ABSTRACT
Dr Edward Young (1683–1765), lawyer, divine, tragedian and author of the once celebrated Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality (1742–1745), published his Conjectures on Original Composition as a tribute to Addison. The essay takes the form of a letter to the novelist Samuel Richardson. After discussing Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Young turns to Dryden the dramatist. (English Critical Essays (1922), ed. E. D. Jones, World’s Classics, pp. 350–352.)
