This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Young, Bartholomew". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
Batholomew Young or Yong (fl. 1577–1598) was the translator of Montemayor's Spanish pastoral romance Diana into English.
Young was, according to a pedigree in the Harleian MS 1754, son of Gregory Young of Yorkshire. He describes himself as of the Middle Temple, and took part as a French orator in a "public shew" given at the Middle Temple, when Lady Rich, probably the sister of Essex, was among the audience. About 1577 he was for two years in Spain. On coming home he spent "welny three yeeres in some serious studies and certaine affaires" without using his Spanish. At this point he fell into the company and acquaintance "of my especial good friend Edward Banister of Idesworth in the Countie of Southampton, Esquier". Banister gave him the first and second parts of Montemayor's Diana to translate into English, that he might not lose his Spanish. He did not publish his translation for sixteen years. In the meantime another translation was completed by Thomas Wilson (1560?–1629). Edward Banister's will is dated 27 March 1600. It leaves property to three friends, of whom Young is one, 'to be bestowed for the benefit of his soul,’ and to each friend four angels for rings. It begins: 'The first leaf of this my will is written by my loving friend Mr. Bartholomew Young, which he wrote for me in my sickness.' Probate is dated 24 Nov. 1606.
Anthony Wood thought that Bartholomew Young was the same who lived at Ashhurst in Kent, and died there in 1621. Joseph Hunter identified him with a Bartholomew Young whose name occurs in the register of burials of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West on 25 September 1612. Since the dedication of Diana to Lady Rich is from High Ongar, Essex, Hunter suggested that he was a relative of Francis Young of Brent Pelham, to whom Anthony Munday in 1602 dedicated Palmerin of England.
Young was the author of:
These contain some biographical details regarding the author. He praises the translation made in manuscript by Edward Paston of the Diana as better than his own, but, unfortunately, not complete. Young translates the first part of Diana by "George of Montemayor"; the second part by Alonzo Perez; and the third part, more properly called the first part of the Enamoured Diana, by Gaspar Gil Polo. There are many lyrics dispersed through these works which are translated by Young into English verse. Twenty-five of these lyrics are given in Englands Helicon, 1600. Shakespeare used the Story of the Shepherdess Felismena in writing the Two Gentlemen of Verona. It has been reprinted by Hazlitt in 'Shakspere's Library' (I. i. 275–312; for proof that Shakespeare used the Diana either in Young's manuscript or some other form, see especially p. 55 of Young's printed translation).