Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/358

 oratory in the commons, which excites the unwilling admiration of Pulteney and Shippen, he goes on to deprecate that form of modern wit which ‘lies chiefly in a caper or a song.’ Dodsley was anxious in his famous ‘Collection’ to give an example of Yonge's handiwork, and in his sixth volume he rashly printed two pieces, ‘Lady M[ary] W[ortley] to Sir W[illiam] Y[onge]’ and ‘Sir W. Y.'s Answer,’ containing the couplet But the fruit that will fall without shaking Indeed is too mellow for me. Lady Mary was highly indignant at having her name coupled in any way with a man of such a character as Yonge, and claimed the reply as her own impromptu upon some verses written by a lady (Corresp. ed. Thomas, 1898, ii. 355;, Collection, 1758, vi. 230–1).

Conversely, Pope was annoyed at verses by Yonge being mistaken for his. In the ‘Epilogue to the Satires’ and elsewhere he connects him with Bubo (Dodington), notably in the line The flowers of Bubo and the flow of Young; he classes him among the didappers, who, after diving in mud, astonish their friends by coming up in unexpected places, and in the ‘Essay on Man’ he derides him in the couplet To sigh for ribbons, if thou art so silly, Mark how they grace Lord Umbra and Sir Billy. Three poems by Yonge are inserted in the ‘Collection’ of John Nichols (1780, vi. 255–63), where mention is also made of Yonge's verses in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1736, p. 103), ‘the subject of which renders 'em improper to be inserted here.’ Yonge nevertheless had sufficient reputation in the world of polite literature for Johnson to apply to him upon the vexed question of the pronunciation of ‘great,’ which Pope and Swift had rhymed indifferently with ‘seat’ and ‘state.’ ‘When I published my plan,’ said Johnson to Boswell, ‘Lord Chesterfield told me that the word should rhyme with state; Sir William Yonge sent me word that it should be pronounced so as to rhyme with seat, and that none but an Irishman would pronounce it grait. Now here were two men of the highest rank, the one the best speaker in the House of Lords, the other the best speaker in the House of Commons, differing entirely.’ Johnson's experience as a parliamentary reporter renders this last testimony of especial interest. In 1749 Yonge wrote the somewhat coarse epilogue to Johnson's ‘Irene.’ Murphy, overlooking the statement in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1750, p. 85), questioned the fact recorded by Boswell. Boswell accordingly added, in the second edition of his ‘Life,’ ‘as Johnson informed me.’ ‘I know not,’ he also says, ‘how his play came to be thus graced by the pen of a person then so eminent in the political world’ (, Life, ed. Croker).

[Roberts's Diary of Walter Yonge (Camd. Soc.), 1848, pp. xii, xiii; Burke's Extinct Baronetcies; Wotton's Baronetage, 1771, ii. 227; Graduati Cantabr.; Thomson's Hist. of Royal Society, App. v; Walpole's Memoirs of George II, i. 22, 24, 116, 369; Coxe's Pelham Administration, 1829; History of White's Club, 1892; Lord Hervey's Memoirs; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Works (Bohn); Suffolk Correspondence, ed. Croker; Dodsley's Collection of Poems, 1758, vi. 230; Walpole's Correspondence, ed. Cunningham, i. 98, 100, 119, 130, 218, 400, 407, ii. 22, 78, 82, 458, vi. 65, viii. 233; Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vols. iii. iv.; Grenville Corresp. i. 73–4; Mahon's Hist. of England, iii. 19, 137; Morley's Walpole, p. 238; Chesterfield's Letters, ed. Mahon; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. vii. 164.]

 YORK. [See also .]

 YORK,. [See 1314–1402;  1373?–1415;  1411–1460;  1472–1483;  1633–1701.]

 YORK and ALBANY,. [See 1674–1728;  1763–1827.]

 YORK,. [See 1637–1671.]

 YORK,. [See 1725–1807.]

 YORK, JOHN (d. 1569?), master of the mint, was, according to the earliest pedigree of the family in Flower's ‘Visitation of Yorkshire’ in 1563–4, third son of John Yorke, by his wife Katherine Patterdale or Patterdall. The pedigree in the ‘Visitation of Yorkshire’ by Robert Glover in 1584–5 (ed. Foster, 1875) confirms these statements, but in the ‘Visitation of London’ in 1568 he is designated the son of Sir Richard Yorke. His grandfather, according to all the pedigrees, was Sir Richard York of York, and his grandmother was, according to the visitation of 1563–4, Joan Maliverer, Sir Richard's first wife. While accepting the testimony of the Yorkshire visitations as to the name of York's father, it is probable that the London visitation is correct in dis-