with decayed faculties. He died at the parsonagehouse, at Welwyn, April 12, 1765, aged eighty-four years, and was buried under the altar-piece of that church, by the side of his wife. By his own desire, he was followed by all the poor of the parish, without any tolling of the bells, or any person appearing at his funeral in mourning. He had caused all his manuscripts to be destroyed before his death. He left the whole of his fortune, which was pretty considerable, with the exception of a few legacies, to his son, Mr. Frederic Young, though he would never see him in his lifetime, owing to his displeasure at his imprudent conduct at college, for which he had been expelled.

His character was that of the true Christian Divine; his heart was in his profession. It is reported, that, once preaching in his turn at St. James's, and being unable to gain attention, he sat down, and burst into tears. His conversation was of the same nature as his works, and shewed a solemn cast of thought to be natural to him: death, futurity, judgment, eternity, were his common topics. When at home in the country, he spent many hours in the day walking among the graves in the churchyard. In his garden he had an alcove, painted as if with a bench to repose on; on approaching near enough to discover the deception, the following motto

was seen:

'Invisibilia non decipiunt.'

'The unseen things do not deceive us.'

In his poem of the Last Day, one of his earliest works, he calls his muse' the Melancholy Maid,'

'whom dismal scenes delight,

Frequent at tombs, and in the realms of night.' Grafton is said by Spence to have made him a present of a human skull, with a candle in it, to serve him for a lamp; and he is reported to have used it. Yet he promoted an assembly and bowling-green in his parish, and often attended them. He would in

dulge in occasional sallies of wit, of which his wellknown epigram on Voltaire* is a specimen; but perhaps there was more of indignation than pleasantry in it, as his satire was ever pointed against indecency and irreligion. His satire, entitled the

Love of Fame, or the Universal Passion, is a great performance. The shafts of his wit are directed against the folly of being devoted to the fashion, and aiming to appear what we are not. We meet here with smoothness of style, pointed sentences, solid sentiments, and the sharpness of resistless truth.

The Night Thoughts abound in the most exalted flights, the utmost stretch of human thought, which is the great excellence of Young's poetry. 'In his Night Thoughts,' says a great critic, he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour.' It must be allowed, however, that many of these fine thoughts are overcast with the gloom of melancholy, so as to have an effect rather to be dreaded by minds of a morbid hue: they paint, notwithstanding, with the most lively fancy, the feelings of the heart, the vanity of human life, its fleeting honours and enjoyments, and contain the strongest arguments in support of the immortality of the soul.

Thou art so witty, profligate, and thin,

Thou seem'st a Milton with his Death and Sin.'

THE COMPLAINT.

NIGHT I.

ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

To the Right Honorable Arthur Onslow, Esq.
Speaker of the House of Commons.

TIRED Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes:
Swift on his downy pinions flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose
I wake: how happy they who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought
From wave to wave of fancied misery

At random drove, her helm of reason lost:
Though now restored, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) severer for severe.

The day too short for my distress; and night,
E'en in the zenith of her dark domain,

Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,

In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.
Silence how dead! and darkness how profound!

B

Nor eye nor list'ning ear an object finds;
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the gen'ral pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd:
Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.
Silence and Darkness! solemn sisters! twins
From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought
To reason, and on reason build resolve,
(That column of true majesty in man)
Assist me: I will thank you in the grave;

The grave your kingdom: there this frame shall fall
A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.

But what are you?

Thou, who didst put to flight Primeval Silence, when the morning stars, Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball;

O Thou, whose word from solid darkness struck
That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my soul;
My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold, while others rest.

Through this opaque of nature and of soul,
This double night, transmit one pitying ray,
To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe)
Lead it through various scenes of life and death,
And from each scene the noblest truths inspire.
Nor less inspire my conduct than my song;
Teach my best reason, reason; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss: to give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours.

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. It is the signal that demands despatch:

How much is to be done! My hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-on what? A fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man!

How passing wonder HE who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes!
From diff'rent natures, marvellously mix'd,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb'd!
Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

A worm! a god!-I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost. At home, a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wond'ring at her own. How reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man,

Triumphantly distress'd! what joy! what dread!
Alternately transported and alarm'd!

What can preserve my life? or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

'Tis past conjecture: all things rise in proof. While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread, What though my soul fantastic measures trod O'er fairy fields, or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathless woods, or, down the craggy steep Hurl'd beadlong, swam with pain the mantled pool, Or scaled the cliff, or danced on hollow winds With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain? Her ceaseless flight, tho' devious, speaks her nature Of subtler essence than the trodden clod, Active, aërial, towering, unconfined,