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in contemplation. The affectionate mention of the death of his friend Harrifon of New College, at the clofe of this poem, is an inftance of Young's art, which difplayed itself fo fully thirty years afterwards in the Night Thoughts, of making the publick a party in his private forrow.

Should justice call upon you to cenfure this poem, it ought at least to be remembered that he did not infert it into his works; and that in the letter to Curll, as we have feen, he advises its omiffion. The bookfellers, in the prefent Body of English Poetry, should have diftinguished what was deliberately rejected by the refpective authors. This I fhall be careful to do with regard to Young.

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Young. "I think, fays he, the following "pieces in four volumes to be the most "excufeable of all that I have written; "and I with lefs apology was needful for thefe. As there is no recalling what "is got abroad, the pieces here re"published I have revised and corrected, "and rendered them as pardonable as it "was in my power to do."-Shall the gates of repentance be shut only against literary finners?

When Addison publifhed Cato in 1713, Young had the honour of prefixing to it a recommendatory copy of verfes. This is one of the pieces which the author of the Night Thoughts did not republish.

On

On the appearance of his Poem on the Last Day, Addison did not return Young's compliment; but The Englishman of October 29, 1713, which was probably written by Addison, fpeaks kandsomely of this poem. The Last Day was published soon after the peace. The vice-chancellor's imprimatur (for it was first printed at Oxford) is dated May the 19th, 1713. From the Exordium Young appears, to have spent fome time on the compofition of it. While other bards with Britain's hero fet their fouls on fire, he draws, he fays, a deeper fcene. Marlborough had been confidered by Britain as her hero; but, when the Last Day was publifhed, female cabal had blafted for

a time the laurels of Blenheim.

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poem was probably finished by Young as early as 1710; for part of it is printed in the Tatler. It was infcribed to the Queen, in a dedication, which, for fome reason, he did not admit into his works. It tells her, that his only title to the great honour he now does himself is the obligation he formerly received from her royal indulgence. Of this obligation nothing is now known. Young is faid to have been engaged at a fettled ftipend as a writer for the Court. Yet who fhall fay this with certainty? In all modern periods of this country, the writers on one fide have been regularly called Hirelings, and on the other Pa

triots.

Of

Of the dedication, however, the complexion is clearly political. It speaks in the highest terms of the late peace ;-it gives her Majesty praise indeed for her victories, but fays that the author is more pleafed to fee her rife from this lower world, foaring above the clouds, paffing the first and second heavens, and leaving the fixed stars behind her ;—nor will he lose her there, but keep her still in view through the boundless spaces on the other fide of Creation, in her journey towards eternal blifs, till he behold the heaven of heavens open, and angels receiving and conveying her ftill onward from the stretch of his imagination, which tires in her purfuit, and falls back again to earth.

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