Life and Letters of Edward Young

by Henry C. Shelley

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Hardcover

First published February 11, 2009

About the author

Full name: Henry Charles Shelley.

Reviews

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shelley's book on Young is mostly superseded by Pettit's collected correspondence of the author and the up-to-date biography by Forster (1987). What had made it most valuable in the past was its substantial collection of Young's correspondence with Margaret the Duchess of Portland. However, it still is of some interest. After Thomas's large and scholarly work (1901, only in French), it seemed at the beginning of the twentieth century as if Young might make a comeback. This 1914 work is part of an attempt, later achieved by other scholars, to correct the one-sided picture of Young coming from Croft (in Johnson's Lives) and, most especially, George Elliot. Shelley offers a spirited defense of Young's attempts at preferment and his treatment of his son, Frederick, and he presents the reader a picture of a kind and courteous genius, a friend of all, whose poetry from the mid-eighteenth century deserves a fresh read in the twentieth. It is also of use because it contains many illustrative anecdotes of Young, anecdotes which twenty-first century scholars tend to ignore for being too incredible—yet, truth is stranger than fiction.

The final two pages are memorable as Shelley is so full of hope that Young's day lies in the future.

"To this day, in those homes where the books of ancestors are treasured, there are few libraries which do not include a copy of that once deeply-pondered poem [Night Thoughts]. It may be found in all sizes, from the stately folio with Blake's mystical designs, to the modest duodecimo with its Welwyn graveyard frontispiece. And to turn the yellowing pages of those old editions is to discover here a sere rose-leaf, there a wisp of silken thread, and elsewhere some other clue to passages which ministered to the spirits of bygone generations. Pencil and ink-marks in the margins point to lines and paragraphs which had pricked the conscience or soothed the griefs of the anxious and sorrowful of a forgotten day. Those memorials are Young's best title to fame; and to this day they should preach his own moral that the greatest pleasure of old age is to look back on a life well spent" (283).