pelled to advertise for mercenary help to feed his flock. His health, too, had been failing for years, and his nerves were shattered. A mind like Young's, never thoroughly chastened into acquiescence with Divine government or guidance, must in such circumstances have sometimes recoiled upon itself with serious violence. He could summon up almost to the last wonderful literary vigour. In 1759, he published a letter to Richardson in prose, "On Original Composition," and promised therein another which never came. In 1762, he completed his labours by "Resignation," a poem in two parts, with a postscript to Mrs Boscawen, the admiral's widow. Resignation appears to have been the long, long lesson of his life. He knew not that there was a better and a higher experience, even this-"Rejoice evermore.' As one of the latest indications of his chastened spirit, the following extract of a letter, dated Welwyn, 25th November 1762, is given. It is addressed to the Rev. Thomas Newcombe, Hackney : "As for my own health, I do not love to complain; but one particular I must tell you, that my sight is so far gone as to lay me under the necessity of a hand to write this. God grant me grace under this darkness to see more clearly things invisible and eternal-those great things which you and I must soon be acquainted with; and why not rejoice at it? There is not a day of my long life that I desire to repeat, and at fourscore it is all labour and sorrow. What, then, have we to do? But one thing remains, and in that one, blessed be God, by His assistance we are sure of success. Let nothing, therefore, lie heavy on your heart; let us rely on Him who has done so great things for us that lover of souls, that hearer of prayers whenever they come from the heart, and sure rewarder of all those who love Him and put their trust in His mercy. "Let us not be discontented with this world; that is bad, but it is still worse to be satisfied with it-so satisfied, as not to be very anxious for something more." At length in 1765, this old man of eighty-four, blind, helpless, and forgotten by the world, managed by an old woman, whose senility appears to have been less than his, only because her will was the stronger, came to lie down upon his deathbed. His curate was absent, or was not admitted to see him. Even his son was denied so natural a privilege. His son had incurred his displeasure. It is not known how, but it is inferred that the estrangement dated from certain improprieties of the latter's college days. According to the most authentic of the different accounts, on his son's arrival at his father's house to pay the last duties, he sent to him his blessing and forgiveness, with an assurance that he did not refuse to see him from any remains of resentment, but that his bodily pain was so exquisite, that he was unable to bear so affecting a meeting, and that he would find, by his last will, that he had always considered him as his son, and never meant to carry his displeasure to the grave. Parental authority in those days was carried farther than now. Children were children so long as their parents lived, and it is not unlikely that Frederick was called upon to endure some undue parental severity. But, in a house governed by a gentlewoman "who had never been degraded by the receipt of wages," and who considered herself at liberty, after the death of the testator, who bequeathed to her £1000, to disregard his strictest injunctions to destroy his papers, who can answer for the facts reported of an old man on his deathbed, in the submissiveness of eighty-four, and constantly under the influence of opiates? After a fortnight's illness, with excessive pain, he died, a little before eleven at night, on Good Friday, 5th April 1765. He was buried on the 12th, in the chancel of his own church, beside the remains of his wife, about six in the evening, Mr Jones his curate reading the burial service. The funeral was a very private one. It is said the bell did not toll "until the corpse was brought out of the house," and that neither the master nor the children of his charity school were present at the interment. Yet "the mourners were his son, his nephew, another near relative, his housekeeper, most of the clergy, who bore the pall, and the whole town of Welwyn." Besides the legacy to Mrs Hallows, he left bequests to his friend Henry Stephens, a hatter at the Temple Gate, who died before him, and to his curate. The remainder of his property which, according to Mr Jones, amounted to a handsome fortune, he left to his son. Mr Frederick Young appears to have continued for some years to reside in the house at Welwyn. Boswell found him there with his daughter when passing through Welwyn with Dr Johnson, and gives an entertaining account of their visit to the parsonage and the garden of the poet. The monument erected by Mr Frederick Young to the memory of his parents still remains. The inscription is as follows: M. S. OPTIMI PARENTES EDWARDI YOUNG, LL.D. FEM. PRÆNOB. CONJUGIS EJUS AMANTISSIME. PIO ET GRATISSIMO ANIMO HOC MARMOR POSERIT F. Y. FILIUS SUPERSTES. The great memorial which Young has left of his genius and character is his "Night Thoughts." It is interesting to the student to examine his other works, only for the purpose of comparison. They are now almost forgotten; but it is, perhaps, not too much to say, that the "Complaint" will be read until the great themes of the poet-Death, Judgment, and Eternity— become merged in the realities of the eternal world. "Embryos we must be till we burst the shell, Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life, Yet it is gloomy, perhaps for this reason: the "Complaint" appears like a continual and painful effort of the embryo man to burst his shell and live with the intelligence of heaven, whilst his intellect is still only that of earth. But with that effort every mind, conscious of its own immortal destinies, must to some extent sympathise; and the daring antitheses of Young are proofs, at least, of an elasticity in man which the spirit fain would stretch until cohesion crack, and she herself became "Active, ærial towering, unconfined, Unfettered with her gross companions' fall." The poet's tension is so extreme as to make us feel as if always at the end of our flight, tethered to a gross companion" whose weight is felt dragging behind. His flights are so lofty as to bring us almost into contact with the "azure shell" we fain would burst. Thus, all the brilliant corruscations of his wit and flashes of his genius serve but to light up a vault within which we are immured. In vain do hopeful fancy or joyful intention prompt us to happy flights within the azure space, and bid us realise, from partial bliss in life, the glories of the heavenly state. In vain does heaven-born confidence seek to charm the soul to rest, in view of judgment; with the thought that even as he is, so are we in this world." With Young there is no present eternal life for man. All the life he knows is that of the flesh, for which, according to him, death will be balm. The life of the spirit realised and felt, whilst the body is dead because of sin, even in the midst of its daily activities-this "law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus"-seems to have been hidden from his eyes. "Life makes the soul dependent on the dust; 66 Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres." With all his "immortality of the head," with all his aspirations and lofty flights, Young was "all his lifetime, through fear of death, subject to bondage." It is his very fear of death that makes him seek to acquaint himself continually with it, that he might be at peace. Vain effort! Oh, had he fully known, as he certainly did in part, Him who has said, "He that believeth on me hath eternal life," what a different tone his moralising might have assumed! That sorely wearied spirit, disappointed justly with the world, had it found in very love a present heaven, might then have risen, even while on earth, to glory on wings of rapture, and have taken us with him, "Poor pensioners on the bounties of an hour." "PARADISE AND GROVES. Elysian, fortunate fields-like those of old Or a mere fiction of whatever was? In love and holy passion, shall find these This, too, is truth and poetry. But how different, and differing still in simplicity are the holier and wiser words of another poet :-"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." Keep this corrective in mind, dear reader, and let not your spirit be grieved by the shortcomings, whilst it is aspiringly affected by the power of the great poet of the "Night Thoughts." July 1866. NIGHT THOUGHTS. THE COMPLAINT. PREFACE. As the occasion of this poem was real, not fictitious, so the method pursued in it was rather imposed, by what spontaneously arose in the author's mind on that occasion, than meditated or designed; which will appear very probable from the nature of it: for it differs from the common inode of poetry, which is, from long narrations to draw short morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is short, and the morality arising from it makes the bulk of the poem. The reason of it is, that the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the writer. NIGHT I. ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ARTHUR ONSLOW, ESQ., SPEAKER OF THE TIR'D Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep! From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose, Tumultuous; where my wreck'd, desponding thought, At random drove, her helm of reason lost. The day too short for my distress; and night, Is sunshine to the colour of my fate. Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, A |