for his housekeeper, I learned that she was buried two days before I
reached the town of her abode.

In a letter from Tscharner, a noble foreigner, to Count Haller,
Tscharner says, he has lately spent four days with Young at Welwyn,
where the author tastes all the ease and pleasure mankind can
desire. "Everything about him shows the man, each individual being
placed by rule. All is neat without art. He is very pleasant in
conversation, and extremely polite." This, and more, may possibly
be true; but Tscharner's was a first visit, a visit of curiosity and
admiration, and a visit which the author expected.

Of Edward Young an anecdote which wanders among readers is not true,
that he was Fielding's Parson Adams. The original of that famous
painting was William Young, who was a clergyman. He supported an
uncomfortable existence by translating for the booksellers from
Greek, and, if he did not seem to be his own friend, was at least no
man's enemy. Yet the facility with which this report has gained
belief in the world argues, were it not sufficiently known that the
author of the "Night Thoughts" bore some resemblance to Adams. The
attention which Young bestowed upon the perusal of books is not
unworthy imitation. When any passage pleased him he appears to have
folded down the leaf. On these passages he bestowed a second
reading. But the labours of man are too frequently vain. Before he
returned to much of what he had once approved he died. Many of his
books, which I have seen, are by those notes of approbation so
swelled beyond their real bulk, that they will hardly shut.

"What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame!
Earth's highest station ends in HERE HE LIES!