Lady Elizabeth had lost, after her
marriage with Young, an amiable daughter, by her former husband, just
after she was married to Mr. Temple, son of lord Palmerston. Mr. Temple
did not long remain after his wife, though he was married a second time
to a daughter of sir John Barnard, whose son is the present peer. Mr.
and Mrs. Temple have generally been considered as Philander and
Narcissa. From the great friendship which constantly subsisted between
Mr. Temple and Young, as well as from other circumstances, it is
probable that the poet had both him and Mrs. Temple in view for these
characters; though, at the same time, some passages respecting Philander
do not appear to suit either Mr. Temple or any other person with whom
Young was known to be connected or acquainted, while all the
circumstances relating to Narcissa have been constantly found applicable
to Young's daughter-in-law.

At what short intervals the poet tells us he was wounded by the deaths
of the three persons particularly lamented, none that has read the Night
Thoughts (and who has not read them?) needs to be informed.

Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?
Thy shaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was slain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.

Yet how is it possible that Mr. and Mrs. Temple and lady Elizabeth Young
could be these three victims, over whom Young has hitherto been pitied
for having to pour the Midnight Sorrows of his religious poetry; Mrs.
Temple died in 1736; Mr. Temple four years afterwards, in 1740; and the
poet's wife seven months after Mr. Temple, in 1741. How could the
insatiate archer thrice slay his peace, in these three persons, "ere
thrice the moon had fill'd her horn?"

But, in the short preface to the Complaint, he seriously tells us, "that
the occasion of this poem was real, not fictitious; and that the facts
mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of
the writer." It is probable, therefore, that in these three
contradictory lines, the poet complains more than the father-in-law, the
friend, or the widower.

Whatever names belong to these facts, or, if the names be those
generally supposed, whatever heightening a poet's sorrow may have given
the facts; to the sorrow Young felt from them, religion and morality are
indebted for the Night Thoughts. There is a pleasure sure in sadness
which mourners only know!

Of these poems, the two or three first have been perused