“Lorenzo, to recriminate is just,
I grant the man is vain who writes for praise.”
But, to cut short all inquiry; if any one of these passages, if any
passage in the poems, be applicable, my friend shall pass for Lorenzo.
The son of the author of the “Night Thoughts” was not old enough, when
they were written, to recriminate or to be a father. The “Night
Thoughts” were begun immediately after the mournful event of 1741. The
first “Nights” appear, in the books of the Company of Stationers, as the
property of Robert Dodsley, in 1742. The Preface to “Night Seven” is
dated July 7th, 1744. The marriage, in consequence of which the supposed
Lorenzo was born, happened in May, 1731. Young’s child was not born till
June, 1733. In 1741, this Lorenzo, this finished infidel, this father to
whose education Vice had for some years put the last hand, was only eight
years old. An anecdote of this cruel sort, so open to contradiction, so
impossible to be true, who could propagate? Thus easily are blasted the
reputation of the living and of the dead. “Who, then, was Lorenzo?”
exclaim the readers I have mentioned. If we cannot be sure that he was
his son, which would have been finely terrible, was he not his nephew,
his cousin? These are questions which I do not pretend to answer. For
the sake of human nature, I could wish Lorenzo to have been only the
creation of the poet’s fancy: like the Quintus of Anti Lucretius, “quo
nomine,” says Polignac, “quemvis Atheum intellige.” That this was the
case many expressions in the “Night Thoughts” would seem to prove, did
not a passage in “Night Eight” appear to show that he had somebody in his
eye for the groundwork at least of the painting. Lovelace or Lorenzo may
be feigned characters; but a writer does not feign a name of which he
only gives the initial letter:—
“Tell not Calista. She will laugh thee dead,
Or send thee to her hermitage with L—.”
The “Biographia,” not satisfied with pointing out the son of Young, in
that son’s lifetime, as his father’s Lorenzo, travels out of its way into
the history of the son, and tells of his having been forbidden his
college at Oxford for misbehaviour. How such anecdotes, were they true,
tend to illustrate the life of Young, it is not easy to discover. Was
the son of the author of the “Night Thoughts,” indeed, forbidden his
college for a time, at one of our Universities? The author of “Paradise
Lost” is by some supposed to have been disgracefully ejected from the
other. From juvenile follies who is free? But, whatever the
“Biographia” chooses to relate, the son of Young experienced no
dismission from his college, either lasting or temporary. Yet, were
nature to indulge him with a second youth, and to leave him at the same
time the experience of that which is past, he would probably spend it
differently—who would not?—he would certainly be the occasion of less
uneasiness to his father. But, from the same experience, he would as
certainly, in the same case, be treated differently by his father.
Young was a poet: poets, with reverence be it spoken, do not make the
best parents. Fancy and imagination seldom deign to stoop from their
heights; always stoop unwillingly to the low level of common duties.
Aloof from vulgar life, they pursue their rapid flight beyond the ken of
mortals, and descend not to earth but when compelled by necessity. The
prose of ordinary occurrences is beneath the dignity of poets. He who is
connected with the author of the “Night Thoughts” only by veneration for
the Poet and the Christian may be allowed to observe that Young is one of
those concerning whom, as you remark in your account of Addison, it is
proper rather to say “nothing that is false than all that is true.” But
the son of Young would almost sooner, I know, pass for a Lorenzo than see
himself vindicated, at the expense of his father’s memory, from follies
which, if it may be thought blameable in a boy to have committed them, it
is surely praiseworthy in a man to lament and certainly not only
unnecessary, but cruel in a biographer to record.
Of the “Night Thoughts,” notwithstanding their author’s professed
retirement, all are inscribed to great or to growing names. He had not
yet weaned himself from earls and dukes, from the Speakers of the House
of Commons, Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and Chancellors of the
Exchequer. In “Night Eight” the politician plainly betrays himself:—
“Think no post needful that demands a knave:
When late our civil helm was shifting hands,
So P— thought: think better if you can.”
Yet it must be confessed that at the conclusion of “Night Nine,” weary
perhaps of courting earthly patrons, he tells his soul—
“Henceforth
Thy _patron_ he, whose diadem has dropped
You gems of Heaven; Eternity thy prize;
And leave the racers of the world their own.”
The “Fourth Night” was addressed by “a much-indebted Muse” to the
Honourable Mr. Yorke, now Lord Hardwicke, who meant to have laid the Muse
under still greater obligation, by the living of Shenfield, in Essex, if
it had become vacant. The “First Night” concludes with this passage:—
“Dark, though not blind, like thee, Meonides;
Or, Milton, thee. Ah! could I reach your strain;
Or his who made Meonides our own!
Man too he sung. Immortal man I sing.
Oh had he pressed his theme, pursued the track
Which opens out of darkness into day!
Oh, had he mounted on his wing of fire,
Soared, where I sink, and sung immortal man—
How had it blest mankind, and rescued me!”
To the author of these lines was dedicated, in 1756, the first volume of
an “Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope,” which attempted, whether
justly or not, to pluck from Pope his “Wing of Fire,” and to reduce him
to a rank at least one degree lower than the first class of English
poets. If Young accepted and approved the dedication, he countenanced
this attack upon the fame of him whom he invokes as his Muse.
Part of “paper-sparing” Pope’s Third Book of the “Odyssey,” deposited in
the Museum, is written upon the back of a letter signed “E. Young,” which
is clearly the handwriting of our Young. The letter, dated only May 2nd,
seems obscure; but there can be little doubt that the friendship he
requests was a literary one, and that he had the highest literary opinion
of Pope. The request was a prologue, I am told.
“May the 2nd.
“DEAR SIR,—Having been often from home, I know not if you have done
me the favour of calling on me. But, be that as it will, I much want
that instance of your friendship I mentioned in my last; a friendship
I am very sensible I can receive from no one but yourself. I should
not urge this thing so much but for very particular reasons; nor can
you be at a loss to conceive how a ‘trifle of this nature’ may be of
serious moment to me; and while I am in hopes of the great advantage
of your advice about it, I shall not be so absurd as to make any
further step without it. I know you are much engaged, and only hope
to hear of you at your entire leisure.
“I am, sir, your most faithful
“and obedient servant,
“E. YOUNG.”