NIGHT THE FIFTH

Begins with an admirable answer to some criticisms of

Lorenzo's, to which the poet replies,

"Lorenzo! to recriminate is just,

Fondness of fame is avarice of air.

I grant the man is vain, who writes for praise:
Praise no man e'er deserv'd, who sought no more."

unless he sought it as Horace did,

"Delectando, pariterque monendo."

as Young has done.

"As just thy second charge, I grant the muse
Has often blush'd at her degenerate sons,

Retain'd by sense" (sensuality) "to plead her filthy cause,
To raise the low, to magnify the mean,
And subtilize the gross into refin'd;
As if to magic numbers' powerful charm
'Twas given, to make a civet of their song
Obscene, and sweeten ordure to perfume.
Wit, a true pagan, deifies the brute,

And lifts our swine enjoyments from the mire."

The use of wit was never better exercised than in censuring the abuse of it, which is amply done here. In fact, there is nothing more licentious, more tempting, and therefore more dangerous, than wit when ill employed. It lessens, if not puts an end to, our veneration for the most sacred things, and destroys all serious thought, all rational reflection: for it confounds, and puts on the same level, all the objects of the love or hatred, the attachment to, or avoidance of, both; all those

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objects being amalgamated together by wit, which has the power of overcoming or reversing all moral attraction or repulsion.

The poet goes on to investigate the "causes" of all this perversion and confusion. He says, first, that

"We wear the chains of pleasure, and of pride,
These share the man; and these distract him too,
Draw different ways, and clash in their commands;
Pride, like an eagle, builds among the stars;

But pleasure, lark-like, nests upon the ground.'

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Alas, must we vilify the most beautiful of the animal creation, to assimilate them to their lord and master, man? but they will not abuse their instinct, however man does his reason.

Joys, shar'd by brute creation, pride resents;

Pleasure embraces; man would both enjoy,

And both at once, a point how hard to gain!"

Reason has the power of regulating and reconciling both; how valuable then is her assistance !

"Wit dares attempt this arduous enterprise."

Which she accomplishes, not by reconciling, but by confounding both, as Young goes on to shew. In the pleasures of conviviality, where there is a temporary exultation, she calls Bacchus to her assistance, who, as the catch says,

"Gave the charter,

That a man should barter

Wisdom and his health, for the joys of a swine."

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And

Joys of sense can't rise to reason's taste,"

unless she mixes the draught herself.

But, disgusted with the insipidity of this,

an smiles in ruin, glories in his guilt, infamy stands candidate for praise."

What can exceed Young's strength and acuteness? So eightened are his powers by the elevation of their object. He ses still higher, however, in carrying us by his

"Solemn counsels, images of awe," to

Truths, which eternity lets fall on man

th double weight, through these revolving spheres," [The celestial bodies, that illuminated and inspired his "Night Thoughts."]

This death-like silence, and incumbent shade,"

[Turn not away from this picture, gay reader, if you are not quite a Lorenzo.]

Thoughts such as shall revisit your last hour, ́isit uncall'd, and live when life expires."

[And is there no benefit for those who may want it—and who does not?-in these anticipations, which-but read it, again I say to my gay readers, if I have such, and if they have any taste or feeling, for what I faintly endeavour to extolread it, though it ends, if ending it may be called, with this severe admonition :]

"Virtue, for ever frail, as fair, below,

Her tender nature suffers in a crowd,

Nor touches on the world without a stain;

The world's infectious, few bring back, at eve,
Immaculate, the manners of the morn."

This, however, is not unexceptionably, or unrestrictively, true; for both good and evil may be learned in the world,

and afterwards meditated upon, between " morn and eve," or in their night thoughts, with their faithful counsellor, the pillow.

These varied thoughts, and these sublime objects, naturally suggest an apostrophe to the "blest Spirit," who created and rules the whole, and

"Who, studious of our peace, doth turn the thought From vain and vile, to solid and sublime!"

The poet pursues his subject, till he has in a manner exhausted it, or at least drawn much of the spirit out of it, of which, however, much still remains unexpressed; and he fulfils Horace's precept,

"Servetur ad imum

Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.”

or rather he improves upon it, in the expansions of his fertile and vivifying imagination. He draws another delightful picture, in saying,

"The conscious moon, through every distant age,

Has held a lamp to wisdom, and let fall

On contemplation's eye, her purging ray."

This is followed by some beautiful thoughts, as beautifully expressed, on nightly meditations and their utility, which Young had so strongly felt himself ("the famed Athenian, Plato," could not have felt it more), and must have so fully impressed on those who read and relish his sublime poem; and he continues this with all the luxuriance and energy of his poetic vein; lamenting, however (certainly more than it deserved, for we can only infer from it that he felt even more than he expressed), his own want of power, saying, at the same time,

""Tis vain for man to seek for more than man."

es, but man should endeavour to make the most of his ■powers, as Young has evidently done in this his favourite -k. His case entitled him to say,

wisdom is our lesson (and what else

bles man? what else have angels learnt?) f! more proficients in thy school are made, genius, or proud learning, ere could boast."

This, too, he pursues with all the amusing variety of metaors that his imagination could suggest, and ends with saying, Wisdom less shudders at a fool, than wit."

And well it may, for wit and wisdom are generally at varince with each other. The wit may be "wise in his own onceit;" but Solomon has told us, “that there is more hope f a fool than of such." Wit, when ill employed, dazzles too nuch to let a ray of reason pierce through its false glare. Reason enlightens, wit blinds.

But, says Young,

Wisdom smiles, when humbled mortals weep."

Yes, wisdom is often, as Gray's "Ode to Adversity" so beautifully expresses it,

"In sable garb array'd,

ith keenly searching look profound.”

and it makes us find that "it is good for us to have been in trouble." After dwelling upon, and exemplifying this, and saying that "worldly wisdom and divine differ,"

Just as the waning and the waxing moon;

More empty worldly wisdom every day;
And every day more fair her rival shines."

(another of Young's beautiful similes.)