parliamentary borough and seaport town of Ireland, Munster, Cork County, 28 miles E. from Cork, and 157 S.W. from Dublin. It is situated on the acclivity of a hill on the W. side of the estuary of the Blackwater, over which there is a wooden bridge 1787 feet long. The harbour is safe and commodious but has a bar at its mouth with only 5 feet water at low tides and 13 at high-water of neap tides. A harbour lighthouse has recently been erected at the south end of the town, and a fort is to be erected at the entrance to the harbour. The port is a dependency of that of Cork, and the exports are chiefly grain, flour, and provisions. The town is to some extent visited in summer for sea-bathing, for which it is well adapted. The salmon-fishery of the Blackwater is extensive. The chief manufactures are coarse earthenware and bricks. The principal public building in the town is the parish church, a large Gothic edifice, which formerly belonged to a monastery, of which some more remains still exist. The other public buildings are a chapel of ease, a Roman Catholic chapel, a convent, Independent Methodist and Quaker meeting-houses, fever hospital and dispensary, town-house, prison, barracks, &c. Sir Walter Raleigh was at one time mayor of this town, and according to tradition the first potatoes brought by him from America were planted here. Myrtle Grove, the house occupied by him, is still preserved in nearly its original state. The borough returns one member to parliament. Pop. (1851) 7410.

Young, Arthur, an agricultural writer of some note in his day, was the third son of Dr Young, prebendary of Canterbury, and was born on the 7th of September 1741. After various changes, now as a merchant, anon as a student, and ultimately as a writer of books which would not sell, Young at last became a farmer in Essex, and instructed himself in the art of agriculture. In 1770 he published the results of his experiments in farming in two thick volumes. These works, although not eminent for their judiciousness and sagacity, yet possessed a certain degree of freshness and sparkling vivacity, and had at least the merit of being original, if they wanted the power to interest intelligent agriculturists. More popular were his Tour through the Southern Counties of England, his Six Weeks Tour, and his Eastern Tour. But the theoretical farmer and the parliamentary reporter to the Morning Post were found not to agree, and he was glad to give up his farm to a man who knew how to work it to advantage. In 1772, he commenced his useful work The Farmer's Calendar, and wrote besides, one or two political works, among others his Political Arithmetic, which has been translated into several foreign languages. In 1784 he published his Annals of Agriculture which reached some 45 vols. in all. He went over to France about 1788 and composed his Agricultural Survey of that country, and his Example of France a Warning to Britain, which had both a large sale. The agricultural works of Arthur Young were collected by order of the French Directory of 1801 and translated into French, and published in 20 vols. under the title of Le Cultivateur Anglais. After receiving various medals from numerous agricultural societies, and gold snuff-boxes from one great personage and another, Young died on the 12th of April 1820 in his eightieth year.

Young, Edward, born at Upham in Hampshire, in June 1681, was the son of Dr Edward Young, who afterwards became dean of Salisbury. The son was educated on the foundation at Winchester, but he did not succeed to a fellowship at New College, Oxford. In 1703, he was invited by the warden of that college, a friend of his father's, to live at his lodge until he should be qualified to stand for a fellowship at All Souls. He had scarcely availed himself of this acceptable offer, when death deprived him of his host; but he was not long in finding a second patron. From the president of Corpus Christi College, another of his father's friends, he received a summons to join that society, in which he remained until he was nominated by Archbishop Tenison, in 1708, to a law-fellowship of All Souls. His father had now been dead for three years.

In 1712, Young commenced his poetical career as a dauber of greatness, a branch of the art which he pursued with unabated ardour until its close. His first poem was entitled An Epistle to the Right Honourable George Lord Lansdowne; one of the twelve worthies whom Queen Anne raised in one day to the dignity of the peerage. If his lordship had half of the talent and virtue ascribed to him by the poet, the nation ought to have been reconciled, upon the catholic principle of supererogation, to the whole batch; but Young became ashamed of this lavish panegyric, as he did of many succeeding ones, and suppressed it. In the same year appeared The Last Day, part of which had been previously printed in the Tatler. This poem was inscribed to Queen Anne, but the dedication does not now appear. About the same time he produced The Force of Religion, or Vanquished Love, founded on the history of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guilford. An entire poem on the death of the queen and the accession of George II, he also suppressed. In 1714 he took the degree of LL.B., and five years afterwards that of LL.D. When the Codrington Library was founded in 1716, Young was appointed to deliver a Latin oration, which he dedicated to the ladies of the Codrington family. The selection of Young to compose this harangue speaks favourably of his academical attainments; but it is said that his moments of relaxation were passed in such a manner that he reflected upon them afterwards with little complacency. Young's next patron was the Duke of Wharton, "the scorn and wonder of his days." His grace was stained with every vice but that of avarice, which, however, in the eye of Young, was probably the most heinous of all. From a passage in his letter to Richardson on original composition, it is conjectured that Young accompanied the duke to Ireland in 1717. Two years afterwards was brought upon the stage at Drury Lane the tragedy of Busiris.

About this time, Young entered the family of the Earl of Exeter as tutor to Lord Burleigh. This employment he quitted at the solicitation of Wharton, who, among other unequivocal tokens of his favour, paid him the compliment of accompanying him to Oxford, where, at his recommendation, he defrayed the expense of a range of buildings then unfinished at All Souls College. In 1721 was acted The Revenge, the most successful of Young's three tragedies, and the only one that retains possession of the stage. The Revenge is dedicated to the duke of Wharton, whom the poet acknowledges to have suggested the most beautiful incident in the play. His debt of gratitude to Wharton, which he became studious to conceal, he was compelled to divulge in the Court of Chancery under the solemnity of an oath. After the duke's death, it was found that his estates, already sufficiently involved, were threatened with additional perplexity by some unsatisfied claims of Young. The other creditors submitted it to the decision of Lord Young, Hardwicke, whether the arrears of two annuities of L100 each, granted to Young by the duke, as tokens of his friendship for the poet and esteem for letters in general, considerations not recognised by law, ought not to be regarded as gratuities only, and postponed to their demands, many of which were for money advanced to the deceased nobleman. The chancellor, however, directed the arrears of his annuities to be paid out of the funds remaining in the hands of the trustees.

In 1719 he published *A Paraphrase on a part of the Book of Job*. Of his seven satires, entitled *Love of Fame*, *the Universal Passion*, we have not seen the original editions, but they probably appeared between the years 1725 and 1728. The satires were followed by *Ocean, an Ode* occasioned by the new king's speech, which recommends the encouragement of seamen to enter the service voluntarily. This production he wisely excluded from the collection of his works. In 1728 he entered into holy orders, and was soon afterwards appointed chaplain to George II. His ode was preceded by some stanzas addressed to the king, and this preferment was probably the reward of his loyalty. If his lyrical poetry improved his fortune, it added nothing to his reputation, for Young's dithyrambes are the worst of all his writings. He now thought it suitable to his new character to withdraw from the players a tragedy entitled *The Brothers*, which was already in rehearsal. This play he suffered to be performed many years afterwards, for the benefit of the Society for Propagating Christianity in Foreign Parts; but it met with little success, and he made up the profit to L1000. Soon after he assumed the character of a clergyman, he published a prose work, entitled, *A true Estimate of Human Life*, and a sermon preached before the House of Commons on the anniversary of King Charles's martyrdom. The title of this discourse is, *An Apology for Princes, or the Reverence due to Government*. In 1730, Young produced *Imperium Pelagi, a Naval Lyric, written in imitation of Pindar's spirit*. He did not escape the fate of Icarus; and this nautical Pindaric, one of the many productions which the author refused to acknowledge as his offspring, was justly ridiculed by Fielding in *Tom Thumb*. During this year he was presented by his college to the rectory of Welwyn in Hertfordshire. In 1731, he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, and widow of Colonel Lee. If he received any fortune with this lady, which is probable, he must have been rendered very easy in his circumstances; for, in addition to the emoluments of his living, it is inferred from the following couplet in Swift's *Rhapsody on Poetry*, which was written soon after this period, that he had an allowance from the court,

"Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension."

Wycherley and Addison found little felicity in splendid alliance; but Young was more fortunate in that respect, if we are to estimate the value of his wife by the vehemence of his lamentations for her loss. That mournful event, which happened after ten years of married life, and some other family afflictions that befell him, gave rise to the *Night Thoughts*, the occasion of which poem, he says in his preface, "was real, not fictitious." Of this work the different portions were published from 1742 to 1744. *The Centaur not Fabulous*, in six letters to a friend on the life in vogue, appeared in 1754. This performance is very rhapsodical and declamatory, and there appears in it a prose Lorenzo, who is called Altamont,—a proceeding which, to use an illustration of Jeremy Collier, seems like cutting a diamond in two in order to double its value. The *Centaur* was followed, in 1759, by *Conjectures on Original Composition*, in a letter addressed to Richardson, in which are displayed all the fire and fancy of youth. In 1761, he was appointed clerk of the closet to the princess dowager of Wales; and in the year following he published a collection of what he considered the best of his works, in four volumes duodecimo. In the same year, when he was past fourscore, appeared *Resignation*. *Resignation* was written to console Mrs Boscawen for the death of the admiral, but he has dedicated several stanzas to the memory of the novelist. It is touching to hear the veteran poet complain, in the postscript to this production, that some critics had upbraided him with the failure of his powers. This judgment is equally savage and unjust, for *Resignation* has many stanzas that exhibit all the vigour and originality of his earliest productions. But commendation and reproach were soon to be alike indifferent to him; for, as the dying bard reminds Voltaire, then an old man also,—

"One who writes Flais to our works Was knocking at the gate."

This dreadful summons Dr Young obeyed in April 1765, having reached the eighty-fourth year of his age. He was buried under the communion-table of the church at Welwyn.

It is unnecessary to consider Young in the character of a lyric poet, as, in his attempts to rise to the level of Pindar, he has sunk beneath his own. His fame as a tragedian rests on the *Revenge*. It is remarkable that Young's three tragedies all end with the obvious expedient of suicide. In the *Night Thoughts*, faults and beauties are scattered with almost equal prodigality. He is perhaps more deficient in judgment than any poet who has attained to the same degree of eminence. This deficiency appears in the *Night Thoughts*, by the perpetual blending of sublimity and epigrammatic point,—an error into which few poets are in danger of falling, but which we could wish that Young had avoided. There is also a palpable straining after effect in this poem; much labour without art, and much smoke without fire. But if he often offends us by turgid exaggeration and mean conceits, he as often makes us amends by passages of true beauty and grandeur. Next to the *Night Thoughts*, the *Universal Passion* is Young's greatest performance. But the effect of these satires is almost neutralized by the lavish applause bestowed upon those to whom they are dedicated. It must, however, be admitted, that if Young often praised the worthless, he never abused the virtuous, which is too often a kindred propensity. Though every line of the *Universal Passion* sparkles with wit or antithesis, the reader must regret with Swift that the poet was not either more angry or more merry. The greater part both of Young's rhyme and blank verse, for he is the most unequal of all poets, is of a structure more peculiar than pleasing to the ear.