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which Young condemned as inexcufeable, this alone has efcaped that pofthumous infertion, which, in truth, it little merited. He now appears to have given up all hopes of overtaking Pindar, and perhaps to have thought of turning his ambition to fome original fpecies of poetry. This poem concludes with a formal farewell to Ode:

My fhell which Clio gave, which Kings applaud,

Which Europe's bleeding genius call'd abroad, Adieu !

In a fpecies of poetry altogether his own he next tried his fkill, and fucceeded.

Of his wife he was deprived in 1740. She was foon followed by an amiable daugh

D 4

daughter, the child of her former hufband, who was just married to Mr. Temple, fon of Lord Palmerfton. Mr. Temple did not long remain after his wife*. How fuddenly their deaths happened, and how nearly together, none who has read the Night Thoughts (and who has not read them?) needs to be informed.

Infatiate Archer! could not one fuffice? Thy fhaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was flain;

And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.

To the forrow Young felt at his laffes we are indebted for thefe poems. There is a pleasure fure in fadnefs which

*The Irish Peerage, if authentic, in the account of Lord Palmerston's family, fomewhat confuses this bufinefs; but I take what I have related to be the fact.

mourners

mourners only know. Of thefe poems the three or four firft have been perused perhaps more eagerly, and more frequently, than the latter. When he got as far as the fourth or fifth, his grief was naturally either diminished or exhaufted. We find the fame religion, the same piety; but we hear lefs of Philander and of Narciffa.

Mrs. Temple died in her bridal hour at Nice. He, with the reft of her family, accompanied her to the continent. He flew, he fnatch'd her from the rigid North,

And bore her nearer to the fun. The poet feems to dwell with more melancholy on the deaths of Philander and Narciffa, than of his wife. He who runs and reads may remember, that in

the

the Night Thoughts Philander and Narciffa are often mentioned, and often lamented. To recollect lamentations over the author's wife, the memory must have been charged with distinct paffages. This Lady brought him one child, Frederick, now living.

That domeftick grief is, in the firft inftance, to be thanked for thefe orna ments to our language it is impoffible to deny. Nor would it be common hardiness to contend that worldly dif content had no hand in thefe joint productions of poetry and piety. Yet am I by no means fure that, at any rate, we should not have had fomething of the fame colour from Young's pencil, notwithstanding the liveliness of his fatires. In fo long a life, caufes for dif

content

content and occasions for grief must have occurred. It is not clear to me that his Mufe was not fitting upon the watch for the first which happened. Night Thoughts were not uncommon to her, even when first fhe vifited the poet, and at a time when he himself was remarkable neither for gravity nor gloominefs. In his Laft Day, almoft his earleft poem, he calls her the melancholy Maid,

-whom dismal scenes delight, Frequent at tombs and in the realms of Night.

And in the prayer which concludes the fecond book of the fame poem

-Oh! permit the gloom of folemn

night

To facred thought may forcibly invite.

Oh!

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