Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EDWARD YOUNG. Near the skirts of the forest, between Bishop's Waltham and Winchester, lies the little village of Upham; here, in June, 1681, was born the future author of the Night Thoughts. His father was rector of the parish. The poet's life commenced under flattering auguries. Jacob Bays, writing in 1720, that the " queen stood godmother to him;" a mark of peculiar respect to the parent, and an earnest of patronage to the child. He was placed upon the foundation of Winchester School, but no vacancy occurring at New College before he was superannuated by the statutes, he entered, October, 1703, an independent member of that society, residing in the house of the Warden, upon whose death he removed, in the rank of a Gentleman Commoner, to Corpus, and, in 1708, was elected to a law-fellowship at All Souls, by Archbishop Tenison, as we are informed in the Biographia, from a feeling of regard for his father. He received the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law, April, 1714, and of Doctor, June, 1719. It has been asserted that his subsequent conduct in the university was not altogether free from reproach. The charge has never been supported by evidence. That he had already begun to meditate seriously upon the great doctrines of our faith, we gather from an observation of Tindal, the deist, who was a fellow of the same college. " The other boys I can always answer, because I always know where they have their arguments, which I haveread a hundred times; but that fellow Young is continually pestering me with something of his own." Of the respect shown to his talents and acquirements, we have a proof in his selection to deliver the Latin speech, when the foundation of the Codrington Library was laid, on the 20th of June, 1706. A remark of Pope to Warburton probably contains the soluti... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.