occasioned by the British Fleet and the Posture of Affairs.
Written in the Character of a Sailor." It is not to be found in the
author's four volumes. He now appears to have given up all hopes of
overtaking Pindar, and perhaps at last resolved to turn his ambition
to some original species of poetry. This poem concludes with a formal
farewell to Ode, which few of Young's readers will regret:

"My shell, which Clio gave, which KINGS APPLAUD,
Which Europe's bleeding genius called abroad,
Adieu!"

In a species of poetry altogether his own he next tried his skill, and
succeeded.

Of his wife he was deprived in 1741. Lady Elizabeth had lost, after her
marriage with Young, an amiable daughter, by her former husband, just
after she was married to Mr. Temple, son of Lord Palmerston. Mr. Temple
did not long remain after his wife, though he was married a second time
to a daughter of Sir John Barnard's, whose son is the present peer.
Mr. and Mrs. Temple have generally been considered as Philander and
Narcissa. From the great friendship which constantly subsisted between
Mr. Temple and Young, as well as from other circumstances, it is
probable that the poet had both him and Mrs. Temple in view for these
characters; though, at the same time, some passages respecting Philander
do not appear to suit either Mr. Temple or any other person with
whom Young was known to be connected or acquainted, while all the
circumstances relating to Narcissa have been constantly found applicable
to Young's daughter-in-law. At what short intervals the poet tells us
he was wounded by the deaths of the three persons particularly lamented,
none that has read the "Night Thoughts" (and who has not read them?)
needs to be informed.

"Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?
Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn."

Yet how is it possible that Mr. and Mrs. Temple and Lady Elizabeth Young
could be these three victims, over whom Young has hitherto been pitied
for having to pour the "Midnight Sorrows" of his religious poetry? Mrs.
Temple died in 1736; Mr. Temple four years afterwards, in 1740; and
the poet's wife seven months after Mr. Temple, in 1741. How could the
insatiate archer thrice slay his peace, in these three persons, "ere
thrice the moon had filled her horn." But in the short preface to "The
Complaint" he seriously tells us, "that the occasion of