891 



YOUNG, EDWARD. 



YOUNG, MATTHEW, D.D. 



892 



George II., and generally in language of the most unscrupulous adula- 

 tion. Place, after all, he never obtained, and, except the offices of 

 royal chaplain and clerk of the closet, the only preferment which he 

 ever reached was the rectory of Welwyn, and that was given to him 

 by lus own college of All Souls. 



Young's private character haa not been minutely described. Croft 

 went to the residence of his housekeeper in order to obtain informa- 

 tion from her, but she had died just before his arrival. After his 

 marriage he lived much in retirement at Welwyn, " the world forget- 

 ting," and long enough to be almost " by the world forgot." He 

 seems to have been visited by few, but Count Tscharner, a foreigner, 

 who spent four days with him when he was very old, says that every- 

 thing about him was very neat, his manners very polite, and his con- 

 versation lively and entertaining. He was strict in the performance 

 of his religious duties, domestic as well as public. His accustomed 

 walk of meditation was among the tombs of his own churchyard, but 

 he does not appear to have been severe or gloomy ; he was fond of 

 gardening, and his parishioners were obliged to him for a bowling- 

 green and an assembly-room. 



The distinguishing characteristic of Young's intellect was the fer- 

 tility of his fancy ; but the imagery with which it was supplied and 

 the manner in which that imagery was combined, were such as to 

 qualify him for a wit rather than for a poet. He has apparently no 

 taste for the beauties of external nature, but he has metaphors, 

 similes, and laboured comparisons drawn from all kinds of sources, in 

 extraordinary abundance. The combinations are always original, often 

 beautiful, sometimes brilliantly acute, but too frequently introduced 

 merely as ornaments, unnecessary for illustration and unsuitable to 

 the circumstances in which they are used or the effect which he 

 intended to produce. This want of skill in the adaptation of means 

 to the production of a specific effect was perhaps the leading defect 

 of his poetical character. But he has another defect, which, though 

 of much less consequence, would have disqualified him from ever 

 becoming a great poet. His versification is that of a versifier, not of 

 a poet; correct in the adjustment of feet, but broken up into couplets, 

 lines, and half-lines, and almost utterly devoid of the melody of 

 rhythm. His favourite form of language is antithesis, which may be 

 suitable enough for the wit, but is little suited to the poet. It must 

 be admitted however that his language is often very compact, and his 

 lines have frequently a pregnant brevity which gives point and force 

 to his illustrations. 



' The Last Day ' consists of a series of descriptions of the wonders 

 which are to attend the destruction of the universe, of the terrors of 

 the wicked, and the raptures of the virtuous. Sublimity is generally 

 aimed at, but never reached ; there is much of violence and extra- 

 vagance instead of it. The versification is elaborately correct, yet 

 not musical, and the effect of the whole is tedious. 'The Force of 

 Religion* is a poetical dialogue between Lord Guildford and Lady 

 Jaue Grey previous to her execution. The pathetic is evidently 

 aimed at in this poem, but pathos was never at the command of 

 Young. Lady Jane is too heroic, and the thoughts and language too 

 much unlike real feeling, to produce either interest or pity. ' The 

 Paraphrase on a Part of the Book of Job ' appears as if it had been 

 written by a man of genius out of his senses. The Eastern imagery 

 of the original is strong enough for most European tastes, but is tame 

 compared with Young's paraphrase. The descriptions, when wrought 

 out in detail, as they are by Young, instead of being, as no doubt he 

 intended, specimens of magnificent imagery, are extravagant to a degree 

 of absurdity which is absolutely without parallel in English poetry. 



' The Love of Fame,' being a series of satires, required a species of 

 composition much better suited to the peculiarity of Young's talents 

 than anything he had hitherto attempted. They have been described 

 as [a series of epigrams, and so they are, but epigrams so connected 

 with character and manners, as to have an interest which never 

 belongs to isolated epigrams, such as those of Martial. They display 

 no deep insight into character, no investigation of motives, but exhibit 

 the surface of life by a series of sketches, often slight and generally 

 superficial, but true, and spirited, and sparkling with illustrative 

 touches; and though much of the manners which they describe has 

 passed away, they are still perfectly intelligible and very amusing. In 

 poems of this kind, even Young's peculiar tatte for antithesis, and 

 his short and broken style of versification, can hardly be regarded as 

 objectionable. 



The 'Night Thoughts' are a series of argumentative poems in 

 blank verse, in proof of the immortality of the soul and the truth of 

 Christianity, and, as a consequence, the necessity of religious and 

 moral conduct. Young's exhibitions of life are those of a man who 

 had mixed with the world, and had observed it well ; and though they 

 are generally somewhat gloomy, and touched with the exaggerating 

 pencil of the satirist, they abound in important truths. There is no 

 narrative, or next to none, but a slight degree of interest is given by 

 the allusions to Narcissa and Philander and Lucia, and by the intro- 

 duction of Lorenzo, who seems to be the poet's personification of the 

 accomplished man of the world, whose infidelity was to be silenced 

 by argument, and the erroueousness of whose conduct was to be made 

 manifest by contrast with that of the Christian. In the descriptions, 

 the false sublime ia of much more frequent occurrence than the true. 

 Thejolank verse ia generally broken up into short sentences, and 



seldom satisfies the ear. The poem would have little attraction for 

 the general reader if it were not for the abundance, superabundance, 

 we may say, of its illustrative ornaments. 



' The Centaur not Fabulous ' is a satire in prose, an exaggerated 

 display of the life ' in vogue,' as he expresses it. The ' Remarks on 

 Original Composition ' were addressed in a letter to Richardson the 

 novelist, and though written when Young was very old, they are not 

 only full of good sense, but sparkle with illustrations as much as if 

 they had been written in the prime of life ; they are rather gossiping 

 perhaps, but very entertaining. 



Young wrote several Odes, some expressly "in imitation of Pindar's 

 manner." They are all signal failures. He has discarded his ornamental 

 illustrations, probably as unsuitable to the dignity of the ode, and he 

 has nothing in the place of them. The thoughts are either common 

 or bombastic, and the versification is only fit for nursery rhymes. The 

 last of his poems, ' Resignation,' consists of a series of verses written in 

 a familiar style, and though subdued in tone, indicates no decay of his 

 powers. 



The three tragedies are all of the heroic class. The characters are 

 above nature or out of it, and their thoughts and language being alike 

 unknown to ordinary humanity, they excite no sympathy. 'The 

 Revenge ' however still keeps possession of the stage whenever au 

 actor appears who is capable of displaying the exaggerated but magni- 

 ficent passion of Zanga. The plot is an imitation of that of Othello ; 

 it has more incident than either of the other tragedies, and the 

 thoughts and language are nearer to those of actual life. 



YOUNG, MATTHEW, D.D., Bishop of Clonfert, and a distinguished 

 mathematician of Ireland, was born in 1750, in the county of Ro^com- 

 mon, and he prosecuted his studies at Trinity College, Dublin, into 

 which he was admitted in 1766. While a student he applied himself 

 diligently to the ancient and modern languages, to divinity, and, in a 

 particular manner, to mathematics and natural philosophy. The 

 ' Principia ' of Newton constituted at that time the chief text-book 

 for the latter subject in the British universities, and Mr. Young spent 

 a considerable portion of his life in illustrating it, with the view of 

 diminishing for students the difficulties arising from the extreme con- 

 ciseness of the investigations. He entered into holy orders, and in 

 1775 he was elected a Fellow of the college, after an examination in 

 which he distinguished himself by his profound knowledge of the 

 important work just mentioned : the degree of Doctor in Divinity was 

 subsequently conferred upon him. 



In 1786, the professorship of natural philosophy becoming vacant, 

 Dr. Young was immediately appointed to hold the office, and he 

 applied himself zealously to the fulfilment of its duties. He greatly 

 extended the course of instruction in that branch of scieuce, availing 

 himself, for the purposes of illustration in his lectures, of a valuable 

 apparatus which had then been recently purchased for his college. 



Dr. Young is said to have taken great pleasure iu the society of 

 literary and scientific persons; and early in life he became connected 

 with several other young men who, like himself, were students at the 

 university, for mutual improvement in theology. Subsequently a 

 more numerous society was formed, chiefly by his exertions, and this 

 became the nucleus of the Royal Irish Academy, the members of 

 which professed to have for their object the advancement of arts and 

 sciences as well as polite literature and antiquities. They began in 

 1782 to hold weekly meetings for the purpose of reading essays on 

 these different subjects ; and the first volume of their ' Transactions/ 

 which is for the year 1787, was published in 1788. The volumes have 

 since come out regularly, and several of the earliest contain the 

 mathematical and philosophical papers which were contributed by 

 Dr. Young. 



The reputation acquired through his literary and scientific attain- 

 ments was the cause that Dr. Young was, without solicitation, 

 appointed by Lord Cornwallis (the lord-lieutenant) to the see of Clon- 

 fert and Kilmacduach when it became vacant. A commentary on the 

 ' Principia ' of Newton, which the doctor had been long preparing iu 

 English, and which he afterwards, on the representations of his friends, 

 translated into Latin, was completed a short time before he was raised 

 to the episcopal bench ; the publication was however unavoidably 

 delayed on account of the new duties arising from this appointment, 

 and before the bishop had leisure to carry out his intention a cancer 

 began to form on hia tongue. Under this painful malady he languished 

 during fifteen months, and he died November 28, 1800, being then at 

 Whitworth in Lancashire. 



The principal contribution made by Dr. Young to the 'Transactions 

 of the Royal Irish Academy ' is a paper on the velocities of effluent 

 fluids, which is published in the seventh volume. In this paper it is 

 shown that when a tube of any length, open at both ends, is inserted 

 vertically in a vessel so as to terminate on its bottom, and the vessel is 

 filled with water to any level above the top of the tube, the velocity 

 of the effluent water is increased, when compared with that of water 

 issuing from the vessel through a simple orifice of equal diameter in 

 the bottom, nearly with the square root of the length of the tube, the 

 depth of water in the vessel being equal ; and the cause of this 

 remarkable circumstance is ascribed to the excess of the pressure 

 downwards above the pressure upwards, within the tube, being greater 

 than it is at equal depths of water when no tube is employed. Thus, 

 a lamina of water at the top of the tube is pressed downwards by the 



