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YOUNG.
thought due to his poetical talents, or, at least, to the manner in which they had so frequently been exerted.
The next production of his Muse was "The Sea-piece," in two odes.
Young enjoys the credit of what is called an "Extempore Epigram on Voltaire;" who; when he was in England, ridiculed, in the company of the jealous English poet, Milton's allegory of "Sin and Death"———
You are so witty, profligate, and thin,
At once we think thee Milton, Death, and Sin.
At once we think thee Milton, Death, and Sin.
From the following passage in the poetical Dedication of his "Sea-piece" to Voltaire, it seems that this extemporaneous reproof, if it must be extemperaneous, (for what few will now affirm Voltaire to have deserved any reproof?) was something longer than a distich, and something more gentle than the distich just quoted!
No stranger, Sir, though born in foreign climes.
On Dorset downs, when Milton's page,
With Sin and Death provok'd thy rage,
Thy rage provok'd, who sooth'd with gentle rhymes?
On Dorset downs, when Milton's page,
With Sin and Death provok'd thy rage,
Thy rage provok'd, who sooth'd with gentle rhymes?
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