In a letter from Tscharner, a noble 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. “Every thing 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 passage pleased him, he appears to have folded down the leaf. On these passages 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 noblest 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 a stone or a turf, will find its way, sooner or later, to the deserving.
M. S.
Optimi parentis
Edvardi Young, LL.D.
hujus ecclesiæ rect.
Et Elizabethæ
fæm. prænob.
Conjugis ejus amantissimæ,
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 any thing like what I have just transcribed be necessary for you, is the sincere wish of,