Pope, who couldst make immortals, art thou dead?

Either the Essay, then, was dedicated to a patron, who disapproved its
doctrine, which I have been told by the author was not the case; or
Young appears, in his old age, to have bartered for a dedication, an
opinion entertained of his friend through all that part of life when he
must have been best able to form opinions.

From this account of Young, two or three short passages, which stand
almost together in Night Four, should not be excluded. They afford a
picture by his own hand, from the study of which my readers may choose
to form their own opinion of the features of his mind, and the
complexion of his life:

Ah me! the dire effect
Of loit'ring here, of death defrauded long;
Of old so gracious (and let that suffice)
_My very master knows me not_.
I've been so long remember'd, I'm forgot.

When in his courtiers' ears I pour my plaint,
They drink it as the nectar of the great;
And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow.

Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy,
Court-favour, yet untaken, I _besiege_.

If this song lives, posterity shall know
One, though in Britain born, with courtiers bred,
Who thought e'en gold might come a day too late;
Nor on his subtle deathbed plann'd his scheme
For future vacancies in church or state.

Deduct from the writer's age "twice told the period spent on stubborn
Troy," and you will still leave him more than forty when he sat down to
the miserable siege of court-favour. He has before told us,

A fool at forty is a fool indeed.

After all, the siege seems to have been raised only in consequence of
what the General thought his "deathbed."

By these extraordinary poems, written after he was sixty, of which I
have been led to say so much, I hope, by the wish of doing justice to
the living and the dead, it was the desire of Young to be principally
known. He entitled the four volumes which he published himself, the
Works of the Author of the Night Thoughts. While it is remembered that
from these he excluded many of his writings, let it not be forgotten
that the rejected pieces contained nothing prejudicial to the cause of
virtue, or of religion. Were every thing that Young ever wrote to be
published, he would only appear, perhaps, in a less respectable light as
a poet, and more despicable as a dedicator; he would not pass for a
worse christian, or for a wors