e to his new profession, left him little doubt whether poetry
was the surest path to its honours and preferments. Not long, indeed,
after he took orders, he published, in prose, 1728, a true Estimate of
Human Life, dedicated, notwithstanding the Latin quotations with which
it abounds, to the queen; and a sermon preached before the house of
commons, 1729, on the martyrdom of king Charles, entitled, an Apology
for Princes, or the Reverence due to Government. But the Second
Discourse, the counterpart of his Estimate, without which it cannot be
called a _true_ Estimate, though, in 1728, it was announced as "soon to
be published," never appeared; and his old friends the muses were not
forgotten. In 1730 he relapsed to poetry, and sent into the world,
Imperium Pelagi, a naval lyrick, written in imitation of Pindar's
Spirit, occasioned by his majesty's return from Hanover, September,
1729, and the succeeding peace. It is inscribed to the duke of Chandos.
In the preface we are told, that the ode is the most spirited kind of
poetry, and that the Pindarick is the most spirited kind of ode. "This I
speak," he adds, "with sufficient candour, at my own very great peril.
But truth has an eternal title to our confession, though we are sure to
suffer by it." Behold, again, the fairest of poets. Young's Imperium
Pelagi was ridiculed in Fielding's Tom Thumb; but let us not forget that
it was one of his pieces which the author of the Night Thoughts
deliberately refused to own.

Not long after this Pindarick attempt, he published two epistles to
Pope, concerning the Authors of the Age, 1730. Of these poems, one
occasion seems to have been an apprehension lest, from the liveliness of
his satires, he should not be deemed sufficiently serious for promotion
in the church.

In July, 1730, he was presented, by his college, to the rectory of
Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. In May, 1731, he married lady Elizabeth Lee,
daughter of the earl of Lichfield, and widow of colonel Lee. His
connexion with this lady arose from his father's acquaintance, already
mentioned, with lady Anne Wharton, who was coheiress of sir Henry Lee,
of Ditchley, in Oxfordshire. Poetry had lately been taught by Addison to
aspire to the arms of nobility, though not with extraordinary happiness.

We may naturally conclude, that Young now gave himself up, in some
measure, to the comforts of his new connexion, and to the expectations
of that preferment, which he thought due to his poe