His last literary [work] production.
[Found the way] undertook to persuade.'
As the introduction to his critical examination of the genius and writings of YOUNG, he did Mr. Herbert Croft[198], then a Barrister of Lincoln's-inn, now a clergyman, the honour to adopt[199] a Life of Young written by that gentleman, who was the friend of Dr. Young's son, and wished to vindicate him from some very erroneous remarks to his prejudice. Mr. Croft's performance was subjected to the revision of Dr. Johnson, as appears from the following note to Mr. John Nichols[200]:--
'This Life of Dr. Young was written by a friend of his son. What is crossed with black is expunged by the authour, what is crossed with red is expunged by me. If you find any thing more that can be well omitted, I shall not be sorry to see it yet shorter[201]'
It has always appeared to me to have a considerable share of merit, and to display a pretty successful imitation of Johnson's style. When I mentioned this to a very eminent literary character[202], he opposed me vehemently, exclaiming, 'No, no, it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak without its strength.' This was an image so happy, that one might have thought he would have been satisfied with it; but he was not. And setting his mind again to work, he added, with exquisite felicity, 'It has all the contortions of the Sybil, without the inspiration.'
Mr. Croft very properly guards us against supposing that Young was a gloomy man[203]; and mentions, that 'his parish was indebted to the good-humour of the authour of the Night Thoughts for an Assembly and a Bowling-Green[204].' A letter from a noble foreigner is quoted, in which he is said to have been 'very pleasant in conversation[205].'
Mr. Langton, who frequently visited him, informs me, that there was an air of benevolence in his manner, but that he could obtain from him less information than he had hoped to receive from one who had lived so much in intercourse with the brightest men of what has been called the Augustan age of England; and that he shewed a degree of eager curiosity concerning the common occurrences that were then passing, which appeared somewhat remarkable in a man of such intellectual stores, of such an advanced age, and who had retired from life with declared disappointment in his expectations.
An instance at once of his pensive turn of mind, and his cheerfulness of temper, appeared in a little story which he himself told to Mr. Langton, when they were walking in his garden: 'Here (said he) I had put a handsome sun-dial, with this inscription, Eheu fugaces![206] which (speaking with a smile) was sadly verified, for by the next morning my dial had been carried off.'[207]
'It gives me much pleasure to observe, that however Johnson may have casually talked,[208] yet when he sits, as "an ardent judge zealous to his trust, giving sentence" [209] upon the excellent works of Young, he allows them the high praise to which they are justly entitled. "The Universal Passion (says he) is indeed a very great performance,--his distichs have the weight of solid sentiment, and his points the sharpness of resistless truth."'[210]
But I was most anxious concerning Johnson's decision upon Night Thoughts, which I esteem as a mass of the grandest and richest poetry that human genius has ever produced; and was delighted to find this character of that work: 'In his Night Thoughts, he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhime but with disadvantage.'[211] And afterwards, 'Particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation[212], the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity.'
But there is in this Poem not only all that Johnson so well brings in view, but a power of the Pathetick beyond almost any example that I have seen. He who does not feel his nerves shaken, and his heart pierced by many passages in this extraordinary work, particularly by that most affecting one, which describes the gradual torment suffered by the contemplation of an object of affectionate attachment, visibly and certainly decaying into dissolution, must be of a hard and obstinate frame[213].
To all the other excellencies of Night Thoughts let me add the great and peculiar one, that they contain not only the noblest sentiments of virtue, and contemplations on immortality, but the Christian Sacrifice, the Divine Propitiation, with all its interesting circumstances, and consolations to 'a wounded spirit[214],' solemnly and poetically displayed in such imagery and language, as cannot fail to exalt, animate, and soothe the truly pious. No book whatever can be recommended to young persons, with better hopes of seasoning their minds with vital religion, than YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.