YOUNG, EDWARD, the author of the well-known Hight Thoughts,was born in the year 1684, at Upham,in Hampshire, of which parish his father was at that time rector. He was educated at Winchester school, and afterward, in 1703,went to Oxford. In 1708 a law fel lowship in All Soul's college was conferred on him by archbishop Teuison. With law, how ever, he seems pretty much to have declined to meddle, occupying himself, by preference, with poetry and religious studies. In 1714 he obtained his degree of n.c.L. ; and that of D. C. L. followed in 1719. Meantime he had come before the world as a poet, by publishing, in 1713, an Epistle to George, Lord Lansdowne, on his beinn. created a peer. For Young, who continued through life one of the most persevering being audacious toadies that ever flattered a patron, this was a characteristic beginning. In the sane year he also published two other poems of some length, entitled respectively The Last Day and The .Force of Religion, or Vanquished Love; the year following he again flowed forth in A Poem on the Death of Queen Anne. These performances procured him some amount of immediate reputation. In 1719 he ventured on the more ambitious effort of a tragedy, which, under the title of Dusiris, was brought out at Drury Lane. The piece had a fair success, through which means it probably was that he attracted the notice of the strange and eccentric duke of Wharton, with whom, in the end of that year, he was induced to go for a short time abroad. The duke seems to have entertained for him a real kind ness, and to have treated him with much liberality. At the duke's death, Young set forth certain claims against his estates, which he succeeded in making good to the extent of an annuity of £200. The details of the case are perplexed, and need not here be entered into. They involve nothing dishonorable to Young, yet convey a somewhat unpleasing impression tha't the pious author of the Night Thoughts, in his extreme solici tude about the next world, contrived to keep a pretty sharp eye to his little pocket interests in the present one. In 1721 was produced his tragedy, The Revenge, which, though unsuccessful at the time, has since had greater acceptance, and is the only one of his pieces still occasionally acted. His third and last attempt is this field, The Brothers, was produced in 1753. Between 1725 and 1728 appeared in succession Ilia satires, under the title of The Love of Fame, the Universal Passion. These had a great success, and brought to their fortunate author money as well as fame. They abound
with wit and vivacious observation, and even now will very well repay perusal. Of The Instalment, a poem, issued in 1726, and addressed to sir Robert Walpole on his being made a knight of the garter, it seems enough to say that, inasmuch as we inci dentally hear from Swift of a pension granted him, we may surmise that this was the service to the public by which ho had contrived to earn it. In 1727 Young, taken holy orders for the purpose, was appointed one of the royal chaplains; and in 1730 he became rector of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. The year after he married lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the earl of Lichfield and widow of col. Lee. He is supposed to have been very happy with her, as he exhibited great grief on her death in 1741. It is believed that from his solemn meditatiods on the event he got the sugges tion of the Night Thoughts, begun shortly after, and published 1742-46. By this work almost solely it is that he has continued to be remembered. His mind retained its activity to the last. He published various other works, now so entirely forgotten that it would be waste of time to enumerate them; and in 1762 superintended a collected edition of his works, in 4 vols. 12mo, from which he had the grace to exclude certain of the most fulsome of his dedications, probably as having served their turn and not likely to be of further use. His death took place on April 12, 1765. Since that time his Night Thoughts has passed through editions innumerable, and is more or less familiar to every reader. It displays much gloomy force of pious reflection; and has passages of fine imagination, frequently somewhat marred by an epigrammatic mannerism of expression. Certain of its sententious lines have passed into common use and become in a manner proverbial. Though now somewhat declined from the estimation in which lie was long held, Young must continue, on the strength of it, to hold a distinct and even high place in that interval in our literature which divides the artificial and so-called classical school of Pope from the return to a simpler and more natural manner, heralded some time afterward by Cowper. If we except his one great weakness of character— an inordinate appetite for preferment and worldly honors, which sought its gratification in ways somewhat servile and unworthy—there seems every reason to believe that Young was, on the whole, a very excellent and worthy man, and sincerely devout Christian.