Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/361

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When Young was writing a tragedy, Grafton is said by Spence to have sent him a human skull, with a candle in it, as a lamp; and the poet is reported to have used it.

What he calls "The true estimate of Human Life," which has already been mentioned, exhibits only the wrong side of the tapestry; and being asked why he did not show the right, he is said to have replied, that he could not. By others it has been told me that this was finished, but that, before there existed any copy, it was torn in pieces by a lady's monkey.

Still, is it altogether fair to dress up the poet for the man, and to bring the gloominess of the "Night Thoughts" to prove the gloominess of Young, and to shew that his genius, like the genius of Swift, was in some measure the sullen inspiration of discontent?

From them who answer in the affirmative it should not be concealed that, though "Invisibilia non decipiunt" appeared upon a deception in Young's grounds, and "Ambulan- Rh