SOURCE: "Life of Young," in The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Little, Brown and Company, 1864, pp. vii-li.

Here, Mitford comments on Young's satires, Original Composition, and several other works, noting that the Night Thoughts show "fertility of thought and luxuriance of imagination"

… The Satires of Young were published separately, in folio, under the title of The Universal Passion. The first appeared, in folio, in the year 1725, and the last was finished in the beginning of 1726. The fifth Satire on Woman was not published till 1727, and the sixth not till 1728, when they were all collected and introduced with a preface, in which the author hints that poetry is not favourable to preferment or honors. He acquired, however, the sum of three thousand pounds by these poems; of which Spence, on the authority of Rawlinson, says two thousand was bestowed by the Duke of Grafton, and that when one of...