Complete Works of Edward Young Read online

  Edward Young

  (1683-1765)

  Contents

  The Life and Poetry of Edward Young

  Brief Introduction: Edward Young

  Complete Poetical Works of Edward Young

  The Poems

  List of Poems in Chronological Order

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  The Plays

  Busiris, King of Egypt (1719)

  The Revenge (1721)

  The Brothers (1753)

  The Prose

  On Lyrick Poetry (1728)

  A Vindication of Providence (1728)

  An Apology for Princes (1729)

  The Centaur Not Fabulous (1755)

  An Argument, Drawn from the Circumstances of Christ’s Death, for the Truth of His Religion (1758)

  Conjectures on Original Composition (1759)

  Epitaph at Welwyn, Hertfordshire

  The Biographies

  Edward Young by Leslie Stephen

  On the Life and Poetic Genius of Edward Young by George Gilfillan

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  © Delphi Classics 2020

  Version 1

  Browse the entire series…

  Edward Young

  By Delphi Classics, 2020

  COPYRIGHT

  Edward Young - Delphi Poets Series

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2020.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

  ISBN: 978 1 91348 723 2

  Delphi Classics

  is an imprint of

  Delphi Publishing Ltd

  Hastings, East Sussex

  United Kingdom

  Contact: [email protected]

  www.delphiclassics.com

  NOTE

  When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size and landscape mode, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

  Enlighten your digital library…

  …explore the 18th Century at Delphi Classics

  The Life and Poetry of Edward Young

  Upham, a small village near Winchester, Hampshire — Young was the son of Edward Young, later Dean of Salisbury, and was born at his father’s rectory at Upham.

  View of the countryside surrounding the village

  Brief Introduction: Edward Young

  From ‘1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 28’

  EDWARD YOUNG (1683–1765), English poet, author of Night Thoughts, son of Edward Young, afterwards dean of Salisbury, was born at his father’s rectory at Upham, near Winchester, and was baptized on the 3rd of July 1683. He was educated on the foundation at Winchester College, and matriculated in 1702 at New College, Oxford. He soon removed to Corpus Christi, and in 1708 was nominated by Archbishop Tenison to a law fellowship at All Souls’, for the sake of Dean Young, who died in 1705. He took his degree of D.C.L . in 1719. His first publication was an Epistle to . . . . Lord Lansdoune (1713). It was followed by a Poem on the Last Day (1713), dedicated to Queen Anne; The Force of Religion, or Vanquish’d Love (1714), a poem on the execution of Lady Jane Grey and her husband, dedicated to the countess of Salisbury; and an epistle to Addison, On the late Queen’s Death and His Majesty’s Accession to the Throne (1714) in which he made indecent haste to praise the new king. The fulsome style of these dedications ill accords with the pious tone of the poems, and they are omitted in the edition of his works drawn up by himself. About this time began his connexion with Philip, duke of Wharton, whom he accompanied to Dublin in 1717. In 1719 his play of Busiris was produced at Drury Lane, and in 1721 his Revenge. The latter play was dedicated to Wharton, to whom it owed, said Young, its “most beautiful incident.” Wharton promised him two annuities of £100 each and a sum of £600 in consideration of his expenses as a candidate for parliamentary election at Cirencester. In view of these promises Young said that he had refused two livings in the gift of All Souls’ College, Oxford, and had also sacrificed a life annuity offered by the marquess of Exeter if he would act as tutor to his son. Wharton failed to discharge his obligations, and Young, who pleaded his case before Lord Chancellor Hardwicke in 1740, gained the annuity but not the £600. Between 1725 and 1728 Young published a series of seven satires on The Universal Passion. They were dedicated to the duke of Dorset, Bubb Dodington (afterwards Lord Melcombe), Sir Spencer Compton, Lady Elizabeth Germain and Sir Robert Walpole, and were collected in 1728 as Love of Fame, the Universal Passion. This is qualified by Samuel Johnson as a “very great performance,” and abounds in striking and pithy couplets. Herbert Croft asserted that Young made £3000 by his satires, which compensated losses he had suffered in the South Sea Bubble. In 1726 he received, through Walpole, a pension of £200 a year. To the end of his life he continued to urge on the government his claims to preferment, but the king and his advisers persisted in regarding this sum as an adequate settlement.

  Young was nearly fifty when he decided to take holy orders. It was reported that the author of Night Thoughts was not, in his earlier days, “the ornament to religion and morality which he afterwards became,” and his intimacy with the duke of Wharton and with Lord Melcombe did not improve his reputation. A statement attributed to Pope probably gives the correct view. “He had much of a sublime genius, though without common sense; so that his genius, having no guide, was perpetually liable to degenerate into bombast. This made him pass a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets; but his having a very good heart enabled him to support the clerical character when he assumed it, first with decency and afterwards with honour” (O. Ruffhead, Life of A. Pope, ). In 1728 he was made one of the royal chaplains, and in 1730 was presented to the college living of Welwyn, Hertfordshire. He married in 1731 Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the 1st earl of Lichfield. Her daughter, by a former marriage with her cousin Francis Lee, married Henry Temple, son of the 1st viscount Palmerston. Mrs Temple died at Lyons in 1736 on her way to Nice. Her husband and Lady Elizabeth Young died in 1740. These successive deaths are supposed to be the events referred to in the Night Thoughts as taking place “ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn” (Night i.). In the preface to the poem Young states that the occasion of the poem was real, and Philander and Narcissa have been rather rashly identified with Mr and Mrs Temple. M. Thomas suggests that Philander represents Thomas Tickell, who was an old friend of Young’s, and died three months after Lady Elizabeth Young. It was further supposed that the infidel Lorenzo was a sketch of Young’s own son, a statement disproved by the fact that he was a child of eight years old at the time of publication. The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality, was published in 1742, and was followed by other “Nights,” the eighth and ninth appearing in 1745. In 1753 his tragedy of The Brothers, written many years before, but suppressed because he was about to enter the Church, was produced at Drury Lane. Night Thoughts had made him famous, but he lived in almost uninterrupted retirement, although he continued vainly to solicit preferment. He was, however, made clerk of the closet to the princess dowager in 1761. He was never cheerful, it was said, after his wife’s death. He disagreed with his son, who had remonstrated, apparently, on the excessive influence exerted by his housekeeper Miss (known as Mrs) Hallows. The old man refused to see his son before he died, but is said to have forgiven him, and left him his money. A description of him is to be found in the letters of his curate, John Jones, to Dr Samuel Birch. He died at Welwyn on the 5th of April 1765.

/>   Young is said to have been a brilliant talker. He had an extraordinary knack of epigram, and though the Night Thoughts is long and disconnected it abounds In brilliant isolated passages. Its success was enormous. It was translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish and Magyar. In France it became one of the classics of the romantic school. The suspicion of insincerity that damped the enthusiasm of English readers acquainted with the facts of his career did not exist for French readers. If he did not invent “melancholy and moonlight” in literature, he did much to spread the fashionable taste for them. Madame Klopstock thought the king ought to make him archbishop of Canterbury, and some German critics preferred him to Milton. Young wrote good blank verse, and Samuel Johnson pronounced Night Thoughts to be one of “the few poems” in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage.

  Portrait of a man believed by some to be Edward Young, c. 1770

  Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton (1698-1731) was a powerful Jacobite politician — in the 1710’s Young came into contact with the Duke, whom he accompanied to Dublin in 1717. In 1721 his play ‘Revenge’ was dedicated to Wharton, to whom it owed, said Young, its “most beautiful incident”. They would later fall out over Wharton’s non-fulfilment of an annuity.

  The first edition’s title page for ‘Night Thoughts’

  A page from ‘Night-Thoughts’, illustrated by William Blake

  Portrait of Thomas Tickell by Sylvester Harding — it has been suggested that Philander (the protagonist of Night-Thoughts) represents Thomas Tickell, an old friend of Young’s, who died three months after Lady Elizabeth Young.

  Portrait of James Boswell by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1785 — Boswell, the great diarist, was an admirer of Young. He called ‘Night-Thoughts’ “the grandest and richest poetry that human genius has ever produced”.

  Complete Poetical Works of Edward Young

  TEXT: BELL AND DALDY, 1858

  CONTENTS

  The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality

  NIGHT FIRST. ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

  PREFACE.

  NIGHT FIRST. ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

  NIGHT SECOND. ON TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP.

  NIGHT THIRD. NARCISSA.

  NIGHT FOURTH. THE CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH.

  NIGHT FIFTH. THE RELAPSE.

  NIGHT SIXTH. THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED. PART I.

  PREFACE.

  NIGHT SIXTH. THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED. PART I.

  NIGHT SEVENTH. THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED. PART II.

  PREFACE.

  NIGHT SEVENTH. THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED. PART II.

  NIGHT EIGHTH. VIRTUE’S APOLOGY.

  NIGHT NINTH. THE CONSOLATION.

  ENDNOTES FOR ‘NIGHT-THOUGHTS’.

  THE LAST DAY.

  BOOK I.

  BOOK II.

  BOOK III.

  THE FORCE OF RELIGION; OR, VANQUISHED LOVE.

  BOOK I.

  BOOK II.

  LOVE OF FAME, THE UNIVERSAL PASSION.

  Preface.

  Satire I.

  Satire II

  Satire III.

  Satire IV.

  Satire V.

  Satire VI.

  Satire VII.

  OCEAN: AN ODE

  To the King, 1728.

  On Lyric Poetry.

  Ocean. An Ode.

  A PARAPHRASE ON PART OF THE BOOK OF JOB.25

  A PARAPHRASE ON PART OF THE BOOK OF JOB

  ON MICHAEL ANGELO’S FAMOUS PIECE OF THE CRUCIFIXION

  TO MR. ADDISON, ON THE TRAGEDY OF CATO.

  HISTORICAL EPILOGUE TO THE BROTHERS.

  EPITAPH ON LORD AUBREY BEAUCLERK45, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1740.

  EPITAPH AT WELWYN, HERTFORDSHIRE.

  A LETTER TO MR. TICKELL, OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH ADDISON, ESQ., 1719.

  REFLECTIONS ON THE PUBLIC SITUATION OF THE KINGDOM INSCRIBED TO THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

  THE STATEMAN’S CREED.

  RESIGNATION.

  ADVERTISEMENT.

  PART I.

  PART II.

  ON THE LATE QUEEN’S DEATH, AND HIS MAJESTY’S ACCESSION TO THE THRONE

  THE INSTALMENT.

  AND EPISTLE TO THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE LORD LANSDOWNE. 1712.

  TWO EPISTLES TO MR. POPE CONCERNING THE AUTHORS OF THE AGE. 1730.

  EPISTLE I.

  EPISTLE II.

  AN EPISTLE TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.

  THE OLD MAN’S RELAPSE.

  VERSES SENT BY LORD MELCOMBE TO DR. YOUNG, NOT LONG BEFORE HIS LORDSHIP’S DEATH.68

  IMPERIUM PELAGI. A NAVAL LYRIC.

  PREFACE.

  THE MERCHANT. ODE THE FIRST.

  PRELUDE.

  STRAIN THE FIRST.

  STRAIN THE SECOND.

  STRAIN THE THIRD.

  STRAIN THE FOURTH.

  STRAIN THE FIFTH.

  THE MORAL.

  THE CLOSE.

  THE CHORUS.

  SEA-PIECE.

  THE DEDICATION.

  ODE THE FIRST.

  ODE THE SECOND.

  THE FOREIGN ADDRESS: OR, THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR PEACE.

  THE FOREIGN ADDRESS: OR, THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR PEACE.

  ENDNOTES FOR OTHER POEMS.

  The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality

  NIGHT FIRST. ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

  PREFACE.

  As the occasion of this Poem was real, not fictitious; so the method pursued in it was rather imposed by what spontaneously arose in the Author’s mind on that occasion, than meditated or designed. Which will appear very probable from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of poetry, which is, from long narrations to draw short morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is short, and the morality arising from it makes the bulk of the Poem. The reason of it is, that the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the Writer.

  NIGHT FIRST. ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

  TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ARTHUR ONSLOW, ESQ., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

  Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!

  He, like the world, his ready visit pays

  Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;

  Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,

  And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

  From short (as usual) and disturb’d repose,

  I wake: how happy they, who wake no more!

  Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.

  I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams

  Tumultuous; where my wreck’d desponding thought 10

  From wave to wave of fancied misery

  At random drove, her helm of reason lost.

  Though now restored, ’tis only change of pain,

  (A bitter change!) severer for severe:

  The day too short for my distress; and night, 15

  Even in the zenith of her dark domain,

  Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.

  Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,

  In rayless majesty, now stretches forth

  Her leaden sceptre o’er a slumbering world.

  Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!

  Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds;

  Creation sleeps. ’Tis as the general pulse 23

  Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;

  An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

  And let her prophecy be soon fulfill’d;

  Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.

  Silence and darkness: solemn sisters! twins

  From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought

  To reason, and on reason build resolve 30

  (That column of true majesty in man),

  Assist me: I will thank you in the grave;

  The grave, your kingdom: there this frame shall fall

  A victim sa
cred to your dreary shrine.

  But what are ye? —

  Thou, who didst put to flight

  Primeval Silence, when the morning stars,

  Exulting, shouted o’er the rising ball;

  O Thou, whose word from solid darkness struck

  That spark, the sun; strike wisdom from my soul; 40

  My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,

  As misers to their gold, while others rest.

  Through this opaque of nature, and of soul,

  This double night, transmit one pitying ray,

  To lighten, and to cheer. O lead my mind,

  (A mind that fain would wander from its woe),

  Lead it through various scenes of life and death;

  And from each scene the noblest truths inspire.

  Nor less inspire my conduct, than my song; 49

  Teach my best reason, reason; my best will

  Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve

  Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:

  Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour’d

  On this devoted head, be pour’d in vain.

  The bell strikes one. We take no note of time

  But from its loss. To give it then a tongue

  Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,

  I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,

  It is the knell of my departed hours:

  Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. 60

  It is the signal that demands despatch:

  How much is to be done? My hopes and fears

  Start up alarm’d, and o’er life’s narrow verge

  Look down — on what? a fathomless abyss;

  A dread eternity! how surely mine!

  And can eternity belong to me,

  Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?