“A friend you have, and I the same,
Whose prudent, soft address
Will bring to life those healing thoughts
Which died in your distress.
That friend, the spirit of my theme
Extracting for your ease,
Will leave to me the dreg, in thoughts
Too common; such as these.”
By the same lady I was enabled to say, in her own words, that Young’s
unbounded genius appeared to greater advantage in the companion than even
in the author; that the Christian 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.”
Notwithstanding Young had said, in his “Conjectures on Original
Composition,” that “blank verse is verse unfallen, uncursed—verse
reclaimed, re-enthroned in the true language of the gods;”
notwithstanding he administered consolation to his own grief in this
immortal language, Mrs. Boscawen was comforted in rhyme.
While the poet and the Christian were applying this comfort, Young had
himself occasion for comfort, in consequence of the sudden death of
Richardson, who was printing the former part of the poem. Of
Richardson’s death he says—
“When heaven would kindly set us free,
And earth’s enchantment end;
It takes the most effectual means,
And robs us of a friend.”
To “Resignation” was prefixed an apology for its appearance, to which
more credit is due than to the generality of such apologies, from Young’s
unusual anxiety that no more productions of his old age should disgrace
his former fame. In his will, dated February, 1760, he desires of his
executors, _in a particular manner_, that all his manuscript books and
writings, whatever, might be burned, except his book of accounts. In
September, 1764, he added a kind of codicil, wherein he made it his dying
entreaty to his housekeeper, to whom he left £1,000, “that all his
manuscripts might be destroyed as soon as he was dead, which would
greatly oblige her deceased _friend_.”
It may teach mankind the uncertainty of wordly friendships to know that
Young, either by surviving those he loved, or by outliving their
affections, could only recollect the names of two _friends_, his
housekeeper and a hatter, to mention in his will; and it may serve to
repress that testamentary pride, which too often seeks for sounding names
and titles, to be informed that the author of the “Night Thoughts” did
not blush to leave a legacy to his “friend Henry Stevens, a hatter at the
Temple-gate.” Of these two remaining friends, one went before Young.
But, at eighty-four, “where,” as he asks in _The Centaur_, “is that world
into which we were born?” The same humility which marked a hatter and a
housekeeper for the friends of the author of the “Night Thoughts,” had
before bestowed the same title on his footman, in an epitaph in his
“Churchyard” upon James Baker, dated 1749; which I am glad to find in the
late collection of his works. Young and his housekeeper were ridiculed,
with more ill-nature than wit, in a kind of novel published by Kidgell in
1755, called “The Card,” under the names of Dr. Elwes and Mrs. Fusby. In
April, 1765, at an age to which few attain, a period was put to the life
of Young. He had performed no duty for three or four years, but he
retained his intellects to the last.
Much is told in the “Biographia,” which I know not to have been true, of
the manner of his burial; of the master and children of a charity-school,
which he founded in his parish, who neglected to attend their
benefactor’s corpse; and a bell which was not caused to toll as often as
upon those occasions bells usually toll. Had that humanity, which is
here lavished upon things of little consequence either to the living or
to the dead, been shown in its proper place to the living, I should have
had less to say about Lorenzo. They who lament that these misfortunes
happened to Young, forget the praise he bestows upon Socrates, in the
Preface to “Night Seven,” for resenting his friend’s request about his
funeral. During some part of his life Young was abroad, but I have not
been able to learn any particulars. In his seventh Satire he says,
“When, after battle, I the field have SEEN
Spread o’er with ghastly shapes which once were men.”
It is known, also, that from this or from some other field he once
wandered into the camp with a classic in his hand, which he was reading
intently; and had some difficulty to prove that he was only an absent
poet, and not a spy.
The curious reader of Young’s life will naturally inquire to what it was
owing, that though he lived almost forty years after he took orders,
which included one whole reign uncommonly long, and part of another, he
was never thought worthy of the least preferment. The author of the
“Night Thoughts” ended his days upon a living which came to him from his
college without any favour, and to which he probably had an eye when he
determined on the Church. To satisfy curiosity of this kind is, at this
distance of time, far from easy. The parties themselves know not often,
at the instant, why they are neglected, or why they are preferred. The
neglect of Young is by some ascribed to his having attached himself to
the Prince of Wales, and to his having preached an offensive sermon at
St. James’s. It has been told me that he had two hundred a year in the
late reign, by the patronage of Walpole; and that, whenever any one
reminded the king of Young, the only answer was, “he has a pension.” All
the light thrown on this inquiry, by the following letter from Secker,
only serves to show at what a late period of life the author of the
“Night Thoughts” solicited preferment:—
“Deanery of St. Paul’s, July 8, 1758.
“GOOD DR. YOUNG,—I have long wondered that more suitable notice of
your great merit hath not been taken by persons in power. But how to
remedy the omission I see not. No encouragement hath ever been given
me to mention things of this nature to his majesty. And therefore,
in all likelihood, the only consequence of doing it would be
weakening the little influence which else I may possibly have on some
other occasions. Your fortune and your reputation set you above the
need of advancement; and your sentiments, above that concern for it,
on your own account, which, on that of the public, is sincerely felt
by
“Your loving Brother, THO. CANT.”
At last, at the age of fourscore, he was appointed, in 1761, Clerk of the
Closet to the Princess Dowager. One obstacle must have stood not a
little in the way of that preferment after which his whole life seems to
have panted. Though he took orders, he never entirely shook off
politics. He was always the lion of his master Milton, “pawing to get
free his hinder parts.” By this conduct, if he gained some friends, he
made many enemies. Again: Young was a poet; and again, with reverence be
it spoken, poets by profession do not always make the best clergymen. If
the author of the “Night Thoughts” composed many sermons, he did not
oblige the public with many. Besides, in the latter part of his life,
Young was fond of holding himself out for a man retired from the world.
But he seemed to have forgotten that the same verse which contains
“oblitus meorum,” contains also “obliviscendus et illis.” The brittle
chain of worldly friendship and patronage is broken as effectually, when
one goes beyond the length of it, as when the other does. To the vessel
which is sailing from the shore, it only appears that the shore also
recedes; in life it is truly thus. He who retires from the world will
find himself, in reality, deserted as fast, if not faster, by the world.
The public is not to be treated as the coxcomb treats his mistress; to be
threatened with desertion, in order to increase fondness.
Young seems to have been taken at his word. Notwithstanding his frequent
complaints of being neglected, no hand was reached out to pull him from
that retirement of which he declared himself enamoured. Alexander
assigned no palace for the residence of Diogenes, who boasted his surly
satisfaction with his tub. Of the domestic manners and petty habits of
the author of the “Night Thoughts,” I hoped to have given you an account
from the best authority; but who shall dare to say, To-morrow I will be
wise or virtuous, or to-morrow I will do a particular thing? Upon
inquiring for his housekeeper, I learned that she was buried two days
before I reached the town of her abode.
In a letter from Tscharner, a noble foreigner, to Count Haller, Tscharner
says, he has lately spent four days with Young at Welwyn, where the
author tastes all the ease and pleasure mankind can desire. “Everything
about him shows the man, each individual being placed by rule. All is
neat without art. He is very pleasant in conversation, and extremely
polite.” This, and more, may possibly be true; but Tscharner’s was a
first visit, a visit of curiosity and admiration, and a visit which the
author expected.
Of Edward Young an anecdote which wanders among readers is not true, that
he was Fielding’s Parson Adams. The original of that famous painting was
William Young, who was a clergyman. He supported an uncomfortable
existence by translating for the booksellers from Greek, and, if he did
not seem to be his own friend, was at least no man’s enemy. Yet the
facility with which this report has gained belief in the world argues,
were it not sufficiently known that the author of the “Night Thoughts”
bore some resemblance to Adams. The attention which Young bestowed upon
the perusal of books is not unworthy imitation. When any passage pleased
him he appears to have folded down the leaf. On these passages he
bestowed a second reading. But the labours of man are too frequently
vain. Before he returned to much of what he had once approved he died.
Many of his books, which I have seen, are by those notes of approbation
so swelled beyond their real bulk, that they will hardly shut.
“What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame!
Earth’s highest station ends in _Here he lies_!
And _dust to dust_ concludes her noblest song!”
The author of these lines is not without his ‘_Hic jacet_.’ By the good
sense of his son it contains none of that praise which no marble can make
the bad or the foolish merit; which, without the direction of stone or a
turf, will find its way, sooner or later, to the deserving.
M. S.
Optimi parentis
EDWARDI YOUNG, LL.D.
Hujus Ecclesiæ rect. et Elizabethæ fæm. prænob
Conjugis ejus amantissimæ
Pio & gratissimo animo hoc marmor posuit
F. Y.
Filius superstes.
Is it not strange that the author of the “Night Thoughts” has
inscribed no monument to the memory of his lamented wife? Yet what
marble will endure as long as the poems?
Such, my good friend, is the account which I have been able to
collect of the great Young. That it may be long before anything like
what I have just transcribed be necessary for you, is the sincere
wish of,
Dear Sir, your greatly obliged Friend,
HERBERT CROFT, Jun.
Lincoln’s Inn, Sept., 1780.
P.S.—This account of Young was seen by you in manuscript, you know,
sir, and, though I could not prevail on you to make any alteration,
you insisted on striking out one passage, because it said that if I
did not wish you to live long for your sake, I did for the sake of
myself and of the world. But this postscript you will not see before
the printing of it, and I will say here, in spite of you, how I feel
myself honoured and bettered by your friendship, and that if I do
credit to the Church, after which I always longed, and for which I am
now going to give in exchange the bar, though not at so late a period
of life as Young took orders, it will be owing, in no small measure,
to my having had the happiness of calling the author of “The Rambler”
my friend.