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"vice, I would have you omit that, and "the oration on Codrington. I think the "collection will fell better without "them."

There are who relate, that, when first Young found himself independent, and his own master at All-fouls, he was not the ornament to religion and morality which he afterwards became. The authority of his father, indeed, had ceased by his death in 1705; and Young was certainly not ashamed to be patronized by the infamous Wharton. But Wharton befriended in Young, perhaps,

the

poet, and particularly the tragedian. If virtuous authors must be patronized only by virtuous peers, who fhall point them out?

Yet

Yet Pope is faid by Ruffhead to have told Warburton, that "Young had much of a fublime genius, though without common sense; so that his genius, having no guide, was perpetually liable to de-generate into bombaft. This made him, pass a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets but his having a very good heart enabled him to fupport the clerical character when he affumed it, first with decency, and afterwards with ho nour."

They who think ill of Young's mora lity in the early part of his life, may perhaps be wrong, but Tindal could not err in his opinion of Young's warmth and abi

lity in the cause of religion. Tindal used.

to

to spend much of his time at All-fouls. "The other boys," said the atheist, "I "can always answer, because I always "know whence they have their argu"ments, which I have read an hundred "times; but that fellow Young is con"tinually peftering me with fomething "of his own." After all, Tindal and the cenfurers of Young may be reconcileable. Young might, for two or three years, have tried that kind of life, in which his natural principles would not fuffer him to wallow long. If this were fo, he has left behind him not only his evidence in favour of virtue, but the potent teftimony of experience against vice.

Young

Young perhaps afcribed the good fortune of Addison to the Poem to his Majesty, prefented, with a copy of verses, to Somers; and hoped that he also might foar to wealth and honours on wings of the fame kind. His first poetical flight was when Queen Anne called up to the House of Lords the fons of the Earls of Northampton and Aylesbury, and added, in one day, ten others to the number of Peers. In order to reconcile the people to one at least of the new Lords, he published in 1712 An Epistle to the Right Honourable George Lord Lanfdowne. In this compofition the poet pours out his panegyrick with the extravagance of a young man, who thinks his present

ftock

ftock of wealth will never be ex

hausted.

The poem feems intended alfo to reconcile the publick to the late peace. This is endeavoured to be done by fhewing that men are flain in war, and that in peace harvests wave and commerce fwells her fail. If this be humanity, it is not politicks. Another purpose of this epiftle appears to have been to prepare the publick for the reception of fome tragedy of his own. His Lordfhip's patronage, he fays, will not let him repent his paffion for the stage;—and the particular praise bestowed on Othello and Oroonoko feems to fhew that fome fuch character as Zanga was even then

in

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