Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/392

 

YOUNG, EDWARD (1683–1765), poet, was born at Upham, near Winchester. Croft gives the year as 1681, but the parish register shows that he was baptised on 3 July 1683, and the later date agrees with the statements of his age on entering school and college. He was the son of Edward Young, rector of Upham and fellow of Winchester. The elder Young was afterwards made dean of Salisbury and chaplain to William and Mary, perhaps through the interest of, earl of Bradford [q. v.], to whom he dedicated two volumes of sermons. It is asserted in Jacob's ‘Poetical Register’ (1720) that he was the ‘clerk of the closet’ to Princess (afterwards Queen) Anne, and that she was godmother to his son. He died in 1705 in his sixty-third year. The son's name is on the election roll for Winchester in August 1694 (when his age is stated as ten years), and he was admitted a scholar in 1695. He rose very slowly in the school, and, though in 1702 he was on the election roll for New College, he was superannuated before a vacancy occurred. On 3 Oct. 1702 he matriculated as a commoner at New College (his age is then said to be nineteen), where he lived in the lodge of the warden, a friend of his father. The warden dying in the same year, he entered Corpus College as a gentleman commoner, the expenses being, it is said, less there than at any other college. In 1708 Archbishop Tenison, upon whom the right of appointment had devolved, nominated him to a law fellowship at All Souls' out of respect for his father. The facts seem to imply that Young so far owed more to his father's merits than to any of his own. Pope afterwards told Warburton that Young had more genius than common sense, and had consequently passed ‘a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets’ (, Pope, p. 290 n.) ‘There are who relate,’ says Croft, ‘that Young at this time’ was not the ornament to ‘religion and morality which he afterwards became.’ At Oxford he argued with the deist Tindal [see under ]. Young graduated as B.C.L. on 23 April 1714 and D.C.L. on 10 June 1719. He was meanwhile trying to push his way in London. One of his closest friends was [q. v.], who in 1710 became a fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, and was soon afterwards one of Addison's ‘little senate.’ Young was admitted to the same literary circles. His first publication was an ‘Epistle’ to, lord Lansdowne [q. v.], recently raised to the peerage as one of the famous twelve supporters of the peace. Young praises Lansdowne as a second Shakespeare, and more plausibly as a colleague of Bolingbroke. He bewails in the same poem Swift's client, (1685–1713) [q. v.], the ‘partner of his soul.’ Harrison was also a Winchester and New College man; and Young travelled, probably from Oxford, to see him on his death-bed (14 Feb. 1712–13). Though Young was courting tories, he was on friendly terms with the whigs. He wrote one of the poems prefixed to Addison's ‘Cato,’ and in the ‘Guardian’ (9 May 1713) Steele quoted some lines from his ‘Last Day’ as a manuscript poem about to appear. It was published (license dated 19 May 1714) at Oxford, with a dedication to the queen. In 1714 he also published the ‘Force of Religion,’ a poem (upon the execution of Lady Jane Grey and her husband), with a dedication to the Countess of Salisbury; and an epistle to Addison upon the death of the queen, with an ardent welcome to her successor. Young suppressed this epistle and various dedications in his own edition of his poems; and we may hope that he was a little ashamed of having bestowed his incense so freely. Meanwhile he had formed connections, the history of which is only to be conjectured from some proceedings before Lord-chancellor Hardwicke in 1740 (, Reports, 1794, ii. 152, case 135). The question then arose whether certain bonds of, duke of Wharton [q. v.], held by Young, had been given for legal considerations. An annuity of 100l. had been granted by Wharton to Young on 24 March 1719, on the ground that in Wharton's opinion the public good was advanced by ‘the encouragement of learning and the polite arts.’ This, however, had not been paid, and, by way of discharging the debt, Wharton granted another annuity of 100l. on 10 July 1722. Young swore that, upon Wharton's promises