GEORGIAN POETRY.
I.
Edward Young.
"Is it to the credit or discredit of Young, as a poet, that of his 'Night Thoughts' the French are particularly fond?" So asks Croft, the sardonic author of a notice on Young in Dr. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets". The preference is certainly not to the credit of the French! Born in Hampshire in 1683, the son of a clergyman, Young lived till 1765: writing much verse, and more prodigal of praises to "the Great" than any other poet of any age.
Young's father, in 1703, appears to have been poor, for the son, to save expense, was hospitably entertained in the lodges of the Warden of New College and the President of Corpus. A Fellowship was found for him at All Souls', and as he was chosen to make and speak the Latin oration at the founding of the fine Codrington Library, it may be supposed that, at All Souls', he was held to be more than mediocriter doctus (the qualifications for a Fellow were said to be "well born, well dressed, moderately learned").
Young's earlier poems, and his dedications always, seem bids for patronage and preferment. In his "Last Day" (1710),
An archangel eminently bright
From off his silver staff of wondrous height
Unfurls the Christian flag, which waving flies
And shuts and opens more than half the skies.
Angels are asked, on the annihilation of the universe, to say where Britannia is now?
All, all is lost, no monument, no sign,
Where once so proudly blazed the great machine.