ten upon the plan of a French piece of great merit; and though it brought but little addition to his fame as a Poet, did yet reflect much additional lustre on his character as a Man, the emoluments arising from its exhibition having been generously allotted by the Author to the purposes of publick charity.

Having followed Dr. Young through his dramatick career, let us now consider him as the moral and plaintive; the pious but gloomy, Author of The Night-Thoughts; a work composed in a style so strictly peculiar to himself, that of the many efforts which have been made to imitate it, none have proved in any degree successful. Than the Night-Thoughts never was any poem received with applause more general or unbounded, "The unhappy bard, whose grief

ia melting numbers flows, and melancholy joys dif** tase around," has been sung by the profane as well as the preus. These, as already observed, were writte wider the recent, the overwhelming pressure of samem fùr the death of bis wife, and of his daughter Basi sao lap ban, the former of whom, though distingaproded "demo mine, be ofen pathetically altades to, Mobile (dhe lowe latter de deur july characterizes under the veshori ghire) 46792078 20 Narcissa and Philander. Uks sui Ting pertemanæ s aitressed to Lorenzo, 2799) mai 20 Pasun uni dissqmadun; in a word, og mat a the word. 3y Lanmou, if genera!

who, borne away by the passions too often fatal to youth, is well known to have long laboured under the heavy punishment of a father's just displeasure. Whatever there may be in this, (and indeed it is of little moment to the publick) every page of the poem abounds with the noblest flights of fancy---flights which, especially in his description of Death, in the act of noting down, from his secret stand, the exercises of a Bacchanalian society; in his epitaph on the departed World; in the issuing of Satan from his dungeon on the day of judgment, and a few others, might tempt a reader of warm imagination to suppose the poet under the immediate inspiration of the Divinity.

Uniformly a friend to virtue, and an indefatigable assertor of the dignity of human nature against all the cavils, not of the rude multitude only, but of many well-disposed, tho' mistaken and discontented moralists in 1754, under the patronage of Queen Caroline, our Author published his Estimate of Human Life; a valuable tract, which, while it exhibits a striking picture of the writer's pious benevolence and charity, evinces him to have been alike qualified to shine in prose and verse---Of this piece, according to his own account of it, the grand scope is to remove a prevalent opinion, highly reflective on Providence," That "this world is, in its own nature, (in other words, by "God's appointment) a world of misery; and that "to be in it is to be wretched unavoidably."

ten upon the plan of a French piece of great merit; and though it brought but little addition to his fame as a Poet, did yet reflect much additional lustre on his character as a Man, the emoluments arising from its exhibition having been generously allotted by the Author to the purposes of publick charity.

Having followed Dr. Young through his dramatick career, let us now consider him as the moral and plaintive; the pious but gloomy, Author of The Night-Thoughts; a work composed in a style so strictly peculiar to himself, that of the many efforts which have been made to imitate it, none have proved in any degree successful. Than the Night-Thoughts never was any poem received with applause more general or unbounded. "The unhappy bard, whose grief " in melting numbers flows, and melancholy joys dif"fuse around," has been sung by the profane as well as the pious. These, as already observed, were written under the recent, the overwhelming pressure of sorrow for the death of his wife, and of his daughter and son in law; the former of whom, though distinguished by no name, he often pathetically alludes to, while the two latter he beautifully characterizes under the poetical appellations of Narcissa and Philander.

This sublime performance is addressed to Lorenzo, an infidel man of pleasure and dissipation; in a word, a mere man of the world. By Lorenzo, if general report says true, we are to understand his own son,

who, borne away by the passions too often fatal to youth, is well known to have long laboured under the heavy punishment of a father's just displeasure. Whatever there may be in this, (and indeed it is of little moment to the publick) every page of the poem abounds with the noblest flights of fancy---flights which, especially in his description of Death, in the act of noting down, from his secret stand, the exercises of a Bacchanalian society; in his epitaph on the departed World; in the issuing of Satan from his dungeon on the day of judgment, and a few others, might tempt a reader of warm imagination to suppose the poet under the immediate inspiration of the Divinity.

Uniformly a friend to virtue, and an indefatigable assertor of the dignity of human nature against all the cavils, not of the rude multitude only, but of many well-disposed, tho' mistaken and discontented moralists in 1754, under the patronage of Queen Caroline, our Author published his Estimate of Human Life; a valuable tract, which, while it exhibits a striking picture of the writer's pious benevolence and charity, evinces him to have been alike qualified to shine in prose and verse---Of this piece, according to his own account of it, the grand scope is to remove a prevalent opinion, highly reflective on Providence, “That "this world is, in its own nature, (in other words, by "God's appointment) a world of misery; and that "to be in it is to be wretched unavoidably."

In the Centaur not Fabulous, another of his prose pieces, our Author combats, with arguments the most persuasive, clothed in language the most powerful, not only the prevailing vices of his own times, but the vices which, in the nature of things, always wil prevail, till Sensuality shall have lost her sway, and Virtue and Reason shall have established their empire in the human breast.

When turned of eighty, our Author published (in the form of a letter addressed to his friend, (the celebrated editor of Sir Charles Grandison) his Conjectures on Original Composition; a performance which (it is more than conjecture to add) will for ever remain a singular monument, that even at that age of general imbecillity and dotage, the intellectual powers of Dr. Young had apparently lost nothing of their wonted vigour. When we consider it as the work of a 66 man turned of eighty, (says the writer of Young's "life, Biographical Dictionary, vol. 12th) we are "not to be surprised so much that it has faults, as "how it should come to have beauties. It is indeed "strange that the load of fourscore years was not "able to keep down that vigorous fancy, which here "bursts the bounds of judgment, and breaks the sla"vish shackles of age and experience."

But alas! the publication of this piece proved to be little more than as the sudden blaze of a taper ready to expire in its socket; and happy had it been for