Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/331

Rh ward from the stretch of his imagination, which tires in her pursuit, and falls back again, to earth.

The Queen was soon called away from this lower world, to a place where human praise or human flattery, even less general than this, are of little consequence. If Young thought the dedication contained only the praise of truth, he should not have omitted it in his works. Was he conscious of the exaggeration of party? Then he should not have written it. The poem itself is not without a glance towards politicks, notwithstanding the subject. The cry that the church was in danger, had not yet subsided. The "Last Day," written by a layman, was much approved by the ministry, and their friends.

Before the Queen's death, "The Force of Religion, or Vanquished Love," was sent into the world. This poem is founded on the execution of Lady Jane Gray and her husband Lord Guildford 1554; a story chosen for the subject of a tragedy by Edmund Smith, and wrought into a tragedy by Rowe. The dedication of it to the Countess of Salisbury does not appear in his own edition. He hopes it may be some excuse for his presumption Rh