children, has a barren Juno. The Queen is compounded of Juno, Venus, and Minerva. His poem on the Duchess of Grafton's law-suit, after having rattled a while with Juno and Pallas, Mars and Alcides, Cassiope, Niobe, and the Propetides, Hercules, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, at last concludes its folly with profaneness.

His verses to Mira, which are most frequently mentioned, have 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 sprightly or elegant, either keen or weighty. They are trifles written by idleness, and published by vanity. But his Prologues and Epilogues have a just claim to praise.

The Progress of Beauty' seems one of his most elaborate pieces, 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.

The Essay on Unnatural Flights in Poetry' is not inelegant 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 didactic poem novelty is to be expected only in the ornaments and illustrations. His poetical precepts are accompanied with agreeable and instructive notes.

The masque of 'Peleus and Thetis' has here and there a pretty line; but it is not always melodious, and the conclusion is wretched.

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.

THOMAS YALDEN.

YALDE N.

1671-1736.

Born and Educated at Oxford · His earliest Poetry

Made Preacher at
Taken into custody about Atterbury's Plot - Death and

Bridewell
Burial in Bridewell precinct Character and Works.

-

THOMAS YALDEN, the sixth son of Mr. John Yalden of Sussex, was born in the city of Exeter in 1671. Having been educated in the grammar-school belonging to Magdalen College in Oxford, he was in 1690, at the age of nineteen, 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.

2

It was his turn, one day, to pronounce a declamation; and Dr. Hough, the president, happening to attend, thought the 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

1 This account of Yalden is very incorrect. His proper name was Youlding, and he was born not at Exeter but at Oxford; and not in 1671 but in 1669-70, January 2. Wood's Ath. Ox.,' by Bliss (iv. 601), and Bloxam's Magdalen Register, p. 109. His father, Thomas Youlding, was '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." (Wood, iv. 601.) His father died 25th July, 1670, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and was buried in Merton College Chapel. See his epitaph in Le Neve's 'Monuments,' Aug. 1650-1718, p. 87.

2 Afterwards Bishop of Worcester, now best remembered by his Oxford opposition to James II., by the verse of Pope, and the chisel of Roubiliac.

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. Yalden continued, throughout his life, to think as probably he thought at first, yet did not lose the friendship of Addison.^

5

When Namur was taken by King William, Yalden made an ode. 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."

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."

The poet whom he was charged with robbing was Congreve.
He wrote another poem on the death of the Duke of
Gloucester.7

In 1710 he became Fellow of the college; and next year, entering into orders, was presented by the society with a living

3 'Bio. Britannica,' vi. 4379, fol. 1766, “communicated by the author himself to a particular acquaintance."

Jacob's Poet. Register,' ii. 238.

5 Published in 1695, folio. This was not his first appearance as an author. Nine poems with his name to them are printed in Dryden's "Third Miscellany,' 8vo. 1693. One is the

Hymn to Darkness.' In Dryden's 'Fourth Miscellany' (8vo. 1694) are seven other poems with Yalden's name to them. Compare note 10, p. 253.

7 The Temple of Fame, a Poem, sacred to the memory of the most Illustrious Prince William, Duke of Gloucester,' 1700, fol.