Read 'A True Estemate of Human Life' by Mr Young, a Sermon preach'd in St George's Church upon the King's death. Extreordinary stile. Poeticall, exceeding entertaining.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Aunt had the coach at 5 to visit. I drank tea and read Mr Young's sermon. Mrs D'Enly went when the coach came back with Aunt near 10.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Read the 'Universal Passion'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Made an end of 'The Unniversall Passion'... 'Tis exceeding seveer, 'tis all satir[e] but mighty pretty and too just. He is grown a favouritt Author of mine. I am not content with once reading it, but design to bye it.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
'[J.M. Dent's] reading was marked by the autodidact's characteristic enthusiasm and spottiness. He knew Pilgrim's Progress, Milton, Cowper, Thomson's Seasons and Young's Night Thoughts; but...did not read Shakespeare seriously until he was nearly thirty'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Malaby Dent Print: Book
What matters it to me if Young was an ambitious man or not? He wrote what I feel; and tho' not his wishes, his words would often have been mine, if heaven had endowed me withsuch giant-powers of speech. Were ever lines more beautiful than the first five of the first night? Shakespeare might have written them. What a description of night! Less beautiful than Milton's so celebrated descrip- -tion of evening (book 4), but moresublime? [quotes from 'Night One'and 'Night two']... I wished I had marked all, or half, my favourite passages- they would shew you a mind fond of deep thought- a haughty spirit unyielding to the storms of time and circumstance - a heart when lulled in Friendship's lap. perhaps as warmly gentle as your own.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
[Letter to Sibbella Maclean, dated August 18 1824] I should have marked, and doubtless, have done so in my little edition at home (got another directly), the very lines youmention. I have also marked the following, "Celestil happiness! Where e'er she stoops / To visit earth, one shrine the goddess finds" [Night II, ll.516-17]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
From 8.30 to 9.10 walked on the terrace, occasionally reading Young's Night Thoughts. Coffee at 9.10.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
"It was about this period that Mike, the dwarf waiter, fell ill. His mistress and others of her family being worn out by watching, the landlady appealed to me to take a turn. I at once consented, and the widow, much pleased, set about mixing me grog for the night. I asked to be allowed to glance over her library, and, from its contents, I selected "Young's Night Thoughts." This I managed to finish before morning, and never was book read to greater advantage. The moans, occasional ravings and wanderings of my poor little friend and former schoolfellow enabled me to realise beauties that I had failed to see in a previous perusal."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Bedford Leno Print: Book
'Tho. Davy to our house in the evening to whom I read two nights of "The Complaint", one of which was the Christian triumph against the fear of death, which must be allowed by all Christians a noble subject, it being the redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ, and I think the author has treated it in a very moving and pathetic manner.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'Tho. Davy at our house in the latter part of the even to whom I read the last of "The Complaint" and part of Sherlock on death. I now having read "The Complaint" through, think it an extreme good book, the author having treated many parts of religion in a very noble and spiritual manner wherein I think every deist, free-thinker, as also every irreligious person may read himself a fool. For what is wit or wisdom (without religion) but foolishness?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'In the even read part of Young's "Night Thoughts".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'Read part of Young's "Estimate of Human Life".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner Print: Book
'With us, the "Centaur not fabulous" has met with a pretty good Reception; tho' some good People wish that it had less of the Enthusiasm of Poetry in it; less of Imagination. But are there not very fine, very solemn, very noble Strokes in almost every Page of it? Is not the Author's good Design apparent in every Line?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Richardson Manuscript: Unknown, printed by Richardson so presumably read in MS
?One Sunday afternoon, the usual call was made for our ramble in the fields. Word was sent to the callers that their old companion was not going to join them. I heard from an upper room, not without a certain amount of tremour, their exclamations of surprise. They wandered off into the fields in one direction; I, with a new companion, wandered off into the fields in another. My new companion was Young?s "Night Thoughts". The old companions were never joined again.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Edwin Adams Print: Book
David Vincent relates how the nineteenth-century apprentice compositor William Adams rejected his usual work associates and walking-companions after discovering Young's "Night Thoughts".
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Adams Print: Book
'We waste, not use, ourtime; we breathe, not live' [single line] 'Young'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'...a small thick volume, bound in black morocco, and comprising four reprinted works of the eighteenth century. Gloomy, funeral poems of an order as wholly out of date as are the cross-bones an druffled cherubim on the gravestones in a country churchyard. The four - and in this order, as I never shall forget - were "The Last Day" of a Dr. Young, "Blair's Grave", "Death" by Bishop Beilby Porteus, and "The Deity" of Samuel Boyse ... How I came to open this solemn volume is explained by the oppressive exclusiveness of our Sundays ... [explains how this reading matter was approved, and how it was taken into the garden] Thither then I escaped with my grave-yard poets, and who shall explain the rapture with which I followed their austere morality?'
Later, 'I think that the rhetoric and vigorous advance of Young's verse were pleasant to me.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
'Looked into Young's "Night Thoughts": debased throughout with many poor and puerile conceits...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
Reader makes several references to the work: V.1, p.9, p.19, p.167, p.192; V.2 p.145, p.162, p.177; V.3 p.145. eg.: V.1 p.9 'Well, now I was very sure I would not smile this summer, nor yet read any book but the Bible and Night Thoughts*; even the Odyssey was to be rejected'. *'The Night Thoughts, and the Odyssey, were favourite studies among these friends, to which they were wont to make many serious and playful allusions' [footnote, p. 9] from Letter II to Miss Harriet Reid of Glasgow, April 28 1773. eg. p.19 '"how populous, how vital is the grave;? says your favourite Young : ?how populous, how vital are the glens!? I should be tempted to say here' from same letter.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Letter to Miss Ewing October 3 1778 'He is an uncommon, indeed I may say, an exalted character; one of those of whom Pope says ?Great souls there are, who touch?d with warmth divine/ Give gold a price, and teach its beams to shine"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Letter to Miss Ourry July 13, 1779 'The sublime and solid consolations which true religion and right reason afford, are all your own and, tho? well assured that there is indeed ?No pang like that of bosom torn/ From bosom, bleeding o?er the sacred dead? yet I trust those truths ?.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
'When my day's task is at an end, I keep my nightly vigils with Young, whose Night Thoughts I do think, next to Milton's, the most sublime poem in the English language. I know 'tis accounted gloomy, and for those who love an eternal glare of sunshine it may be so; but for such as seek the shade 'tis only a refreshing repose. have you read it of late years?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss V[-] Print: Book
'Boswell. "What do you think of Dr. Young's 'Night Thoughts,' Sir?" Johnson. "Why, Sir, there are many fine things in them".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'The Bishop said, it appeared from Horace's writings that he was a cheerful contented man. Johnson. "We have no reason to believe that, my Lord. Are we to think Pope was happy, because he says so in his writings? We see in his writings what he wished the state of his mind to appear. Dr. Young, who pined for preferment, talks with contempt of it in his writings, and affects to despise everything that he did not despise".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Lord Dufferin to Alfred Tennyson [1858]:
'For the first 20 years of my life I not only did not care for poetry, but to the despair of my friends absolutely disliked it, at least so much of it as until that time had fallen in my way. In vain my mother read to me Dryden, Pope, Byron, Young, Cowper and all the standard classics of the day, each seemed to me as distasteful as I had from early infancy found Virgil, and I shall never forget her dismay when at a literary dinner I was cross-examined as to my tastes, and blushingly confessed before an Olympus of poets that I rather disliked poetry than otherwise.
'Soon afterwards I fell in with a volume of yours, and suddenly felt such a sensation of delight as I never experienced before. A new world seemed to open to me, and from that day, by a constant study of your works, I gradually worked my way to a gradual appreciation of what is good in all kinds of authors.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Selina Sheridan Blackwood Print: Book
''It gives me much pleasure to observe, that however Johnson may have casually talked, yet when he sits, as "an ardent judge zealous to his trust, giving sentence" upon the excellent works of Young, he allows them the high praise to which they are justly entitled. "The 'Universal Passion' (says he) is indeed a very great performance,--his distichs have the weight of solid sentiment, and his points the sharpness of resistless truth."
But I was most anxious concerning Johnson's decision upon "Night Thoughts", which I esteem as a mass of the grandest and richest poetry that human genius has ever produced; and was delighted to find this character of that work: "In his 'Night Thoughts', he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhime but with disadvantage". And afterwards, "Particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation, the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity".
But there is in this Poem not only all that Johnson so well brings in view, but a power of the [italics] Pathetick [end italics] beyond almost any example that I have seen. He who does not feel his nerves shaken, and his heart pierced by many passages in this extraordinary work, particularly by that most affecting one, which describes the gradual torment suffered by the contemplation of an object of affectionate attachment, visibly and certainly decaying into dissolution, must be of a hard and obstinate frame.
To all the other excellencies of "Night Thoughts" let me add the great and peculiar one, that they contain not only the noblest sentiments of virtue, and contemplations on immortality, but the Christian Sacrifice, the Divine Propitiation, with all its interesting circumstances, and consolations to "a wounded spirit" solemnly and poetically displayed in such imagery and language, as cannot fail to exalt, animate, and soothe the truly pious. No book whatever can be recommended to young persons, with better hopes of seasoning their minds with [italics] vital religion [end italics], than Young's "Night Thoughts".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
''It gives me much pleasure to observe, that however Johnson may have casually talked, yet when he sits, as "an ardent judge zealous to his trust, giving sentence" upon the excellent works of Young, he allows them the high praise to which they are justly entitled. "The 'Universal Passion' (says he) is indeed a very great performance,--his distichs have the weight of solid sentiment, and his points the sharpness of resistless truth."
But I was most anxious concerning Johnson's decision upon "Night Thoughts", which I esteem as a mass of the grandest and richest poetry that human genius has ever produced; and was delighted to find this character of that work: "In his 'Night Thoughts', he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhime but with disadvantage". And afterwards, "Particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation, the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity".
But there is in this Poem not only all that Johnson so well brings in view, but a power of the [italics] Pathetick [end italics] beyond almost any example that I have seen. He who does not feel his nerves shaken, and his heart pierced by many passages in this extraordinary work, particularly by that most affecting one, which describes the gradual torment suffered by the contemplation of an object of affectionate attachment, visibly and certainly decaying into dissolution, must be of a hard and obstinate frame.
To all the other excellencies of "Night Thoughts" let me add the great and peculiar one, that they contain not only the noblest sentiments of virtue, and contemplations on immortality, but the Christian Sacrifice, the Divine Propitiation, with all its interesting circumstances, and consolations to "a wounded spirit" solemnly and poetically displayed in such imagery and language, as cannot fail to exalt, animate, and soothe the truly pious. No book whatever can be recommended to young persons, with better hopes of seasoning their minds with [italics] vital religion [end italics], than Young's "Night Thoughts".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
''It gives me much pleasure to observe, that however Johnson may have casually talked, yet when he sits, as "an ardent judge zealous to his trust, giving sentence" upon the excellent works of Young, he allows them the high praise to which they are justly entitled. "The 'Universal Passion' (says he) is indeed a very great performance,--his distichs have the weight of solid sentiment, and his points the sharpness of resistless truth."
But I was most anxious concerning Johnson's decision upon "Night Thoughts", which I esteem as a mass of the grandest and richest poetry that human genius has ever produced; and was delighted to find this character of that work: "In his 'Night Thoughts', he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhime but with disadvantage". And afterwards, "Particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation, the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity".
But there is in this Poem not only all that Johnson so well brings in view, but a power of the [italics] Pathetick [end italics] beyond almost any example that I have seen. He who does not feel his nerves shaken, and his heart pierced by many passages in this extraordinary work, particularly by that most affecting one, which describes the gradual torment suffered by the contemplation of an object of affectionate attachment, visibly and certainly decaying into dissolution, must be of a hard and obstinate frame.
To all the other excellencies of "Night Thoughts" let me add the great and peculiar one, that they contain not only the noblest sentiments of virtue, and contemplations on immortality, but the Christian Sacrifice, the Divine Propitiation, with all its interesting circumstances, and consolations to "a wounded spirit" solemnly and poetically displayed in such imagery and language, as cannot fail to exalt, animate, and soothe the truly pious. No book whatever can be recommended to young persons, with better hopes of seasoning their minds with [italics] vital religion [end italics], than Young's "Night Thoughts".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'We were speaking of Young as a Poet; Young's works cried Johnson are like a miry Road, with here & there a Stepping Stone or so; but you must always so dirty your Feet before another clean Place appears, that nobody will often walk that way. in this however said I as well as in his general Manner of writing he resembles your favourite Dryden - & to this no Answer was made: The next Morning we were drawing Spirits over a Lamp, and the Liquor bubbled in the Glass Retort; there says Mr Johnson - Young bubbles and froths in his Descriptions like this Spirit; but Dryden foams like the Sea we saw in a Storm the other day at Brighthelmstone'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'We were speaking of Young as a Poet; Young's works cried Johnson are like a miry Road, with here & there a Stepping Stone or so; but you must always so dirty your Feet before another clean Place appears, that nobody will often walk that way. in this however said I as well as in his general Manner of writing he resembles your favourite Dryden - & to this no Answer was made: The next Morning we were drawing Spirits over a Lamp, and the Liquor bubbled in the Glass Retort; there says Mr Johnson - Young bubbles and froths in his Descriptions like this Spirit; but Dryden foams like the Sea we saw in a Storm the other day at Brighthelmstone'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'The two [italics] wittiest [end italics] things in our Language in Verse & Prose are Dr Young's Conjectures on Original Composition I think, and Dr Swift's Ballad on the South Sea.
The two Tragedies which go nearest one's Heart I think - in our Language I mean - are Southern's Fatal Marriage and Lillo's Fatal Curiosity.
The two best Comic Scenes in our Language according to my Taste are the Scene between Squire Richard & Myrtilla in the Provoked Husband, and that between Sir Joseph Wittol, Nol Bluff and Sharper in the Old Batchelor - not the kicking scene but the friendly one.
The two best [italics] Declamatory [end italics] Scenes where the Sentiments and Language are most perfect, seem to be the Scene between Juba and Syphax in Addison's Cato, & that between the two Ladies in Johnson's Irene. I know that both are unDramatic, the latter more peculiarly so, than ever was, or ever ought to have been hazarded - but for Language & Sentiment it is most Superb. - Superieure as the French say.
Johnson says the finest Tragic Scene in our Language, for Drama sentiment, Language, Power over the Heart, & every Requisite for Theatre or Closet, is the Tomb Scene in the Mourning Bride.
[italics] I [end italics] think, that trying to be [italics] every [end italics] thing it escapes being [italics] anything [end italics]'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'I have heard that Miss Cooper hearing She was to lose her Sight, set about getting the Night Thoughts by heart - so much did She delight in the Poetry of Dr Young - She kept her Eyes however & all went well. The Description of Night by Dr Young is superior to that of either Dryden or Shakespear - & I made Johnson confess it so. [7 lines of Young are quoted]. Oh how excellent are these Lines - but as Granger sweetly says
When you struck the tender String
Darkness clapt her sable Wing;
Aside their Harps ev'n Seraphs flung,
To hear thy sweet Complaints oh Young!'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'I have heard that Miss Cooper hearing She was to lose her Sight, set about getting the Night Thoughts by heart - so much did She delight in the Poetry of Dr Young - She kept her Eyes however & all went well. The Description of Night by Dr Young is superior to that of either Dryden or Shakespear - & I made Johnson confess it so. [7 lines of Young are quoted]. Oh how excellent are these Lines - but as Granger sweetly says
When you struck the tender String
Darkness clapt her sable Wing;
Aside their Harps ev'n Seraphs flung,
To hear thy sweet Complaints oh Young!'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Cooper Print: Book
'I love Johnson's Prose better than Addison's, I like the Dunciad beyond all Pope's Poems; I delight in Young's Satires & in Rubens's Painting, Cowley captivates my Heart; & when I read Bruyere, I often catch myself kissing the Book for fondness of the Author['s] strong-marked Characters, glowing Colours, striking Sentiments - to please - H:L: T.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'While their [her daughters'] Father's Life preserv'd my Authority entire, I used it [italics] all & only [end italics] for their Improvement; & since it expired with him, & my Influence perished by my Connection with Piozzi - I have read to them what I could not force or perswade them to read for themselves. The English & Roman Histories, the Bible; - not Extracts, but the whole from End to End - Milton, Shakespeare, Pope's Iliad, Odyssey & other Works, some Travels through the well-known Parts of Europe; some elegant Novels as Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Voltaire's Zadig &c. Young & Addison's works, Plays out of Number, Rollin's Belles Lettres - and hundreds of Things now forgot, have filled our Time up since we left London for Bath.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale and her daughters Hester, Susanna and Sophia Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, c. 12 June 1796: 'Have you read Fawcetts Art of War? with all the faults of Young it possesses more beauties — & is in many parts — in my opinion — excellent.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of lines from Edward Young's Night Thoughts, beginning 'Celestial Happiness, when’er she stoops. To visit earth, one shrine the Goddess finds…'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 1 September 1762:]
'Yesterday evening we were entertained by one of the noblest storms I ever enjoyed, and truly this was not enjoyed without some mixture of terror. My mother sat with me till past one, and I tried to amuse away her fears as suitably as I could by reading her some of the noblest passages in Dr Young. By that hour we were both, even in spite of [italics] him [end italics], somewhat sleepy, and there was an interval of lightning (I mean an interval of darkness) that made the hall just passable.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Mary Delany to Samuel Richardson, 16 August 1751:
'I am now reading Dr Young's Night Thoughts, and can hardly forbear sending him a rapture of thanks for the entertainment and delight they give me, and above all for raising my mind so much above [italics]This poor terrestrial citadel of man[end italics].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Delany Print: Book
[From the diary of Elizabeth Firth, 13 May 1818:]
'Read Young's Night Thoughts.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Firth Print: Book
'The past few months have been a new world [...] the age that has gone by since I read Young’s “Night Thoughts” in the dugout at Cuinchy. And, now I think of it, I forgot to rescue that edition (1815) when it slipped down behind the bunks.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Blunden Print: Book
‘I never visited this dungeon without repeating from Young’s “Night Thoughts”, often in my pocket, the just words, ”Dreadful post of observation! Darker every hour.”'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Blunden Print: Book
'During this period my indebtedness to an eighteenth-century poet became enormous. At every spare moment I read Young’s “Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality”, and I felt the benefit of this grave and intellectual voice speaking out of a profound eighteenth–century calm, often in metaphor which came home to one even in a pillbox. The mere amusement of discovering lines applicable to our crisis kept me from despair.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Blunden Print: Book
'I like Capt. Younghusband's travels, though one might skip pages much like each other.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
