notwithstanding their author's professed
retirement, all are inscribed to great or to growing names. He had not
yet weaned himself from earls and dukes, from the Speakers of the House
of Commons, Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and Chancellors of the
Exchequer. In "Night Eight" the politician plainly betrays himself:--

"Think no post needful that demands a knave:
When late our civil helm was shifting hands,
So P--- thought: think better if you can."

Yet it must be confessed that at the conclusion of "Night Nine," weary
perhaps of courting earthly patrons, he tells his soul--

"Henceforth
Thy PATRON he, whose diadem has dropped
You gems of Heaven; Eternity thy prize;
And leave the racers of the world their own."

The "Fourth Night" was addressed by "a much-indebted Muse" to the
Honourable Mr. Yorke, now Lord Hardwicke, who meant to have laid the
Muse under still greater obligation, by the living of Shenfield, in
Essex, if it had become vacant. The "First Night" concludes with this
passage:--

"Dark, though not blind, like thee, Meonides;
Or, Milton, thee. Ah! could I reach your strain;
Or his who made Meonides our own!
Man too he sung. Immortal man I sing.
Oh had he pressed his theme, pursued the track
Which opens out of darkness into day!
Oh, had he mounted on his wing of fire,
Soared, where I sink, and sung immortal man--
How had it blest mankind, and rescued me!"

To the author of these lines was dedicated, in 1756, the first volume of
an "Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope," which attempted, whether
justly or not, to pluck from Pope his "Wing of Fire," and to reduce
him to a rank at least one degree lower than the first class of English
poets. If Young accepted and approved the dedication, he countenanced
this attack upon the fame of him whom he invokes as his Muse.

Part of "paper-sparing" Pope's Third Book of the "Odyssey," deposited
in the Museum, is written upon the back of a letter signed "E. Young,"
which is clearly the handwriting of our Young. The letter, dated
only May 2nd, seems obscure; but there can be little doubt that the
friendship he requests was a literary one, and that he had the highest
literary opinion of Pope. The request was a prologue, I am told.

"May the 2nd.

"DEAR SIR;--Having been often from home, I know not if you