15 Facts About Edward Young

Edward Young took holy orders, and wrote many fawning letters in search of preferment, attracting accusations of insincerity.

Edward Young was educated at Winchester College, and matriculated at New College, Oxford, in 1702.

Edward Young later migrated to Corpus Christi, and in 1708 was nominated by Archbishop Tenison to a law fellowship at All Souls.

In view of these promises Edward 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 Edward Young, who pleaded his case before Lord Chancellor Hardwicke in 1740, gained the annuity but not the £600.

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Between 1725 and 1728 Edward Young published a series of seven satires on The Universal Passion.

Edward 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.

Edward Young 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.

In 1728 Edward Young became a royal chaplain, and in 1730 he obtained the college living of Welwyn, Hertfordshire.

Edward Young fell out with his son, who had apparently criticised the excessive influence exerted by his housekeeper Mrs Hallows.

Edward Young died at Welwyn, reconciled with his spendthrift son: "he expired a little before 11 of the clock at the night of Good Friday last, the 5th instant, and was decently buried yesterday about 6 in the afternoon" .

The publication of fawning letters from Edward Young seeking preferment led many readers to question the poet's sincerity.

Edward Young wrote good blank verse, and Samuel Johnson pronounced Night-Thoughts to be one of "the few poems" in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage.

Blunden's mention of Edward Young's poem reintroduced an interesting, sometimes bombastic precursor to the early Romantics to students of English literature.

Edward Young himself reinforced his reputation as a pioneer of romanticism by precept as well as by example.