Night Thoughts by Edward Young

Joseph Highmore, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It would be difficult to overstate the impact on Beddome of Edward Young's long poem Night Thoughts, which first appeared when Beddome was in his twenties. Beddome often quotes from it in his sermons. One of the most popular poems of the century, it influenced Goethe, Edmund Burke and many others. The poem, full title The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality, is best known simply as Night-Thoughts. It was published in nine parts ("nights") between 1742 and 1745. It was later illustrated with notable engravings by Blake in 1797.

The poem is written in blank verse and describes the poet's musings on death over a series of nine "nights" in which he ponders the loss of his wife and friends, and laments human frailties. The best-known line in the poem (at the end of "Night I") is the adage "procrastination is the thief of time", which is part of a passage in which the poet discusses how quickly life and opportunities can slip away. Night-Thoughts had a very high reputation for many years after its publication.

The nine nights are each a poem of their own. They are

"Life, Death, and Immortality" (dedicated to Arthur Onslow)

"Time, Death, Friendship" (dedicated to Spencer Compton)

"Narcissa" (dedicated to Margaret Bentinck)

"The Christian Triumph" (dedicated to Philip Yorke)

"The Relapse" (dedicated to George Lee)

"The Infidel Reclaim'd" (in two parts, "Glories and Riches" and "The Nature, Proof, and Importance of Immortality"; dedicated to Henry Pelham)

"Virtue's Apology; or, The Man of the World Answered" (with no dedication)

"The Consolation" (dedicated to Thomas Pelham-Holles)

In his 1791 book, Life of Samuel Johnson, Boswell called the poem "the grandest and richest poetry that human genius has ever produced".

Edward Young (1683-1765) took holy orders, and wrote many fawning letters in search of preferment, attracting accusations of insincerity. His father, also Edward, became Dean of Salisbury. The son was born at his father's rectory in Upham, near Winchester. Educated at Winchester College, he matriculated at New College, Oxford, 1702 and later migrated to Corpus Christi. In 1708 he was nominated by Archbishop Tenison to a law fellowship at All Souls. He took his degree of Doctor of Canon Law in 1719.

His first publication was an Epistle to ... Lord Lansdoune (1713). This was followed by a Poem on the Last Day (1713), dedicated to Queen Anne; The Force of Religion: or Vanquished Love (1714), a poem on the execution of Lady Jane Grey and her husband, dedicated to the Countess of Salisbury; and an epistle to Joseph Addison, On the late Queen's Death and His Majesty's Accession to the Throne (1714), in which he rushed to praise the new king. The fulsome style of the dedications jars with the pious tone of the poems, and they are omitted from his own edition of his works.

About this time he came into contact with Philip, Duke of Wharton, whom he accompanied to Dublin in 1717. In 1719 his play, Busiris was produced at Drury Lane, and in 1721 his The Revenge. The latter play was dedicated to Wharton, to whom it owed, said Young, its "most beautiful incident". Wharton promised him two annuities of £100 each and a sum of £600 in consideration of his expenses as a candidate for parliamentary election at Cirencester. In view of these promises Young refused two livings in the gift of All Souls College, Oxford, and sacrificed a life annuity offered by the Marquess of Exeter if he would act as tutor to his son. Wharton failed to discharge his obligations, and Young, who pleaded his case before Lord Chancellor Hardwicke in 1740, gained the annuity but not the £600. Between 1725 and 1728 Young published a series of seven satires on The Universal Passion. They were dedicated to the Duke of Dorset, George Bubb Dodington, Sir Spencer Compton, Lady Elizabeth Germain and Sir Robert Walpole, and were collected in 1728 as Love of Fame, the Universal Passion. This is qualified by Samuel Johnson as a "very great performance", and abounds in striking and pithy couplets. Herbert Croft asserted that Young made £3000 by his satires, which compensated losses he had suffered in the South Sea Bubble. In 1726 he received, through Walpole, a pension of £200 a year. To the end of his life he continued to seek preferment, but the king regarded his pension as an adequate settlement.

Young, living in a time when patronage was slowly fading out, was notable for urgently seeking patronage for his poetry, his theatrical works and his career in the church: he failed in each area. He never received the degree of patronage that he felt his work had earned, largely because he picked patrons whose fortunes were about to turn downward.

Though his praise was often unearned, often fulsome, he could write, "False praises are the whoredoms of the pen / And prostitute fair fame to worthless men."

In 1728 he became a royal chaplain, and in 1730 he obtained the college living of Welwyn, Hertfordshire. In 1731 he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the 1st Earl of Lichfield. Her daughter, by a former marriage with her cousin Francis Lee, married Henry Temple, son of the 1st Viscount Palmerston. Mrs Temple died at Lyons in 1736 on her way to Nice. Her husband and Lady Elizabeth Young died in 1740. These successive deaths are supposed to be the events referred to in the Night-Thoughts as taking place "ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn."