urch 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 frolic, 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 guide 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
Course," 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 Lyric, 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 Pindaric 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 Pindaric 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,