or when riding on horseback—an exercise, by the way, which gives a sense of mastery and confidence, stirs the blood, elevates the animal spirits, and has been felt by many to be eminently favourable to thought and mental composition. It inspired, we know, such men as Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Delta. We love to think of Young riding through the green lanes of his parish, and cooing out to himself his plaintive minstrelsies. We love better still to watch his lonely lamp shining at midnight, like a star, through the darkness, and seeming to answer the far signal of those mightier luminaries which are burning above in the Great Bear and Orion—the poet the while now dipping his pen to indite his ardent immortalities—now leaning his head on his widowed arm, and surrendering himself to paroxysms of uncontrollable anguish—and now looking out upon the Night as the “Lord is abroad” on the wings of the tempest, or as He is silently shining out his name in suns and galaxies—those unwearied “Watchers” and unbaptized “Holy Ones.”

In 1745, Young wrote “Reflections on the Public Situation of the Kingdom”—a production which made no impression at the time, and is now entirely forgotten. He did not include it in the collection of his works. In 1753, the tragedy of “The Brothers,” which had lain past for thirty years, was produced on the stage. Young gave the profits of the play, and several hundreds from his own pocket, amounting to a thousand pounds in all, to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel—an act which surely balances the stories usually told of his love of money and thirst for preferment.

His next work was, “The Centaur not Fabulous, in Six Letters to a Friend.” Its subjects were, the infidelity and licentiousness of that age. It is a pity that this book has fallen into oblivion, as it is a very rich and powerful piece of writing. It is full of clear, sharp, sententious truth. Its style palpitates with energy, and glitters with poetic image. We wish we saw it reprinted in a cheap form; for, although infidelity and pleasure have both materially changed their phases, there is much in Young’s little work that has an imperishable application, and that would be even yet eminently useful. The character of Altamont is supposed to represent Lord Euston—a nobleman notorious for his vices. The age in which Young’s lot was cast was characterised by a low, sneering scepticism, and his earnest and awful letters were treated with ridicule. Many pronounced him mad, others whispered about dotage. Now, the book seems replete with wisdom, and burning almost with prophetic fire.

Young, in fact, was not generally appreciated during his lifetime. Tried by the Boileau and Pope standard, his writings were pronounced turgid, strained, and extravagant. Even Warburton, who should have known better, passed a severe judgment on the “Night Thoughts.” He had, however, his warm admirers, prominent among whom was the amiable and learned Joseph Warton. He dedicated to Young his “Essay on Pope”—an essay containing the first sober and discriminating estimate of that most artificial of true poets, and with the opinions expressed in which Young is supposed to have coincided; for, although he admired, and too often imitated, Pope’s brilliant point and antithesis, he was aware of far higher models, and found Homer, Milton, and Job far more congenial companions in his studious midnights. In 1758, he published a short and in nowise remarkable sermon, preached before the King at Kensington.

Richardson, the novelist, was one of Young’s greatest friends. Their views on moral and religious subjects were identical; and in gravity of tone, and severity of genius, they resembled each other—Richardson being a duller Young, and Young a more elastic and brilliant Richardson. Although both lived in a most depraved age, neither catered to its tastes. To Richardson, Young addressed, in 1759, a letter on Original Composition, which betrays no symptoms of senility, but is full of vigorous and striking remark. In 1762, when upwards of eighty, he wrote his last and worst poem. It is entitled “Resignation,” and requires, on the part of the reader, considerable exercise of that grace. It has very little of Young’s peculiar power, and is chiefly filled with weak and toothless abuse of his old acquaintance Voltaire. It was written, it appears, at the instance of Mrs Boscawen—the widow of the Admiral—who, having found consolation from the “Night Thoughts,” visited Young, and was still more captivated by his conversation.

During the latter years of his life, he is said to have fallen too much under the dominion of his housekeeper, Mrs Hallowes, the widow of a clergyman, who is reported to have ruled him with a rod of iron. Ere his death he revised his printed works, and gave charges in his will that all his MSS. should be burned. He applied, when past eighty, to Archbishop Secker for promotion, and was appointed Clerk of the Closet to the Princess-Dowager of Wales. In April 1765, at the age of eighty-four, he breathed his last. He had been previously unable to perform duty for three or four years, but retained his faculties to the last. He left his property principally to his son, who was found by Johnson and Boswell, in 1781, residing at Welwyn, and cherishing the memory of his father.

Young was unquestionably a neglected man. Out of all sight the greatest genius then connected with the ministry of the Church of England, he never mounted one step higher than the rectorship his own college had conferred on him. Many reasons have been assigned for this. Some say that it was because he had attached himself to the side of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and had preached an obnoxious sermon at St James’s; others, that it was because he had received a pension through Sir Robert Walpole. We think that the real cause lay in the vulgar and senseless prejudice which prevailed then, and in some measure prevails still, against a literary divine, as if he were a hybrid, or “centaur, not fabulous.” Let us not blame that age so long as we remember the burning shame reflected on ours by the fact that the gifted and high-charactered author of Salathiel, and Paris in 1815, is still only the rector of St Stephen’s, Walbrook, while many younger men, who in comparison with him are of little mark, have reached the episcopal bench. Probably Young felt himself consoled for his bad success, by the knowledge that his name and great poem had travelled to foreign lands, and that Madame Klopstock was wondering—good, simple soul!—that her husband’s idol and her own, had not been made Archbishop of Canterbury.

Very little beyond what we have mentioned has been left on record about his private habits and manners. It was his custom, when well pleased with a passage in the course of his reading, to double down the leaf—when particularly gratified, to mark it by two folds; and some favourite works, such as The Rambler, had so many of these marks of approbation that they would not shut. On one occasion, in replying to Tonson and Lintot, who were both candidates for printing one of his works, he misdirected the letters; and when Lintot opened his, he found it begun—“Bernard Lintot is so great a scoundrel,” &c. Young was proverbial for absence of mind, and sometimes forgot whether he had dined or not. Yet in Welwyn his mode of life was rather systematic. He rose early, made his domestics join him in morning prayer, read little, ate and drank moderately, walked much in his churchyard, and, in general, retired to rest punctually at eight evening. His son told Dr Johnson that he was cheerful in company, but gloomy when alone, and that he never fully recovered his spirits after his wife’s death. Mr Jones, his curate, has confirmed