Young's Night Thoughts: With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory NotesYoung, Edward
Philosophy
Young's Night Thoughts: With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes
Young, Edward
Didactic poetry, English; English poetry
Hence, Herbert quitted the pleasures of a court; Chalmers dropped his
air-pump and his telescope; Foster resigned his philosophic speculations;
and Young shook off the blandishments of peers, and forgot the claps of
multitudes, to proclaim the glad tidings to perishing sinners; and verily
all, in different measures, had their reward.
In April 1728 he was appointed chaplain to George II. His tragedy, "The
Brothers," which had been in rehearsal, was prudently withdrawn. It is a
play superior to "Busiris," but very much inferior to "The Revenge." Full
of passion and poetry, of startling scenes, and vivid images, its subject
is unpleasing, and the various perplexities of the plot are not skilfully
disentangled.
In the same year he published "A True Estimate of Human Life," written
with force and ingenuity; and a long and very loyal sermon, preached
before the House of Commons, on the Martyrdom of Charles I. It was
entitled, "An Apology for Princes; or, the Reverence due to Governments."
Hitherto Young had lived on the proceeds of his fellowship, and on
presents from Wharton, who, at his death, too, left him a pension. He
became now, however, very naturally anxious for promotion in that new
sphere on which he had entered, and was compelled, _proh pudor_! to lay
his case before Mrs Howard, the favourite mistress of George II.--that
identical "good Howard," who figures so curiously in the famous scene
between Jeanie Deans and Queen Caroline. The fact of the application, as
well as the terms of the letter he wrote her, renders this the most
humiliating incident in all Young's history. In 1730, he published
"Imperium Pelagi," another naval lyric, as bad and much longer than his
"Ode to Ocean." In the same year he wrote an epistle to Pope, which
resembles a coarser and more careless production of the little man of
Twickenham.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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