this poem was
real, not fictitious, and that the facts mentioned did naturally pour
these moral reflections on the thought of the writer." It is probable,
therefore, that in these three contradictory lines the poet complains
more than the father-in-law, the friend, or the widower. Whatever names
belong to these facts, or if the names be those generally supposed,
whatever heightening a poet's sorrow may have given the facts; to the
sorrow Young felt from them religion and morality are indebted for the
"Night Thoughts." There is a pleasure sure in sadness which mourners
only know! Of these poems the two or three first have been perused
perhaps more eagerly and more frequently than the rest. When he got as
far as the fourth or fifth his original motive for taking up the pen
was answered; his grief was naturally either diminished or exhausted.
We still find the same pious poet, but we hear less of Philander and
Narcissa, and less of the mourner whom he loved to pity.

Mrs. Temple died of a consumption at Lyons, on her way to Nice, the
year after her marriage; that is, when poetry relates the fact, "in her
bridal hour." It is more than poetically true that Young accompanied her
to the Continent:

"I flew, I snatched her from the rigid North,
And bore her nearer to the sun."

But in vain. Her funeral was attended with the difficulties painted
in such animated colours in "Night the Third." After her death the
remainder of the party passed the ensuing winter at Nice. The poet seems
perhaps in these compositions to dwell with more melancholy on the death
of Philander and Narcissa than of his wife. But it is only for this
reason. He who runs and reads may remember that in the "Night Thoughts"
Philander and Narcissa are often mentioned and often lamented. To
recollect lamentations over the author's wife the memory must have
been charged with distinct passages. This lady brought him one child,
Frederick, now living, to whom the Prince of Wales was godfather.

That domestic grief is, in the first instance, to be thanked for these
ornaments to our language it is impossible to deny. Nor would it be
common hardiness to contend that worldly discontent had no hand in these
joint productions of poetry and piety. Yet am I by no means sure that,
at any rate, we should not have had something of the same colour from
Young's pencil, notwithstanding the liveliness of his satires. In so
long a life causes for discontent and occasi