an opportunity of going thither with his avowed friend and patron?

From "The Englishman" it appears that a tragedy by Young was in the theatre so early as 1713. Yet Busiris was not brought upon Drury Lane stage till 1719. It was inscribed to the duke of Newcastle, "because the late instances he had received of his grace's undeserved and uncommon favour, in an affair of some consequence, foreign to the theatre, had taken from him the privilege of choosing a patron." The dedication he afterward suppressed.

"Your

Busiris was followed in the year 1731 by The Revenge. He dedicated this famous tragedy to the duke of Wharton. grace," says the dedication, " has been pleased to make yourself accessary to the following scenes, not only by suggesting the most beautiful incident in them, but by making all possible provision for the success of the whole."

That his grace should have suggested the incident to which he alludes, whatever that incident might have been, is not unlikely. The last mental exertion of the superannuated young man, in his quarters at Lerida, in Spain, was some scenes of a tragedy on the story of Mary queen of Scots.

Dryden dedicated "Marriage à la Mode" to Wharton's infamous relation Rochester, whom he acknowledges not only as the defender of his poetry, but as the promoter of his fortune. Young concludes his address to Wharton thus; "My present fortune is his bounty, and my future his care; which I will venture to say will be always remembered to his honour, since he, I know, intended his generosity as an encouragement to merit, though through his very pardonable partiality to one who bears. him so sincere a duty and respect, I happened to receive the benefit of it." That he ever had such a patron as Wharton, Young took all the pains in his power to conceal from the world, by excluding this dedication from his works. He should have remem bered that he at the same time concealed his obligation to Wharton for the most beautiful incident in what is surely not his least beautiful composition. The passage just quoted is, in a poem afterward addressed to Walpole, literally copied.

Be this thy partial smile from censure free!
'Twas meant for merit, though it fell on me.

While Young, who, in his Love of Fame, complains grievously how often "dedications wash an Æthiop white," was painting an amiable duke of Wharton in perishable prose, Pope was, perhaps, beginning to describe the "scorn and wonder of his days" in lasting verse.

To the patronage of such a character, had Young studied men as much as Pope, he would have known how little to have trusted. Young, however, was certainly indebted to it for something material; and the duke's regard for Young, added to his "lust of praise," procured to All Souls' college a donation, which was not forgotten by the poet when he dedicated The Revenge.

It will surprise you to see me cite second Atkins, case 136, Stiles versus the attorney general, March 14, 1740, as authority for the life of a poet. But biographers do not always find such certain guides as the oaths of the persons whom they record. Chancellor Hardwicke was to determine whether two annuities, granted by the duke of Wharton to Young, were for legal considerations. One was dated the 24th. of March, 1719, and accounted for his grace's bounty in a style princely and commendable, if not legal. "Considering that the public good is advanced by the encouragement of learning and the polite arts, and being pleased therein with the attempts of Dr. Young, in consideration thereof, and of the love I bear him," &c. The other was dated the 10th. of July, 1722.

Young, on his examination, swore that he quitted the Exeter family, and refused an annuity of 1007. which had been offered him for life if he would continue tutor to lord Burleigh, upon the pressing solicitations of the duke of Wharton, and his grace's assurances of providing for him in a much more ample manner. It also appeared that the duke had given him a bond for 6007. dated the 15th. of March, 1721, in consideration of his taking several journeys, and being at great expenses, in order to be chosen member of the house of commons, at the duke's desire, and in consideration of his not taking two livings of 2007. and 4007. in the gift of All Souls college, on his grace's promises of serving and advancing him in the world.

Of his adventures in the Exeter family I am unable to give any account. The attempt to get into parliament was at Cirencester, where Young stood a contested election. His grace dis

covered in him talents for oratory as well as for poetry. Nor was this judgment wrong. Young, after he took orders, became a very popular preacher, and was much followed for the grace and animation of his delivery. By his oratorical talents he was once in his life, according to the Biographia, deserted. As he was preaching in his turn at St. James's, he plainly perceived it was out of his power to command the attention of his audience. This so affected the feelings of the preacher, that he sat back in the pulpit, and burst into tears. But we must pursue his poetical life.

In 1719 he lamented the death of Addison, in a letter addressed to their common friend Tickell. For the secret history of the following lines, if they contain any, it is now vain to seek;

In jay once join'd, in sorrow, now, for years-
Partner in grief, and brother of my tears,
Tickell, accept this verse, thy mournful due.

From your account of Tickell it appears that he and Young used to "communicate to each other whatever verses they wrote, even to the least things."

In 1719 appeared a Paraphrase on Part of the Book of Job. Parker, to whom it is dedicated, had not long, by means of the seals, been qualified for a patron. Of this work the author's opinion may be known from his letter to Curll; "You seem, in the collection you propose, to have omitted what I think may claim the first place in it; I mean a translation from part of Job,' printed by Mr. Tonson." The dedication, which was only suffered to appear in Mr. Tonson's edition, while it speaks with satisfaction of his present retirement, seems to make an unusual struggle to escape from retirement. But every one who sings in the dark does not sing from joy. It is addressed, in no common strain of flattery, to a chancellor, of whom he clearly appears to have had no kind of knowledge.

Of his satires it would not have been possible to fix the dates without the assistance of first editions, which, as you had occasion to observe in your account of Dryden, are with difficulty found. We must then have referred to the poems, to discover when they were written. For these internal notes of time we should not have referred in vain. The first satire laments, that

"guilt's chief foe in Addison is fled." The second, addressing himself, asks,

Is thy ambition sweating for a rhyme,

Thou unambitious fool, at this late time?
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.

The satires were originally published separately in folio, under the title of The Universal Passion. These passages fix the appearance of the first to about 1725, the time at which it came out. As Young seldom suffered his pen to dry, after he had once dipped it in poetry, we may conclude that he began his satires soon after he had written the Paraphrase on Job. The last satire was certainly finished in the beginning of the year 1726. In December, 1725, the king, in his passage from Helvoetsluys, escaped with great difficulty from a storm by landing at Rye; and the conclusion of the satire turns the escape into a miracle, in such an encomiastic strain of compliment as poetry too often seeks to pay to royalty.

From the sixth of these poems we learn;

Midst empire's charms, how Carolina's heart
Glow'd with the love of virtue and of art;

since the grateful poet tells us, in the next couplet;

Her favour is diffus'd to that degree,

Excess of goodness, it has dawn'd on me.

Her majesty had stood godmother, and given her name, to the daughter of the lady whom Young married in 1731; and had perhaps shown some attention to lady Elizabeth's future husband. The fifth satire, On Women, was not published till 1727; and the sixth not till 1728.

To these poems, when, in 1728, he gathered them into one publication, he prefixed a preface; in which he observes, that no man can converse much in the world, but at what he meets with he must either be insensible or grieve, or be angry or smile. Now to smile at it, and turn it into ridicule," he adds, “I think most eligible, as it hurts ourselves least, and gives vice and folly the greatest offence. Laughing at the misconduct of the world will, in a great measure, ease us of any more disagreeable passion about it. One passion is more effectually driven out by another

than by reason, whatever some teach." So wrote, and so of course thought, the lively and witty satirist at the grave age of almost fifty, who, many years earlier in life, wrote The Last Day. After all, Swift pronounced of these satires, that they should either have been more angry or more merry.

Is it not somewhat singular that Young preserved, without any palliation, this preface, so bluntly decisive in favour of laughing at the world, in the same collection of his works which contains the mournful, angry, gloomy, Night Thoughts?

At the conclusion of the preface he applies Plato's beautiful fable of "The Birth of Love" to modern poetry, with the addition, "that poetry, like love, is a little subject to blindness, which makes her mistake her way to preferments and honours; and that she retains a dutiful admiration of her father's family; but divides her favours, and generally lives with her mother's relations." Poetry, it is true, did not lead Young to preferments or to honours; but was there not something like blindness in the flattery which he sometimes forced her and her sister prose to utter? She was always, indeed, taught by him to entertain a most dutiful admiration of riches; but surely Young, though nearly related to poetry, had no connection with her whom Plato makes the mother of love. That he could not well complain of being related to poverty appears clearly from the frequent bounties which his gratitude records, and from the wealth which he left behind him. By The Universal Passion he acquired no vulgar fortune, more than three thousand pounds. A considerable sum had already been swallowed up in the South sea. For this loss he took the vengeance of an author. His muse makes poetical use more than once of a South sea dream.

It is related by Mr. Spence in his manuscript anecdotes, on the authority of Mr. Rawlinson, that Young, upon the publication of his Universal Passion, received from the duke of Grafton two thousand pounds; and that, when one of his friends exclaimed, "Two thousand pounds for a poem !" he said it was the best bargain he ever made in his life, for the poem was worth four thousand.

This story may be true; but it seems to have been raised from the two answers of lord Burghley and sir Philip Sidney in Spenser's life.