s, one went before
Young. But, at eighty-four, "where," as he asks in The Centaur, "is that
world into which we were born?" The same humility which marked a hatter
and a housekeeper for the friends of the author of the "Night Thoughts,"
had before bestowed the same title on his footman, in an epitaph in his
"Churchyard" upon James Baker, dated 1749; which I am glad to find
in the late collection of his works. Young and his housekeeper were
ridiculed, with more ill-nature than wit, in a kind of novel published
by Kidgell in 1755, called "The Card," under the names of Dr. Elwes and
Mrs. Fusby. In April, 1765, at an age to which few attain, a period was
put to the life of Young. He had performed no duty for three or four
years, but he retained his intellects to the last.

Much is told in the "Biographia," which I know not to have been true,
of the manner of his burial; of the master and children of a
charity-school, which he founded in his parish, who neglected to attend
their benefactor's corpse; and a bell which was not caused to toll as
often as upon those occasions bells usually toll. Had that humanity,
which is here lavished upon things of little consequence either to the
living or to the dead, been shown in its proper place to the living, I
should have had less to say about Lorenzo. They who lament that these
misfortunes happened to Young, forget the praise he bestows upon
Socrates, in the Preface to "Night Seven," for resenting his friend's
request about his funeral. During some part of his life Young was
abroad, but I have not been able to learn any particulars. In his
seventh Satire he says,

"When, after battle, I the field have SEEN
Spread o'er with ghastly shapes which once were men."

It is known, also, that from this or from some other field he once
wandered into the camp with a classic in his hand, which he was reading
intently; and had some difficulty to prove that he was only an absent
poet, and not a spy.

The curious reader of Young's life will naturally inquire to what it
was owing, that though he lived almost forty years after he took orders,
which included one whole reign uncommonly long, and part of another,
he was never thought worthy of the least preferment. The author of the
"Night Thoughts" ended his days upon a living which came to him from his
college without any favour, and to which he probably had an eye when he
determined on the Church. To satisfy curiosity of this kind is, at