Young offering his book to the Eternal (Night-Thoughts, t1, Lejay, 1769) - Mercier after Marillier

The image allegorically presents Young as a lyre-wielding poet who dedicates his work, held wide open, to God. The illustrator seems to have been inspired by the general atmosphere of the work, which mobilizes dark themes such as death, misfortune or the vanity of human existence, to compose his illustration rather than a specific moment: there are indeed addresses to the Eternal or to the stars in his book, but none describes Young as such. The moon, which suggests the darkness of the sky, the ruins in the background on the left, and the grave on which he leans evoke those dark themes that heralded the novel noir, the successful fin-de-siècle literature of which Young was one of the English precursors.

Rousseau may also have been inspired by this offering to the divinity for the introduction to his Confessions, written around the same time and published some fifteen years later posthumously, at the beginning of which he announces that he will stand before God on Judgment Day with his book in his hand.