And so on--to a Compton, a Lady Germaine, a Duke, in nauseous succession. In fact, he seemed incapable of using any colors but gaudy or resplendent ones, and is nothing if not exaggerated, and using heaps of words. Would you hear how he puts Jonah into the whale's mouth?-- "As yawns an earthquake, when imprisoned air Struggles for vent, and lays the centre bare, The whale expands his jaws' enormous size. The prophet views the cavern with surprise, Measures his monstrous teeth, afar descried, And rolls his wondering eyes from side to side, Then takes possession of the spacious seat And sails secure within the dark retreat." This is from his poem of the _Last Day_, which has some of his best work in it. He wrote flattering words of Addison, which Addison could not return in the same measure. He had acquaintance with Pope, with Swift, with Lady Mary Montagu, and others whom he counted worth knowing. He made a vain run for Parliament, and ended by taking church orders somewhat late in life--staying {18} one of his plays,[12] which was just then in rehearsal, as inconsistent with his new duties. He married the elegant widowed daughter of an earl, who died not many years thereafter; and from this affliction, and his brooding over it, came his best-known poem of _Night Thoughts_. It had great currency in England, and was admired, and translated, and read largely upon the Continent. For many a year, a copy of Young's mournful, magniloquent poem, bound in morocco and gilt-edged, was reckoned one of the most acceptable and worthy gifts to a person in affliction. [Sidenote: Young's Night Thoughts.] But of a surety it has not the same hold upon people in this century that it had in the last. There are eloquent passages in it--passages almost rising to sublimity. His love of superlatives and of wordy exaggerations served him in good stead when he came to talk of the shortness of time, and the length of eternity, and the depth of the grave, and the shadows of death. Amidst these topics he moved on the great sable pinions of his muse with {19} a sweep of wing, and a steadiness of poise, that drew a great many sorrowing and pious souls after him. This is his Apostrophe to Night: "O majestic Night! Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder born! And fated to survive the transient sun! By mortals and immortals seen with awe! A starry crown thy raven brow adorns, An azure zone thy waist; clouds in Heaven's loom Wrought through varieties of drapery divine Thy flowing mantle form, and heaven throughout Voluminously pour thy pompous train."