This attempt to get into Parliament was at Cirencester, where Young ftood a contefted election. His Grace difcovered in him talents for Oratory as well as for. poetry. Nor was this judgement wrong. Young, after he took orders, became a very popular preacher, and was much followed for the grace and animation of his delivery. By his oratorical talents he was once in his life, according to the Biographia, deserted. As he was preaching in his turn at St. James's, he plainly perceived it was out of his power to command the attention of his audience. This fo affected the feelings of the preacher, that he fat back in the pulpit, and burst into

tears. But to purfue his poetical life.

---

In 1719 he lamented the death of

Addison, in a Letter addreffed to their

common friend Tickell. For the fecret (4 botoliu inc

hiftory of the following lines, if they

contain any, it is now vain to feek: A

In joy once join'd, in forrow, now, for

years

Partner in grief, and brother of my

by tears,

Tickell, accept this verse, thy mournful due.

In 1719 appeared a Paraphrafe on Part of the Book of Job. Parker, to whom it is dedicated, had not long, by ineans of the seals, been qualified for a patron. Of this work the author's

t

opinion may be gathered from his Letter to Curll: "You feem, in the Col"lection you propofe, to have omitted "what I think may claim the first place "in it; I mean a Tranflation from Part

"of

"of Job, printed by Mr. Tonfon." The Dedication, which was only fuffered to appear in Tonfon's edition, while it fpeaks of his prefent retirement, feems to make an unusual struggle to efcape from retirement. It is addreffed, in no common ftrain of flattery, to a Lord Chancellor, of whom he clearly appears to have had no kind of knowledge.

Of his Satires it would not have been difficult to fix the dates without the affiftance of first editions, which, as you had occafion to obferve in the Life of Dryden, are with difficulty found. We muft then have referred to the Poems, to find when they were written. For these internal notes of time we fhould not have referred in vain. The firft Satire laments that "Guilt's

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"Guilt's chief foe in Addison is fled;' and the fecond, addreffing himself, afk's,

Is thy ambition fweating for a rhyme, Thou unambitious fool, at this late time?

A fool at forty is a fool indeed. The Satires were originally published feparately in folio, and thefe paffages fix the appearance of the first to about 1725, the time at which it came out. As Young feldom fuffered his pen to dry, after he had once dipped it in poetry, we may conclude that he began his Satires foon after he had written the Paraphrafe on Job. The laft was certainly finished in the beginning of the year 1726; for in December 1725 the

King, in his paffage from Helvoctfluys, efcaped with great difficulty from a ftorm by landing at Rye; and the con-clufion of the Satire turns the escape iuto a miracle, in fuch an encomiaftick ftrain of compliment as poetry too often feeks to pay to royalty. From the fixth of these poems we learn,

Midft empire's charms, how Carolina's heart

Glow'd with the love of virtue and of

art:

fince the grateful poet tells us in the next couplet,

Her favour is diffus'd to that degree, Excefs of goodness! it has dawn'd on

me.

Of the nature of this favour we must

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now