peace "harvests wave, and commerce swells her sail." If this be
humanity, for which he meant it; is it politicks? Another purpose of
this epistle appears to have been, to prepare the publick for the
reception of some tragedy he might have in hand. His lordship's
patronage, he says, will not let him "repent his passion for the stage;"
and the particular praise bestowed on Othello and Oroonoko looks as if
some such character as Zanga was even then in contemplation. The
affectionate mention of the death of his friend Harrison, of New
college, at the close of this poem, is an instance of Young's art, which
displayed itself so wonderfully, some time afterwards, in the Night
Thoughts, of making the publick a party in his private sorrow.

Should justice call upon you to censure this poem, it ought, at least,
to be remembered, that he did not insert it in his works; and that in
the letter to Curll, as we have seen, he advises its omission. The
booksellers, in the late body of English poetry, should have
distinguished what was deliberately rejected by the respective
authors[187].This I shall be careful to do with regard to Young. "I
think," says he, "the following pieces in _four_ volumes to be the most
excusable of all that I have written; and I wish _less apology_ was
needful for these. As there is no recalling what is got abroad, the
pieces here republished I have revised and corrected, and rendered them
as _pardonable_ as it was in my power to do."

Shall the gates of repentance be shut only against literary sinners?

When Addison published Cato, in 1713, Young had the honour of prefixing
to it a recommendatory copy of verses. This is one of the pieces which
the author of the Night Thoughts did not republish.

On the appearance of his Poem on the Last Day, Addison did not return
Young's compliment; but the Englishman of October 29, 1713, which was
probably written by Addison, speaks handsomely of this poem. The Last
Day was published soon after the peace. The vicechancellor's
_imprimatur_, for it was printed at Oxford, is dated May the 19th, 1713.
From the exordium, Young appears to have spent some time on the
composition of it. While other bards "with Britain's hero set their
souls on fire," he draws, he says, a deeper scene. Marlborough _had
been_ considered by Britain as her hero; but, when the Last Day was
published, female cabal had blasted, for a time, the laurels of
Blenheim. This serious poem was finished by Young