grounds, and "Ambulantes in horto audierunt vocem Dei" on a building
in his garden, his parish was indebted to the good humour of the
author of the "Night Thoughts" for an assembly and a bowling green.

Whether you think with me, I know not; but the famous "De mortuis
nil nisi bonum" always appeared to me to savour more of female
weakness than of manly reason. He that has too much feeling to
speak ill of the dead, who, if they cannot defend themselves, are at
least ignorant of his abuse, will not hesitate by the most wanton
calumny to destroy the quiet, the reputation, the fortune of the
living. Yet censure is not heard beneath the tomb, any more than
praise. "De mortuis nil nisi verum--De vivis nil nisi bonum" would
approach much nearer to good sense. After all, the few handfuls of
remaining dust which once composed the body of the author of the
"Night Thoughts" feel not much concern whether Young pass now for a
man of sorrow or for "a fellow of infinite jest." To this favour
must come the whole family of Yorick. His immortal part, wherever
that now dwells, is still less solicitous on this head. But to a
son of worth and sensibility it is of some little consequence
whether contemporaries believe, and posterity be taught to believe,
that his debauched and reprobate life cast a Stygian gloom over the
evening of his father's days, saved him the trouble of feigning a
character completely detestable, and succeeded at last in bringing
his "grey hairs with sorrow to the grave." The humanity of the
world, little satisfied with inventing perhaps a melancholy
disposition for the father, proceeds next to invent an argument in
support of their invention, and chooses that Lorenzo should be
Young's own son. "The Biographia," and every account of Young,
pretty roundly assert this to be the fact; of the absolute
impossibility of which, the "Biographia" itself, in particular