Truth fhall lead thee to the gate,

Mercy's felf fhall let thee in, I Where its never-changing ftate

Full perfection fhall begin."

The Poem was accompanied by a Letter. "La Trappe, the 27th Oct. 1761. Dear Sir,

"You feemed to like the ode I fent

you for your amufement; I now fend

"it you as a prefent. If you please to

accept of it, and are willing that our

friendship fhould be known, when we

"are gone, you will be pleafed to leave "this among thofe of your own papers, "that may poffibly fee the light, by a pofthumous publication. God fend "us health while we ftay, and an eafy

་་

'journey. My dear Dr. Young,

"Yours, moft cordially,

"MELCOMPE"

In 1762, a fhort time before his death, Young published Refignation. Notwith, ftanding the manner in which it was forced from him by the world, criticifm has treated it with no common feverity. If it fhall be thought not to deferve the highest praise, on the other fide of fourfcore by whom, except by Newton and by Waller, has praife been merited? To Refignation was prefixed an Apology for its appearance: to which more credit is due than to the generality of fuch apologies, from Young's unufual anxiety that no more productions of his old age fhould difgrace his former fame. In his will, dated February 1760, he defires of his executors, in a particular manner, that all his manufcript books and

writings

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 intreaty to his housekeeper, to whom he left 1000" that all his

"manufcripts might be deftroyed as "foon as he was dead, which would "greatly oblige her deceafed friend.”

It may teach mankind the uncertainty of worldly friendships, to know that Young, either by furviving those he loved, or by outliving their affections, could only recollect the names of two friends, this poor woman and a hatter, to mention in his will; and it may ferve to reprefs that teftamentary pride, which too often feeks for founding names and

titles,

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 fays in The Centaur, " is that world "into which we were born?"

The fame humility which marked a housekeeper and a hatter for the friends of the author of the Night Thoughts, had before beftowed the fame title on his footman, in an epitaph in his Churchyard upon James Barker, dated 1749, which I am glad to find in this collection of his works.

Young and his housekeeper were ridiculed, with more ill-nature than wit, in a kind

1

a kind of novel published by Kidgell in 1755, called The Card, under the names of Dr. Elwes and Mrs. Fufby. Kidgell had been Young's curate.

In April 1765, at an age to which few attain, a period was put to the life of Young. Much is told in the Biographia, which I know not to have been-true, of the manner of his burial-of the mafter and children of a charityschool, which he founded in his parish,who neglected to attend their benefac tor's corpfe; and of a bell which was not caused to toll as often as bells ufually toll. Had that humanity, which is here lavished upon things of little confequence either to the living or to the dead, been fhewn in its proper place to

the