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CHARACTERS. 



ANECDOTES OF DR. YOUNG. 



From the Letters of Mrs. Eliza- 

 beth Montagu. 



Tunbridge-Wells, 1745. 



To THE DdcHESS of PORTLAND. 



T HAVE great joy in Dr. Young, 

 whom I disturbed in a reverie; 

 at first he started, then bowed, then 

 fell back into a surprise, then be- 

 gan a speech, relapsed into his 

 astonishment two or three times, 

 forgot what he had been saying, 

 began a new subject, and so went 

 on. I told him your Grace de- 

 sired he would write longer letters ; 

 to which he cried Ha ! most em- 

 phatically, and I leave you to in- 

 terpret what it meant. He has 

 made a friendship with one person 

 here, whom, I believe, you would 

 not imagine to have been made for 

 his bosom friend. You would, 

 perhaps, suppose it was a bishop, a 

 dean, a prebend, a pious preacher, 

 a clerg^'man of exemplary life; or 

 if a layman, of most virtuous con- 

 versation, one that had paraphrased 

 St. Matthew, or wrote comments 

 on St. Paul ; one blind with 



studying the Hebrew text, and 

 more versed in the Jewish Chroni- 

 cle than the English history; a 

 man that knew more of the Le- 

 vitical law, than of the civil, or 

 common law of England. You 

 would not guess that this associate 

 of the Doctor's was — old Cibher f 

 Certainly in their religious, moral, 

 and civil character, there is no re- 

 lation, but in their dramatic capa- 

 city there is some. But why the 

 reverend divine, and serious author 

 of the melancholy Night Thoughts, 

 should desire to appear as a per- 

 sona dramatis here I cannot ima- 

 gine. The waters have raised his 

 spirits to a fine pitch, as your Grace 

 will imagine when I tell you how 

 sublime an answer he made to a 

 very vulgar question : I asked him 

 how long he stayed at the Wells ? 

 he said, as long as my rival stayed. 

 I was astonished how one who 

 made no pretensions to any thing 

 could have a rival, so I asked him 

 for an explanation ; he said he 

 would stay as long as the sun did. 

 He did an admirable thing to Lady 

 Sunderland ; on her mentioning 

 Sir Robert Sutton, he asked her 

 where Sir Robert's Lady was ? on 

 which we all laughed very heartily,. 



