}

These lines have been universally understood of the above deaths; but this supposition can no way be reconciled with Mr. Croft's dates, who says, Mrs. Temple died in 1736, Mr. Temple in 1740, and

years ago, Dr. Young was here with his daughter for her "health; that he used constantly to be walking backward and "forward in this garden (no doubt as he saw her gradually des "clining, to find the most solitary spot, where he might shew ་་ his last token of affection, by leaving her remains as secure ་ as possible from those savages, who would have denied her a "christian burial: for at that time, an Englishman in this

country was looked upon as an heretic, infidel, and devil. "They begin now to verge from their bigotry, and allow them 66 at least to be men, though not christians, I believe ;) and "that he bribed the under gardener. belonging to his father, 66 to let him bury his daughter, which he did; pointed out the 66 most solitary place, and dug the grave The man, through "a private door, admitted the Doctor at midnight, bringing his "beloved daughter, wrapped up in a sheet, upon his shoulder: "he laid her in the hole, sat down, and (as the man expressed "it)' rained tears" "With pious sacrilege a grave I stole.' "The man who was thus bribed is dead, but the master is still "living. Before the man died, they were one day going to "dig, and set some flowers, &c. in this spot where she was "buried. The man said to his master, 'Don't dig there; for, so many years ago, I buried an English lady there' The master was much surprised; and as Doctor Young's book had "made much noise in France, it led him to enquire into the "matter: and only two years ago it was known for a certainty "that that was the place, and in this way: There was an "English nobleman here, who was acquainted with the governor of this place; and wishing to ascertain the fact, he ob "tained permission to dig up the ground, where he found some bones, which were examined by a surgeon, and pronounced to be the remains of a human body: this, there66 fore, puts the authenticity of it beyond a doubt."-See Evan. Mag. for 1797, p. 444.

Lady Young in 1741. Which quite inverts the order of the poet, who makes Narcissa's death follow Phi lander's:

"Narcissa follows e'er his tomb is clos'd."

Night III.

There is no possible way to reconcile these contradictions: either we must reject Mr. Croft's dates, for which he gives us no authority, or we must suppose the characters and incidents, if not entirely fictitious, as the author assures us that they are not, were accommodated by poetic licence to his purpose. As to the character of Lorenzo, whether taken from real life, or moulded purely in the author's imagination, Mr. Croft has sufficiently proved that it could not intend his Son, who was but eight years old when the greater part of the Night Thoughts was written; for Night Seventh is dated, in the original edition, July 1744.

For the literary merits of this work we shall again refer to the criticism of Dr. Johnson, which is seldom exceptionable, when he is not warped by political prejudices. "In his Night Thoughts," says the Doctor, speaking of our author, "he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of ev'ry hue, and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme, but with disadvantage. The wild diffusion of the sentiments and the digressive sallies of imagination, would have been compressed and restrained by confinement to rhyme.

The excellence of this work is not exactness, but copiousness: particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantations, the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity."

So far Dr. Johnson.-Mr. Croft says, "Of these poems the two or three first have been perused 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."

Notwithstanding one might be tempted, from some passages in the Night Thoughts, to suppose he had taken his leave of terrestrial things, in the alarming year 1745, he could not refrain from returning again to politics, but wrote Poetical Reflections on the State of the Kingdom, originally appended to the Night Thoughts, but never re-printed with them.

In 1753, his tragedy of The Brothers, written thirty years before, now first appeared upon the stage. It had been in rehearsal when Young took orders, and was withdrawn on that occasion. The Rector of Welwyn devoted 10001. to "The Society for the propagation of the Gospel," and estimating the probable produce of this play at such a sum, he perhaps thought the occasion might sanctify the means; and not thinking so unfavourably of the stage as other good men have done, he committed the monstrous absurdity of giving a play for the propa

gation of the gospel! The author was, (as is often the case with authors) deceived in his calculation. The Brothers was never a favourite with the public : but that the society might not suffer, the doctor made up the deficiency from his own pocket.

His next was a prose performance, entitled, "The Centaur not fabulous; in Six Letters to a Friend on the Life in Vogue." The third of these letters describes the death-bed of "the gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched Altamont," whom report supposed to be Lord Euston. But whether Altamont or Lorenzo were real or fictitious characters, it is certain the author could be at no loss for models for them among the gay nobility, with whom he was acquainted.

In 1759, appeared his lively "Conjectures on Original Composition;" which, according to Mr. Croft, appear "more like the production of untamed, unbridled youth, than of jaded fourscore." This letter contains the pleasing account of the death of Addison, and his dying address to Lord Warwick. "See how a Christian can die!"

In 1762, but little before his death, Young published his last, and one of his least esteemed poems, "Resignation," which was written on the following occasion:-Observing that Mrs. Boscawen, in the midst of her grief for the loss of the admiral, derived consolation from a perusal of the Night Thoughts, her friend, Mrs. Montague, proposed a visit to the author, by whom they were favourably received; and were pleased to confess that his "unbounded genius appeared to greater advantage in the companion than even in the author; that the Chris

tian was in him a character still more inspired, more enraptured, more sublime than the poet, and that, in his ordinary conversation,

-"Letting down the golden chain from high, "He drew his audience upward to the sky."

On this occasion, at the request of these ladies, the author produced his Resignation, above-mentioned, and which has been so unmercifully treated by the critics; but it has, in some measure, been rescued from their hands by Dr. Johnson, who says, "It was falsely represented as a proof of decayed faculties. There is Young in every stanza, such as he often was in his highest vigour."

We now approach the closing scene of our author's life, of which, unhappily, we have few particulars. For three or four years before his death, he appears to have been incapacitated, by the infirmities of age, for public duty; yet he perfectly enjoy. ed his intellects to the last, and even his vivacity; for in his last illness, a friend mentioning the recent decease of a person who had long been in a decline, and observing, "that he was quite worn to a shell before he died;" "very likely, replied the doctor; "but what is become of the kernel ?" He is said to have regretted to another friend, that his Night Thoughts, of all his works most calculated to do good, were written so much above the understanding of common readers, as to contract their sphere of usefulness: This, however, ought not, perhaps, to be regretted, since there is a great sufficiency of good books for common readers, and the style of that