ties was broken. He was interred, to
quote Arbuthnot's words, 'as a peer of the realm,' in Westminster Abbey.
The superficial character of the poet may be seen in his couplet
transcribed upon the monument:

'Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, and now I know it.'

[Sidenote: Edward Young (1684-1765).]

Gay's moderate gift of song was withheld from the famous author of the
_Night Thoughts_. Yet Young was vain enough to think that he possessed
it, and wrote a patriotic ode called _Ocean_, preceded by an elaborate
essay on lyric poetry. He also produced _Imperium Pelagi_ (1729), _A
Naval Lyric written in Imitation of Pindar's spirit_. The lyric, which
was travestied by Fielding in his _Tom Thumb_,[28] reads like a
burlesque, and badly treated though Pindar was by the versemen of the
last century, there is perhaps not one of them who mocks him more
outrageously than Young. He says that this ode is an original, and no
critic is likely to dispute the assertion.

Young was born in 1684 at Upham, near Winchester, his father, who was
afterwards Dean of Sarum, being at that time the rector of the village.
Edward was placed upon the foundation at Winchester College, and
remained there until he was eighteen. He was then sent up to New
College, and afterwards removed to Corpus. At the age of twenty-seven he
was nominated to a law fellowship at All Souls, and took his degree of
B.C.L. and his doctor's degree some years later. Characteristically
enough he began his poetical career by _An Epistle to Lord Lansdowne_
(1712), who is praised for his heavenly numbers, and is said to have
been born "to make the muse immortal." His next poem of any consequence,
_The Last Day_, written in heroic couplets, and filling three books, is
correct, or fairly so, in versification, and execrable in taste. Young,
it may be supposed, wished to produce a sense of solemnity in the
treatment of his theme, and he does so by lamenting that the very land
'where the Stuarts filled an awful throne' will in that day be
forgotten. The want of taste which so often deforms Young's verse is
also seen in the imagery he employs to illustrate the fear which even
good men may have on appearing before that 'dread tribunal.'

'Thus the chaste bridegroom, when the priest draws nigh,
Beholds his blessing with a trembling eye;
Feels doubtful passions throb in every vein,
And in his cheeks are mingled joy and pain,
Les