Circumstances

Who does the best his circumstance allows, does well, acts nobly, angels could no more.

-       Young[1]

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[1] Edward Young was born in 1683. He was educated on the foundation at Winchester College, and matriculated in 1702 at New College, Oxford. He soon removed to Corpus Christi, and in 1708 was nominated by Archbishop Tenison to a law fellowship at All Souls’, for the sake of his father, Dean Edward Young, who died in 1705. He took his degree of D.C.L. in 1719.

Edward’s first poems were dealt the political upheavals surrounding the executions of Lady Jane Grey and her husband. He apparently did not like these early efforts; he omitted them from later collections of his works. In about 1715 he became friendly with Philip, duke of Wharton. In 1719 Edward’s play of Busiris was produced at Drury Lane, and in 1721 his Revenge, dedicated to Wharton. Young ran for election at Cirencester, which cost him a good deal of money. His financial situation was further aggravated by his having lost heavily in the South Sea Bubble debacle. Wharton promised him two annuities of £100 each and a sum of £600 in consideration of his election expenses. This led Edward to turn down two other patronages; when Wharton failed to deliver, Young took him to court. Not until 1740 was this settled; he was awarded the annuities but not the £600.

Between 1725 and 1728 Young published a series of seven satires on The Universal Passion. These were successful critically and financially, helping him compensate for past losses. In 1726 Walpole, one of those to whom Edward had dedicated the satires, gave him a pension of £200 a year. To the end of his life he continued to urge on the government his claims to preferment, but the king and his advisers persisted in regarding this sum as an adequate settlement.

Edward was nearly fifty when he decided to take holy orders. He had sometimes been foolish as a youth; there were those that wondered to see him take this direction. But in 1728 he was made a royal chaplain, and in 1730 was presented to the college living of Welwyn, Hertfordshire. He married in 1731 Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the 1st Earl of Lichfield. Their happiness was short-lived; she died in 1740. Sad and pensive, he resumed his writing. The Complaint; or, Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality, was published in 1742, and was followed by other Night Thoughtss. In 1753 his tragedy of The Brothers, written many years before, but suppressed because he was about to enter the Church, was produced at Drury Lane.

Night Thoughts had made Young famous, but he lived in almost uninterrupted retirement, although continuing vainly to solicit preferment. Eventually he was made Clerk of the Closet to the princess dowager in 1761. He was never cheerful, it was said, after his wife’s death. He and his son had a falling out which was not resolved before Young’s death, though he did leave him money. Young died at Welwyn in 1765.  (Source: nndb.com)