And had this been all--had Young continued to pursue such an even, equable course--he had been by this time well-nigh forgotten; for we do not think that either his satires or plays would of themselves have preserved his name. But it was decreed that grief should co-operate with disappointment in unfolding the full riches of his mind. Antaeus was strongest when he touched the ground. Job was never so eloquent till he was prostrated on his dunghill. And, in order to be able to write the "Night Thoughts," Young must be plunged in the deepest gloom of affliction--"Thrice flew the shaft, and thrice his peace was slain." In 1736, a daughter of his wife, by a former husband, died. This was Mrs Temple--the Narcissa of his great poem. Her disease was a lingering one. Young accompanied her to Lyons, where she died, and where her remains were brutally denied sepulture, as the dust of a Protestant. Her husband, Mr Temple, or Philander, died four years later; and in 1741, Young's wife, or Lucia, also expired. He now felt himself alone, and blasted in his solitude. But his grief did not sink into sullen inactivity. He made it oracular, and distilled his tears into song. The "Night Thoughts" were immediately commenced, and published between 1742 and 1744. This marvellous poem was all composed either at night, or when riding on horseback--an exercise, by the way, which gives a sense of mastery and confidence, stirs the blood, elevates the animal spirits, and has been felt by many to be eminently favourable to thought and mental composition. It inspired, we know, such men as Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Delta. We love to think of Young riding through the green lanes of his parish, and cooing out to himself his plaintive minstrelsies. We love better still to watch his lonely lamp shining at midnight, like a star, through the darkness, and seeming to answer the far signal of those mightier luminaries which are burning above in the Great Bear and Orion--the poet the while now dipping his pen to indite his ardent immortalities--now leaning his head on his widowed arm, and surrendering himself to paroxysms of uncontrollable anguish--and now looking out upon the Night as the "Lord is abroad" on the wings of the tempest, or as He is silently shining out his name in suns and galaxies--those unwearied "Watchers" and unbaptized "Holy Ones." In 1745, Young wrote "Reflections on the Public Situation of the Kingdom"--a production which made no impression at the time, and is now entirely forgotten. He did not include it in the collection of his works. In 1753, the tragedy of "The Brothers," which had lain past for thirty years, was produced on the stage. Young gave the profits of the play, and several hundreds from his own pocket, amounting to a thousand pounds in all, to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel--an act which surely balances the stories usually told of his love of money and thirst for preferment.