By these extraordinary poems, written after he was sixty, of which I have been led to say so much, I hope, by the wish of doing justice to the living and the dead, it was the desire of Young to be principally known. He entitled the four volumes which he published himself, the Works of the Author of the Night Thoughts. While it is remembered that from these he excluded many of his writings, let it not be forgotten that the rejected pieces contained nothing prejudicial to the cause of virtue, or of religion. Were every thing that Young ever wrote to be published, he would only appear, perhaps, in a less respectable light as a poet, and more despicable as a dedicator; he would not pass for a worse christian, or for a worse man. This enviable praise is due to Young. Can it be claimed by every writer? His dedications, after all, he had, perhaps, no right to suppress. They all, I believe, speak, not a little to the credit of his gratitude, of favours received, and I know not whether the author, who has once solemnly printed an acknowledgment of a favour, should not always print it.
Is it to the credit or to the discredit of Young, as a poet, that of his Night Thoughts the French are particularly fond?
Of the Epitaph on lord Aubrey Beauclerk, dated 1740, all I know is, that I find it in the late body of English poetry, and that I am sorry to find it there.
Notwithstanding the farewell which he seemed to have taken in the Night Thoughts of every thing which bore the least resemblance to ambition, he dipped again in politicks. In 1745 he wrote Reflections on the publick Situation of the Kingdom, addressed to the duke of Newcastle; indignant, as it appears, to behold
A pope-bred princeling crawl ashore,
And whistle cut-throats, with those swords that scrap’d
Their barren rocks for wretched sustenance,
To cut his passage to the British throne.
This political poem might be called a Night Thought. Indeed it was originally printed as the conclusion of the Night Thoughts, though he did not gather it with his other works.
Prefixed to the second edition of Howe’s Devout Meditations, is a letter from Young, dated January 19, 1752, addressed to Archibald Macaulay, esq. thanking him for the book, which he says “he shall never lay far out of his reach; for a greater demonstration of a sound head and a sincere heart he never saw.”
In 1753, when the Brothers had lain by him above thirty years, it appeared upon the stage. If any part of his fortune had been acquired by servility of adulation, he now determined to deduct from it no inconsiderable sum, as a gift to the society for the propagation of the Gospel. To this sum he hoped the profits of the Brothers would amount. In his calculation he was deceived; but by the bad success of his play the society was not a loser. The author made up the sum he originally intended, which was a thousand pounds, from his own pocket.
The next performance which he printed was a prose publication, entitled, the Centaur not fabulous, in six Letters to a Friend on the Life in Vogue. The conclusion is dated November 29, 1754. In the third letter is described the deathbed of the “gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched Altamont.” His last words were, “my principles have poisoned my friend, my extravagance has beggared my boy, my unkindness has murdered my wife!” Either Altamont and Lorenzo were the twin production of fancy, or Young was unlucky enough to know two characters who bore no little resemblance to each other in perfection of wickedness. Report has been accustomed to call Altamont lord Euston.
The Old Man’s Relapse, occasioned by an epistle to Walpole, if written by Young, which I much doubt, must have been written very late in life. It has been seen, I am told, in a miscellany published thirty years before his death. In 1758, he exhibited the Old Man’s Relapse, in more than words, by again becoming a dedicator, and publishing a sermon addressed to the king.