Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/353

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
YOUNG.
349

one of his pieces which the author of the "Night Thoughts" deliberately refused to own.

Not long after this Pindarick attempt, he published two Epistles to Pope, "concerning the Authors of the Age," 1730. Of these poems one occasion seems to have been an apprehension left, from the liveliness of his satires, he should not be deemed sufficiently, serious for promotion in the Church.

In July 1730 he was presented by his College to the rectory of Welwyn in Hertfordshire. In May 1731 he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the Earl of Litchfield, and widow of Colonel Lee. His connexion with this lady arose from his father's acquaintance, already mentioned, with Lady Anne Wharton, who was coheiress of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley in Oxfordshire. Poetry had lately been taught by Addison to aspire to the arms of nobility, though not with extraordinary happiness.

We may naturally conclude that Young now gave himself up in some measure to the comforts of his new connexion, and to the expectations of that preferment which he

thought