young was known to be connected or acquainted, while all the circumstances relating to Narcissa have been constantly found applicable to Young's daughter-in-law.

At what short intervals the poet tells us he was wounded by the deaths of the three persons particularly lamented, none that has read the "Night "Thoughts" (and who has not read them ?) needs to be informed.

Insatitate Archer! could not one suffice?

Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain;
And thrice, ere thrice you moon had fill'd her horn.

Yet how is it possible that Mr. and Mrs. Temple and Lady Elizabeth Young could be these three victims, over whom Young has hitherto been pitied for having to pour the "Midnight Sorrows" of his religious poetry; Mrs. Temple died in 1736; Mr. Temple four years afterwards, in 1740; and the poet's wife seven months after Mr. Temple, in 1741. How could the insatiate archer thrice slay his peace, in these three persons, "ere thrice the moon had fill'd her horn ?"

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But in the short Preface to "The Complaint" he seriously tells us, "that the occasion of this poem "was real, not fictitious; and that the facts men

"tioned did naturally pour these moral reflections "on the thought of the writer." It is probable, therefore, that in these three contradictory lines, the poet complains more than the father-in-law, the friend, or the widower.

Whatever names belong to these facts, or if the names be those generally supposed, whatever heightening a poet's sorrow may have given the facts; to the sorrow Young felt from them, religion and morality are indebted for the "Night Thoughts." There is a pleasure sure in sadness which mourners only know!

Of these poems the two or three first have been perused perhaps more eagerly and more frequently than the rest. When he got as far as the fourth or fifth, his original motive for taking up the pen was answered; his grief was naturally either diminished or exhausted. We still find the same pious poet; but we hear less of Philander and Narcissa, and less of the mourner whom he loved to pity.

Mrs. Temple died of a consumption at Lyons, in her way to Nice, the year after her marriage; that is, when poetry relates the fact, "in her bridal "hour." It is more than poetically true, that Young accompanied her to the Continent:

I flew, I snatch'd her from the rigid North,
And bore her nearer to the sun-

But in vain. Her funeral was attended with the difficulties painted in such animated colours in Night the Third." After her death, the remainder of the party passed the ensuing winter at Nice.

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The poet seems perhaps in these compositions to

dwell with more melancholy on the death of Philander and Narcissa, than of his wife. But it is only for this reason. He who runs and reads may remember, that in the "Night Thoughts" Philander and Narcissa are often mentioned and often ́ lamented. To recollect lamentations over the author's wife, the memory must have been charged with distinct passages. The lady brought him one child Frederick, now living, to whom the Prince of Wales was godfather.

That domestic grief is, in the first instance, to be thanked for these ornaments to our language, it is impossible to deny. Nor would it be common hardiness to contend, that worldly discontent had no hand in these joint productions of poetry and piety. Yet am I by no means sure that, at any rate, we should not have had something of the same colour from Young's pencil, notwithstanding the liveliness of his satires. In so long a life, causes for discontent and occasions for grief must have occurred. It is not clear to me that his Muse was not sitting upon the watch for the first which happened. "Night Thoughts" were not uncommon to her, even when first she visited the poet, and at a time when he himself was remarkable neither for gravity nor gloominess. In his "Last Day," almost his earliest poem, he calls her "The Melancholy Maid,"

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-whom dismal scenes delight, Frequent at tombs and in the realms of Night.

In the prayer which concludes the second book of

-Oh! permit the gloom of solemn night
To sacred thought may forcibly invite.
Oh! how divine to tread the milky way,
To the bright palace of Eternal Day!

When Young was writing a tragedy, Grafton is said by Spence to have sent him a human skull, with a candle in it, as a lamp; and the poet is reported to have used it.

What he calls "The true Estimate of Human Life," which has already been mentioned, exhibits only the wrong side of the tapestry; and, being asked why he did not shew the right, he is said to have replied, that he could not. By others it has been told me that this was finished; but that, before there existed any copy, it was torn in pieces by a lady's monkey.

Still, is it altogether fair to dress up the poet for the man, and to bring the gloominess of the "Night Thoughts" to prove the gloominess of Young, and to shew that his genius, like the genius of Swift, was in some measure the sullen inspiration of discontent ?

From them who answer in the affirmative it should not be concealed, that, though "Invisibilia "non decipiunt" appeared upon a deception in Young's grounds, and “ Ambulantes in horto au"dierunt vocem Dei" on a building in his garden, his parish was indebted to the good humour of the author of the "Night Thoughts" for an assembly and a bowling-green.

Whether you think with me, I know not; but the famous "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" always appeared to me to savour more of female weakness