where human praise or human flattery, even less general than this,
are of little consequence. If Young thought the dedication
contained only the praise of truth, he should not have omitted it in
his works. Was he conscious of the exaggeration of party? Then he
should not have written it. The poem itself is not without a glance
towards politics, notwithstanding the subject. The cry that the
Church was in danger had not yet subsided. The "Last Day," written
by a layman, was much approved by the ministry and their friends.

Before the queen's death, "The Force of Religion, or Vanquished
Love," was sent into the world. This poem is founded on the
execution of Lady Jane Grey and her husband, Lord Guildford, 1554, a
story chosen for the subject of a tragedy by Edmund Smith, and
wrought into a tragedy by Rowe. The dedication of it to the
Countess of Salisbury does not appear in his own edition. He hopes
it may be some excuse for his presumption that the story could not
have been read without thoughts of the Countess of Salisbury, though
it had been dedicated to another. "To behold," he proceeds, "a
person ONLY virtuous, stirs in us a prudent regret; to behold a
person ONLY amiable to the sight, warms us with a religious
indignation; but to turn our eyes to a Countess of Salisbury, gives
us pleasure and improvement; it works a sort of miracle, occasions
the bias of our nature to fall off from sin, and makes our very
senses and affections converts to our religion, and promoters of our
duty." His flattery was as ready for the other sex as for ours, and
was at least as well adapted.

August the 27th, 1714, Pope writes to his friend Jervas, that he is
just arrived from Oxford; that every one is much concerned for the
queen's death, but that no panegyrics are ready yet for the king.