Johnson's Lives of the Poets Volume Ii Part 11

"DEAR SIR,--You seemed to like the ode I sent you for your amus.e.m.e.nt; I now send it you as a present. If you please to accept of it, and are willing that our friendship should be known when we are gone, you will be pleased to leave this among those of your own papers that may possibly see the light by a posthumous publication. G.o.d send us health while we stay, and an easy journey!--My dear Dr. Young,

"Yours, most cordially, "MELCOMBE."

In 1762, a short time before his death, Young published "Resignation."

Notwithstanding the manner in which it was really forced from him by the world, criticism has treated it with no common severity. If it shall be thought not to deserve the highest praise, on the other side of fourscore, by whom, except by Newton and by Waller, has praise been merited?

To Mrs. Montagu, the famous champion of Shakespeare, I am indebted for the history of "Resignation." Observing that Mrs. Boscawen, in the midst of her grief for the loss of the admiral, derived consolation from the perusal of the "Night Thoughts," Mrs. Montagu proposed a visit to the author. From conversing with Young, Mrs. Boscawen derived still further consolation; and to that visit she and the world were indebted for this poem. It compliments Mrs. Montagu in the following lines:--

"Yet write I must. A lady sues: How shameful her request!

My brain in labour with dull rhyme, Hers teeming with the best!"

And again--

"A friend you have, and I the same, Whose prudent, soft address Will bring to life those healing thoughts Which died in your distress.

That friend, the spirit of my theme Extracting for your ease, Will leave to me the dreg, in thoughts Too common; such as these."

By the same lady I was enabled to say, in her own words, that Young's unbounded genius appeared to greater advantage in the companion than even in the author; that the Christian was in him a character still more inspired, more enraptured, more sublime, than the poet; and that, in his ordinary conversation--

"--letting down the golden chain from high, He drew his audience upward to the sky."

Notwithstanding Young had said, in his "Conjectures on Original Composition," that "blank verse is verse unfallen, uncursed--verse reclaimed, re-enthroned in the true language of the G.o.ds;"

notwithstanding he administered consolation to his own grief in this immortal language, Mrs. Boscawen was comforted in rhyme.

While the poet and the Christian were applying this comfort, Young had himself occasion for comfort, in consequence of the sudden death of Richardson, who was printing the former part of the poem. Of Richardson's death he says--

"When heaven would kindly set us free, And earth's enchantment end; It takes the most effectual means, And robs us of a friend."

To "Resignation" was prefixed an apology for its appearance, to which more credit is due than to the generality of such apologies, from Young's unusual anxiety that no more productions of his old age should disgrace his former fame. In his will, dated February, 1760, he desires of his executors, IN A PARTICULAR MANNER, that all his ma.n.u.script books and writings, whatever, might be burned, except his book of accounts.

In September, 1764, he added a kind of codicil, wherein he made it his dying entreaty to his housekeeper, to whom he left 1,000 pounds, "that all his ma.n.u.scripts might be destroyed as soon as he was dead, which would greatly oblige her deceased FRIEND."

It may teach mankind the uncertainty of wordly friendships to know that Young, either by surviving those he loved, or by outliving their affections, could only recollect the names of two FRIENDS, his housekeeper and a hatter, to mention in his will; and it may serve to repress that testamentary pride, which too often seeks for sounding names and t.i.tles, to be informed that the author of the "Night Thoughts"

did not blush to leave a legacy to his "friend Henry Stevens, a hatter at the Temple-gate." Of these two remaining friends, one went before Young. But, at eighty-four, "where," as he asks in The Centaur, "is that world into which we were born?" The same humility which marked a hatter and a housekeeper for the friends of the author of the "Night Thoughts,"

had before bestowed the same t.i.tle on his footman, in an epitaph in his "Churchyard" upon James Baker, dated 1749; which I am glad to find in the late collection of his works. Young and his housekeeper were ridiculed, with more ill-nature than wit, in a kind of novel published by Kidgell in 1755, called "The Card," under the names of Dr. Elwes and Mrs. Fusby. In April, 1765, at an age to which few attain, a period was put to the life of Young. He had performed no duty for three or four years, but he retained his intellects to the last.

Much is told in the "Biographia," which I know not to have been true, of the manner of his burial; of the master and children of a charity-school, which he founded in his parish, who neglected to attend their benefactor's corpse; and a bell which was not caused to toll as often as upon those occasions bells usually toll. Had that humanity, which is here lavished upon things of little consequence either to the living or to the dead, been shown in its proper place to the living, I should have had less to say about Lorenzo. They who lament that these misfortunes happened to Young, forget the praise he bestows upon Socrates, in the Preface to "Night Seven," for resenting his friend's request about his funeral. During some part of his life Young was abroad, but I have not been able to learn any particulars. In his seventh Satire he says,

"When, after battle, I the field have SEEN Spread o'er with ghastly shapes which once were men."

It is known, also, that from this or from some other field he once wandered into the camp with a cla.s.sic in his hand, which he was reading intently; and had some difficulty to prove that he was only an absent poet, and not a spy.

The curious reader of Young's life will naturally inquire to what it was owing, that though he lived almost forty years after he took orders, which included one whole reign uncommonly long, and part of another, he was never thought worthy of the least preferment. The author of the "Night Thoughts" ended his days upon a living which came to him from his college without any favour, and to which he probably had an eye when he determined on the Church. To satisfy curiosity of this kind is, at this distance of time, far from easy. The parties themselves know not often, at the instant, why they are neglected, or why they are preferred. The neglect of Young is by some ascribed to his having attached himself to the Prince of Wales, and to his having preached an offensive sermon at St. James's. It has been told me that he had two hundred a year in the late reign, by the patronage of Walpole; and that, whenever any one reminded the king of Young, the only answer was, "he has a pension." All the light thrown on this inquiry, by the following letter from Secker, only serves to show at what a late period of life the author of the "Night Thoughts" solicited preferment:--

"Deanery of St. Paul's, July 8, 1758.

"GOOD DR. YOUNG,--I have long wondered that more suitable notice of your great merit hath not been taken by persons in power. But how to remedy the omission I see not. No encouragement hath ever been given me to mention things of this nature to his majesty. And therefore, in all likelihood, the only consequence of doing it would be weakening the little influence which else I may possibly have on some other occasions.

Your fortune and your reputation set you above the need of advancement; and your sentiments, above that concern for it, on your own account, which, on that of the public, is sincerely felt by

"Your loving Brother, THO. CANT."

At last, at the age of fourscore, he was appointed, in 1761, Clerk of the Closet to the Princess Dowager. One obstacle must have stood not a little in the way of that preferment after which his whole life seems to have panted. Though he took orders, he never entirely shook off politics. He was always the lion of his master Milton, "pawing to get free his hinder parts." By this conduct, if he gained some friends, he made many enemies. Again: Young was a poet; and again, with reverence be it spoken, poets by profession do not always make the best clergymen.

If the author of the "Night Thoughts" composed many sermons, he did not oblige the public with many. Besides, in the latter part of his life, Young was fond of holding himself out for a man retired from the world.

But he seemed to have forgotten that the same verse which contains "oblitus meorum," contains also "obliviscendus et illis." The brittle chain of worldly friendship and patronage is broken as effectually, when one goes beyond the length of it, as when the other does. To the vessel which is sailing from the sh.o.r.e, it only appears that the sh.o.r.e also recedes; in life it is truly thus. He who retires from the world will find himself, in reality, deserted as fast, if not faster, by the world.

The public is not to be treated as the c.o.xcomb treats his mistress; to be threatened with desertion, in order to increase fondness.

Young seems to have been taken at his word. Notwithstanding his frequent complaints of being neglected, no hand was reached out to pull him from that retirement of which he declared himself enamoured. Alexander a.s.signed no palace for the residence of Diogenes, who boasted his surly satisfaction with his tub. Of the domestic manners and petty habits of the author of the "Night Thoughts," I hoped to have given you an account from the best authority; but who shall dare to say, To-morrow I will be wise or virtuous, or to-morrow I will do a particular thing? Upon inquiring for his housekeeper, I learned that she was buried two days before I reached the town of her abode.

In a letter from Tscharner, a n.o.ble foreigner, to Count Haller, Tscharner says, he has lately spent four days with Young at Welwyn, where the author tastes all the ease and pleasure mankind can desire.

"Everything about him shows the man, each individual being placed by rule. All is neat without art. He is very pleasant in conversation, and extremely polite." This, and more, may possibly be true; but Tscharner's was a first visit, a visit of curiosity and admiration, and a visit which the author expected.

Of Edward Young an anecdote which wanders among readers is not true, that he was Fielding's Parson Adams. The original of that famous painting was William Young, who was a clergyman. He supported an uncomfortable existence by translating for the booksellers from Greek, and, if he did not seem to be his own friend, was at least no man's enemy. Yet the facility with which this report has gained belief in the world argues, were it not sufficiently known that the author of the "Night Thoughts" bore some resemblance to Adams. The attention which Young bestowed upon the perusal of books is not unworthy imitation.

When any pa.s.sage pleased him he appears to have folded down the leaf. On these pa.s.sages he bestowed a second reading. But the labours of man are too frequently vain. Before he returned to much of what he had once approved he died. Many of his books, which I have seen, are by those notes of approbation so swelled beyond their real bulk, that they will hardly shut.

"What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame!

Earth's highest station ends in HERE HE LIES!

And DUST TO DUST concludes her n.o.blest song!"

The author of these lines is not without his 'Hic jacet.' By the good sense of his son it contains none of that praise which no marble can make the bad or the foolish merit; which, without the direction of stone or a turf, will find its way, sooner or later, to the deserving.

M. S.

Optimi parentis EDWARDI YOUNG, LL.D.

Hujus Ecclesiae rect. et Elizabethae faem. praen.o.b Conjugis ejus amantissimae Pio et gratissimo animo hoc marmor posuit F. Y.

Filius superstes.

Is it not strange that the author of the "Night Thoughts" has inscribed no monument to the memory of his lamented wife? Yet what marble will endure as long as the poems?

Such, my good friend, is the account which I have been able to collect of the great Young. That it may be long before anything like what I have just transcribed be necessary for you, is the sincere wish of,

Dear Sir, your greatly obliged Friend, HERBERT CROFT, Jun.

Lincoln's Inn, Sept., 1780.

P.S.--This account of Young was seen by you in ma.n.u.script, you know, sir, and, though I could not prevail on you to make any alteration, you insisted on striking out one pa.s.sage, because it said that if I did not wish you to live long for your sake, I did for the sake of myself and of the world. But this postscript you will not see before the printing of it, and I will say here, in spite of you, how I feel myself honoured and bettered by your friendship, and that if I do credit to the Church, after which I always longed, and for which I am now going to give in exchange the bar, though not at so late a period of life as Young took orders, it will be owing, in no small measure, to my having had the happiness of calling the author of "The Rambler" my friend.

H. C. Oxford, Oct., 1782.

Of Young's Poems it is difficult to give any general character, for he has no uniformity of manner; one of his pieces has no great resemblance to another. He began to write early and continued long, and at different times had different modes of poetical excellence in view. His numbers are sometimes smooth and sometimes rugged; his style is sometimes concatenated and sometimes abrupt, sometimes diffusive and sometimes concise. His plan seems to have started in his mind at the present moment, and his thoughts appear the effect of chance, sometimes adverse and sometimes lucky, with very little operation of judgment. He was not one of those writers whom experience improves, and who, observing their own faults, become gradually correct. His poem on the "Last Day," his first great performance, has an equability and propriety, which he afterwards either never endeavoured or never attained. Many paragraphs are n.o.ble, and few are mean, yet the whole is languid; the plan is too much extended, and a succession of images divides and weakens the general conception, but the great reason why the reader is disappointed is that the thought of the LAST DAY makes every man more than poetical by spreading over his mind a general obscurity of sacred horror, that oppresses distinction and disdains expression. His story of "Jane Grey"

was never popular. It is written with elegance enough, but Jane is too heroic to be pitied.

"The Universal Pa.s.sion" is indeed a very great performance. It is said to be a series of epigrams, but, if it be, it is what the author intended; his endeavour was at the production of striking distichs and pointed sentences, and his distichs have the weight of solid sentiments, and his points the sharpness of resistless truth. His characters are often selected with discernment and drawn with nicety; his ill.u.s.trations are often happy, and his reflections often just. His species of satire is between those of Horace and Juvenal, and he has the gaiety of Horace without his laxity of numbers, and the morality of Juvenal with greater variation of images. He plays, indeed, only on the surface of life; he never penetrates the recesses of the mind, and therefore the whole power of his poetry is exhausted by a single perusal; his conceits please only when they surprise. To translate he never condescended, unless his "Paraphrase on Job" may be considered as a version, in which he has not, I think, been unsuccessful; he indeed favoured himself by choosing those parts which most easily admit the ornaments of English poetry. He had least success in his lyric attempts, in which he seems to have been under some malignant influence; he is always labouring to be great, and at last is only turgid.

In his "Night Thoughts" he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage.

The wild diffusion of the sentiments and the digressive sallies of imagination would have been compressed and restrained by confinement to rhyme. The excellence of this work is not exactness but copiousness; particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole, and in the whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation, the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity.

His last poem was the "Resignation," in which he made, as he was accustomed, an experiment of a new mode of writing, and succeeded better than in his "Ocean" or his "Merchant." It was very falsely represented as a proof of decaying faculties. There is Young in every stanza, such as he often was in the highest vigour. His tragedies, not making part of the collection, I had forgotten, till Mr. Stevens recalled them to my thoughts, by remarking, that he seemed to have one favourite catastrophe, as his three plays all concluded with lavish suicide, a method by which, as Dryden remarked, a poet easily rids his scene of persons whom he wants not to keep alive. In Busiris there are the greatest ebullitions of imagination, but the pride of Busiris is such as no other man can have, and the whole is too remote from known life to raise either grief, terror, or indignation. The Revenge approaches much nearer to human practices and manners, and therefore keeps possession of the stage; the first design seems suggested by Oth.e.l.lo, but the reflections, the incidents, and the diction, are original. The moral observations are so introduced and so expressed as to have all the novelty that can be required. Of The Brothers I may be allowed to say nothing, since nothing was ever said of it by the public. It must be allowed of Young's poetry that it abounds in thought, but without much accuracy or selection. When he lays hold of an ill.u.s.tration he pursues it beyond expectation, sometimes happily, as in his parallel of Quicksilver with Pleasure, which I have heard repeated with approbation by a lady, of whose praise he would have been justly proud, and which is very ingenious, very subtle, and almost exact; but sometimes he is less lucky, as when, in his "Night Thoughts," having it dropped into his mind that the orbs, floating in s.p.a.ce, might be called the Cl.u.s.tER of creation, he thinks of a cl.u.s.ter of grapes, and says, that they all hang on the great vine, drinking the "nectareous juice of immortal life." His conceits are sometimes yet less valuable. In the "Last Day" he hopes to ill.u.s.trate the rea.s.sembly of the atoms that compose the human body at the "Trump of Doom" by the collection of bees into a swarm at the tinkling of a pan. The Prophet says of Tyre that "her merchants are princes." Young says of Tyre in his "Merchant,"

"Her merchants princes, and each DECK A THRONE."

Let burlesque try to go beyond him.