"Epistle to Dr. Edward Young, at Eastbury, in Dorsetshire," which has at least the merit of this biographical couplet:
"While with your Dodington retired you sit,
Charm'd with his flowing Burgundy and wit."
Dodington, apparently, was charmed in his turn, for he told Dr. Wharton that Young was "far superior to the French poet in the variety and novelty of his bon-mots and repartees." Unfortunately, the only specimen of Young's wit on this occasion that has been preserved to us is the epigram represented as an extempore retort (spoken aside, surely) to Voltaire's criticism of Milton's episode of sin and death:
"Thou art so witty, profligate, and thin,
At once, we think thee Milton, Death, and Sin;" —
an epigram which, in the absence of "flowing Burgundy," does not strike us as remarkably brilliant. Let us give Young the benefit of the doubt thrown on the genuineness of this epigram by his own poetical dedication, in which he represents himself as having "soothed" Voltaire's "rage" against Milton "with gentle rhymes;" though in other respects that dedication is anything but favorable to a high estimate of Young's wit. Other evidence apart, we should not be eager for the after-dinner conversation of the man who wrote:
"Thine is the Drama, how renown'd!
Thine Epic's loftier trump to sound;
But let Arion's sea-strung harp be mine;
But where's his dolphin? Knowst thou where?
May that be found in thee, Voltaire!"
The "Satires" appeared in 1725 and 1726, each, of course, with its laudatory dedication and its compliments insinuated among the rhymes. The seventh and last is dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole, is very short, and contains nothing in particular except lunatic flattery of George the First and his prime
