His verses to Mira, which are most frequently mentioned, have 27 little in them of either art or nature, of the sentiments of a lover, or the language of a poet: there may be found now and then a happier effort, but they are commonly feeble and unaffecting, or forced and extravagant'.

His little pieces are seldom either spritely or elegant, either 28 keen or weighty. They are trifles written by idleness, and published by vanity 2. But his Prologues and Epilogues have a just claim to praise 3.

The Progress of Beauty seems one of his most elaborate pieces, 29 and is not deficient in splendour and gaiety; but the merit of original thought is wanting. Its highest praise is the spirit with which he celebrates king James's consort, when she was a queen no longer *.

5

The Essay on [upon] unnatural Flights in Poetry is not in- 30 elegant nor injudicious, and has something of vigour beyond most of his other performances: his precepts are just, and his cautions proper; they are indeed not new, but in a didactick poem novelty is to be expected only in the ornaments and illustrations. His poetical precepts are accompanied with agreeable and instructive notes.

a bowl of that liquor called Bishop, which Johnson had always liked; while in joyous contempt of sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the festive lines,

Short, O short then be thy reign,
And give us to the world again.'
Boswell's Johnson, i. 251.

The lines are in Lord Lansdowne's Drinking Song to Sleep, and run thus:

'Short, very short be then thy reign, For I'm in haste to laugh and drink again.' Eng. Poets, xxxviii. 115. Eng. Poets, xxxviii. 122–30.

3

4 'Princess ador'd and lov'd! If verse can give

A deathless name, thine shall for ever live;

Invok'd where 'er the British lion

31

I

The Masque of Peleus and Thetis has here and there a pretty line; but it is not always melodious, and the conclusion is wretched. 32 In his British Enchanters he has bidden defiance to all chronology by confounding the inconsistent manners of different ages; but the dialogue has often the air of Dryden's rhyming plays, and the songs are lively, though not very correct. This is, I think, far the best of his works; for if it has many faults it has likewise passages which are at least pretty, though they do not rise to any high degree of excellence.

wrote to Nichols, the printer of the Lives: In examining this book I find it necessary to add to the life the preface to the British Enchanters, and you may add, if you will, the notes on Unnatural Flights: John. Letters, ii. 131. Later on he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:-'What do you scold so

for about Granville's life; do you not see that the appendage neither gains nor saves anything to me?' Ib. p. 190. In the second edition the appendage was omitted, being transferred to Eng. Poets.

I

Ante, GRANVILLE, 9. 2 lb.

YALDEN'

'HOMAS YALDEN, the sixth son of Mr. John Yalden of 1

TH

Sussex, was born in the city of Exeter in 16712. Having been educated in the grammar-school belonging to Magdalen College in Oxford, he was in 1690, at the age of nineteen 3, admitted commoner of Magdalen Hall, under the tuition of Josiah Pullen, a man whose name is still remembered in the university. He became next year one of the scholars of Magdalen College, where he was distinguished by a lucky accident. It was his turn one day to pronounce a declamation, and 2 Dr. Hough, the president, happening to attend, thought the

* Yalden is one of the four poets included in the Collection on Johnson's recommendation. Post, WATTS, 1. 'The publishers of the English Poets have been censured for admitting Yalden. . . . His poems had never before been collected.' NICHOLS, A Select Collection of Poems, 1780, iii. 167.

In this Life Johnson follows Jacob's Poetical Register, ii. 238, and Biog. Brit. p. 4379.

2 6

Anthony Wood is more correct in his statement of both date and place of the poet's birth. "Thomas Youlding," he writes (Ath. Oxon. iv. 601), "a younger son of John Youlding, a Page of the Presence and Groom of the Chamber to Prince Charles, afterwards a sufferer for his cause, and an exciseman in Oxford after the Restoration of King Charles II, was born in . . . Oxford on the 2nd day of January, 1669-70." The Merton College Register of Baptisms confirms this account: "Jan. 16, 1669-70, Thomas, son of John Yalding, an exciseman, was baptized. Born 2nd Jan." Bloxam's Register of Magdalen College, vi. 113. It will be noticed that, including the form Yalden, the name is spelt three different ways.

3 He was a chorister of the College from 1678-89, with an interval in 1687-8, when he was ejected. He

matriculated in 1685, aged sixteen, and was elected a Demy or scholar (ante, ADDISON, 8) in 1690. Ib. p.

112.

'He was a great master of logic and no bad tutor, but one of the rough diamonds of the university.' Biog. Brit. p. 4379. The writer tells a coarse story of him, which, he adds, was preserved in my time.' In Aubrey's Brief Lives, i. 377, is a letter of Hobbes, dated Feb. 1, 1672-3, 'For my much honored freind Mr. Josias Pullen, Vice-principall of Magdalen Hall.' He was the chaplain who gave Bishop Sanderson absolution before his death, as told in Walton's Lives, 1838, p. 401. Ath. Oxon. iii. 626. 'I have the honour,' writes The Guardian in No. 2, 'to be well known to Mr. Joseph [sic] Pullen, and attribute the florid old age I now enjoy to my constant morning walks up Headington Hill in his cheerful company.' His name still lives in 'Joe Pullen's tree' at the top of the Hill, whither Gibbon and his tutor used to take their evening walks from Magdalen College. Gibbon's Memoirs, p. 61.

5 For declamations see Boswell's Johnson, i. 71; Gibbon's Memoirs, PP: 59, 288.

6 Hough was the President who so boldly withstood James II and his Ecclesiastical Commissioners when

composition too good to be the speaker's. Some time after, the doctor, finding him a little irregularly busy in the library, set him an exercise for punishment, and, that he might not be deceived by any artifice, locked the door. Yalden, as it happened, had been lately reading on the subject given, and produced with little difficulty a composition, which so pleased the president that he told him his former suspicions, and promised to favour him. 3 Among his contemporaries in the college were Addison and Sacheverell, men who were in those times friends, and who both adopted Yalden to their intimacy 2. Yalden continued throughout his life to think as probably he thought at first, yet did not lose the friendship of Addison.

4

When Namur was taken by king William Yalden made an ode3. There was never any reign more celebrated by the poets than that of William, who had very little regard for song himself, but happened to employ ministers who pleased themselves with the praise of patronage+.

5 Of this ode mention is made in an humorous poem of that time, called The Oxford Laureat, in which, after many claims had been made and rejected, Yalden is represented as demanding the laurel, and as being called to his trial instead of receiving a reward.

'His crime was for being a felon in verse,

And presenting his theft to the king;

The first was a trick not uncommon or scarce,
But the last was an impudent thing:

Yet what he had stol'n was so little worth stealing,
They forgave him the damage and cost;

Had he ta'en the whole ode, as he took it piece-mealing,
They had fin'd him but ten pence at most.'

they trampled on the statutes of the
College. Macaulay's Hist. Eng. iii.
34.

For 'Hough's unsullied mitre' see Pope's Epil. Sat. ii. 240.

·

This story was communicated by the author himself to an acquaintance.' Biog. Brit. p. 4379.

2 Addison matriculated two years and Sacheverell four years later than Yalden. In June 1713 is the following entry:'Dr. Yalden et Dr. Sacheverell, beneficia adepti ecclesiastica, recessere.' Reg. of Mag. Coll. vi. 98, 112.

'Apollo smiles on Magd'len's peaceful bowers,

Perfumes the air, and paints the grot with flowers,

Where Yalden learned to gain the myrtle crown,

And every Muse was fond of Addison.'

TICKELL, Eng. Poets, xxxix. 296. For Sacheverell see ante, ADDISON,

14; Eng. Poets, xxxix. 105; ante,

The poet whom he was charged with robbing was Congreve 1.

He wrote another poem on the death of the duke of 6 Gloucester 2.

In 1710 he became fellow of the college3; and next year, 7 entering into orders, was presented by the society with a living in Warwickshire, consistent with his fellowship, and chosen lecturer of moral philosophy, a very honourable office *.

On the accession of queen Anne he wrote another poem 5; and 8 is said, by the author of the Biographia, to have declared himself of the party who had the honourable distinction of Highchurchmen❝.

In 1706 he was received into the family of the duke of 9 Beaufort'. Next year he became doctor in divinity, and soon

1 Ante, CONGREVE, 37. 'Of arms and war my Muse aspires to sing,

And strikes the lyre upon an untry'd string :

New fire informs my soul, unfelt before,

And on new wings to heights unknown I soar.'

CONGREVE, Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 139. 'Once more, my Muse, resume thy lyre !

Of heroes, arms, and lofty triumphs sing:

Strike, boldly strike th' unpractis'd string;

'Tis William's acts my soaring thoughts inspire,

And animate my breast with nobler

fire.' YALDEN, ib. xxxix. 105. 2 Not included in Eng. Poets. It was published in 1700. Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, ii. 312.

3 Probationer Fellow' in 1698, and 'True and Perpetual Fellow' in 1699. Vice President's Reg. Mag.

Coll.

He became Vicar of Willoughby in 1700, and Waynflete's Lecturer in 1705. It was a very honour

able office' because it was much more than a College appointment. 'Waynflete's three Praelectors,' the President of Magdalen informs me, 'were to give instruction without fee to all comers, whether members of

the College or not. In 1673 Whyte's Professorship of Moral Philosophy became a perquisite of the Proctors, and continued so till 1829. It was so forgotten that it was never mentioned in the Oxford Calendar:

5 Not included in Eng. Poets.

6

Biog. Brit. p. 4379. The High Churchmen had their city poet and tavern. 'Mr. Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet, of late years has kept a public-house in the City (but in a genteel way), and with his wit, humour, and good liquor has afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment; especially the High Church party, which is composed of men of his principles, and to whom he is very much obliged for their constant resort.' Poetical Register, ii. 225.

7 As Chaplain. Hearne's Collections, ed. Doble, i. 237. This was the second Duke, a young man of two-andtwenty. Swift, on March 6, 1711-12, wrote of the Brotherhood (ante, PRIOR, 45):-'The Duke of Beaufort had the confidence to propose his brotherin-law, the Earl of Danby, to be a member; but I opposed it so warmly that it was waived. Danby is not above twenty, and we will have no more boys.' Works, ii. 497.

Horace Walpole wrote in 1787:'There never was a Duke of Beaufort that made it worth knowing which Duke it was.' Letters, ix. 92.