If Young be not a lyrick poet, he is, at least, a critick in that sort
of poetry; and, if his lyrick poetry can be proved bad, it was first
proved so by his own criticism. This surely is candid.

Milbourne was styled, by Pope, "the fairest of criticks," only because
he exhibited his own version of Virgil to be compared with Dryden's,
which he condemned, and with which every reader had it not otherwise in
his power to compare it. Young was surely not the most unfair of poets
for prefixing to a lyrick composition an essay on lyrick poetry, so just
and impartial as to condemn himself.

We shall soon come to a work, before which we find, indeed, no critical
essay, but which disdains to shrink from the touchstone of the severest
critick; and which certainly, as I remember to have heard you say, if it
contain some of the worst, contains also some of the best things in the
language.

Soon after the appearance of Ocean, when he was almost fifty, Young
entered into orders. In April, 1728[190] not long after he had put on
the gown, he was appointed chaplain to George the second.

The tragedy of the Brothers, which was already in rehearsal, he
immediately withdrew from the stage. The managers resigned it, with some
reluctance, to the delicacy of the new clergyman. The epilogue to the
Brothers, the only appendage to any of his three plays which he added
himself, is, I believe, the only one of the kind. He calls it an
historical epilogue. Finding that "Guilt's dreadful close his narrow
scene denied," he, in a manner, continues the tragedy in the epilogue,
and relates how Rome revenged the shade of Demetrius, and punished
Perseus "for this night's deed."

Of Young's taking orders something is told by the biographer of Pope,
which places the easiness and simplicity of the poet in a singular
light. When he determined on the church, he did not address himself to
Sherlock, to Atterbury, or to Hare, for the best instructions in
theology; but to Pope, who, in a youthful frolick, advised the diligent
perusal of Thomas Aquinas. With this treasure Young retired from
interruption to an obscure place in the suburbs. His poetical guide to
godliness hearing nothing of him during half a year, and apprehending he
might have carried the jest too far, sought after him, and found him
just in time to prevent what Ruffhead calls "an irretrievable
derangement."

That attachment to his favourite study, which made him think a poet the
surest guid