Mrs. Temple died of a consumption at Lyons, on her way to Nice, the
year after her marriage; that is, when poetry relates the fact, "in
her bridal hour." It is more than poetically true that Young
accompanied her to the Continent:

"I flew, I snatched her from the rigid North,
And bore her nearer to the sun."

But in vain. Her funeral was attended with the difficulties painted
in such animated colours in "Night the Third." After her death the
remainder of the party passed the ensuing winter at Nice. The poet
seems perhaps in these compositions to dwell with more melancholy on
the death of Philander and Narcissa than of his wife. But it is
only for this reason. He who runs and reads may remember that in
the "Night Thoughts" Philander and Narcissa are often mentioned and
often lamented. To recollect lamentations over the author's wife
the memory must have been charged with distinct passages. This lady
brought him one child, Frederick, now living, to whom the Prince of
Wales was godfather.

That domestic grief is, in the first instance, to be thanked for
these ornaments to our language it is impossible to deny. Nor would
it be common hardiness to contend that worldly discontent had no
hand in these joint productions of poetry and piety. Yet am I by no
means sure that, at any rate, we should not have had something of
the same colour from Young's pencil, notwithstanding the liveliness
of his satires. In so long a life causes for discontent and
occasions for grief must have occurred. It is not clear to me that
his Muse was not sitting upon the watch for the first which