30 MARCH 1867, Page 3

Mr. Young himself wrote a letter of self-defence to the

Standard of yesterday, in which he gives an account of his career, com- mencing with the following eccentric observation :—" From causes too tedious to narrate, I was born in the year 1799,"—which reminds us of a philosophical observation in a private diary, attributed to a living politician when a boy of thirteen :—" On this day mamma presented papa with a fine boy. The succession of phenomena which led to this event I leave for future investi- gation." Mr. Young also remarks, "As to my having been a nailer in early life, it was my misfortune, not my fault ?" Was it either his fault or misfortune ? Here Mr. Young reminds us of the story of the operative who-pleaded (much more plausibly than Mr. Young) with a companion who objected to the cast in his eye, that his squint was his "misfortune, not his fault," to which the coarse fellow, with ready satire, replied, "No, it isn't ; it's your confounded hignorance." Mr. Young's letter, however—barring the snobbish apology for having been a nailer—is a manly one. He pleads that he has published poems in 1854 and 1863 without any political verses in them, and for which Roman Catholics-have sub- scribed, and that they are the right things by which to jadge him.