gher than the rectorship his own college had
conferred on him. Many reasons have been assigned for this. Some say that
it was because he had attached himself to the side of Frederick, Prince
of Wales, and had preached an obnoxious sermon at St James's; others,
that it was because he had received a pension through Sir Robert Walpole.
We think that the real cause lay in the vulgar and senseless prejudice
which prevailed then, and in some measure prevails still, against a
literary divine, as if he were a hybrid, or "centaur, not fabulous." Let
us not blame that age so long as we remember the burning shame reflected
on ours by the fact that the gifted and high-charactered author of
_Salathiel_, and _Paris_ in 1815, is still only the rector of St
Stephen's, Walbrook, while many younger men, who in comparison with him
are of little mark, have reached the episcopal bench. Probably Young felt
himself consoled for his bad success, by the knowledge that his name and
great poem had travelled to foreign lands, and that Madame Klopstock was
wondering--good, simple soul!--that her husband's idol and her own, had
not been made Archbishop of Canterbury.

Very little beyond what we have mentioned has been left on record about
his private habits and manners. It was his custom, when well pleased with
a passage in the course of his reading, to double down the leaf--when
particularly gratified, to mark it by two folds; and some favourite
works, such as _The Rambler_, had so many of these marks of approbation
that they would not shut. On one occasion, in replying to Tonson and
Lintot, who were both candidates for printing one of his works, he
misdirected the letters; and when Lintot opened his, he found it
begun--"Bernard Lintot is so great a scoundrel," &c. Young was proverbial
for absence of mind, and sometimes forgot whether he had dined or not.
Yet in Welwyn his mode of life was rather systematic. He rose early, made
his domestics join him in morning prayer, read little, ate and drank
moderately, walked much in his churchyard, and, in general, retired to
rest punctually at eight evening. His son told Dr Johnson that he was
cheerful in company, but gloomy when alone, and that he never fully
recovered his spirits after his wife's death. Mr Jones, his curate, has
confirmed this statement, although the gossipping and heartless tone of
his letters about such a man cannot be too strongly condemned. Young was
subject to fits of inspiration, whic