Edward Young

Edward Young (1683 - 1765) was an English poet, born in Hampshire, educated at Westminster School. He studied at Corpus Christi, Oxford, and obtained a Fellowship at All-Souls' College. Young wrote plays and satires, but is best known to fame as the author of "Night Thoughts," which has been pronounced "his best work and his last good work," a poem which was once in high repute, and is less, if at all, in favour to-day, being written in a mood which is a strain upon the reader. It is "a little too declamatory," says Professor Saintsbury, "a little too suggestive of soliloquies in an inky cloak, with footlights in front". His "Revenge," acted in 1721, is pronounced by the professor to be "perhaps the very last example of an acting tragedy of real literary merit". His satires in the "Love of Fame; or, The Universal Passion," almost equalled those of Pope, and brought him both fame and fortune. He took holy orders in 1727, and became in 1730 rector of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. His flattery of his patrons was fulsome, and too suggestive of the toady.

Wisdom & Quotes

• Though in silence, with blighted affection, I pine,

Yet the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine!
- The Lips That Touch Liquor

• Procrastination is the thief of time.

- Night Thoughts

• Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote,

And think they grow immortal as they quote.
- Love of Fame

• Be wise with speed;

A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
- Love of Fame

George Berkeley