Lyric Poetry," so just and impartial as to condemn himself.

We shall soon come to a work, before which we find indeed no
critical essay, but which disdains to shrink from the touchstone of
the severest critic; and which certainly, as I remember to have
heard you say, if it contains some of the worst, contains also some
of the best things in the language.

Soon after the appearance of "Ocean," when he was almost fifty,
Young entered into orders. In April, 1728, not long after he had
put on the gown, he was appointed chaplain to George II.

The tragedy of The Brothers, which was already in rehearsal, he
immediately withdrew from the stage. The managers resigned it with
some reluctance to the delicacy of the new clergyman. The Epilogue
to The Brothers, the only appendages to any of his three plays which
he added himself, is, I believe, the only one of the kind. He calls
it an historical Epilogue. Finding that "Guilt's dreadful close his
narrow scene denied," he, in a manner, continues the tragedy in the
Epilogue, and relates how Rome revenged the shade of Demetrius, and
punished Perseus "for this night's deed."

Of Young's taking orders something is told by the biographer of
Pope, which places the easiness and simplicity of the poet in a
singular light. When he determined on the Church he did not address
himself to Sherlock, to Atterbury, or to Hare, for the best
instructions in theology, but to Pope, who, in a youthful frolic,
advised the diligent perusal of Thomas Aquinas. With this treasure
Young retired from interruption to an obscure place in the suburbs.
His poetical guide to godliness hearing nothing of him during half a