them. Thus preffed, he told them that the words had lain unheeded in his pocket-book from the time of queen Anne, and that he was afhamed to give an account of them; but the truth was, that he had gratified his curiofity one-day, by hearing Daniel Burgess in the pulpit, and those words was a memorable hint of a remarkable fentence by which he warned his congregation to "beware of," thorough-paced doctrine, "that doctrine which "coming in at one ear, paces through the head, " and goes out at the other."

Nothing worse than this appearing in his papers, and no evidence arifing against him, he was fet at liberty.

It will not be fuppofed that a man of this character attained high dignities in the church; but he ftill retained the friendship, and frequented the conversation, of a very numerous and fplendid set · of acquaintance. He died July 16, 1736, in the 66th year of his age.

Of his poems, many are of that irregular kind, which, when he formed his poetical character, was supposed to be Pindarick. Having fixed his attention on Cowley as a model, he has attempted in fome fort to rival him, and has written a Hymn to Darkness, evidently as a counter-part to Cowley's Hymn to Light.

This hymn feems to be his best performance, and is, for the most part, imagined with great vigour, and expreffed with great propriety. I will not transcribe it. The feven firft ftanzas are good; but the third, fourth, and seventh, are the beft; the eighth feems to involve a contradiction; the tenth is exquifitely beautiful; the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, are partly mythological, and

partly

partly religious, and therefore not fuitable to each other; he might better have made the whole merely philofophical.

There are two ftanzas in this poem where Yalden may be fufpected, though hardly convicted, of having confulted the Hymnus ad Umbram of Wowerus, in the fixth ftanza, which anfwers in fome fort to thefe lines:

Illa fuo præeft nocturnis numine facris
Perque vias errare novis dat fpectra figuris,
Manefque excitos medios ululare per agros
Sub noctem, et queflu notos compleré penates.

And again, at the conclufion:

Illa fuo fenium fecludit corpore toto
Haud numerans jugi fugientia fecula lapfu,
Ergo ubi poftremum mundi compage folutâ
Hanc rerum molem fuprema abfumfperit hora
Ipfa leves cineres nube amplectetur opacâ,
Et prifco imperio rurfus dominabitur UMBRA.

His Hymn to Light is not equal to the other. He feems to think that there is an Eaft abfolute and pofitive where the morning rises.

In the last stanza, having mentioned the fudden. eruption of new created Light, he says,

A while th' Almighty wondering flood.

He ought to have remembered that Infinite Knowledge can never wonder. All wonder is the effect of novelty upon ignorance.

Of his other poems it is fufficient to say, that they deferve perufal, though they are not always exactly

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exactly polished, though the rhymes are fometimes very ill forted, and though his faults feem rather the omiffions of idlenefs than the negligences of enthusiasm.

TICKEL L.

THOMAS

HOMAS TICKELL, the fon of the reverend Richard Tickell, was born in 1686 at Bridekirk in Cumberland; and in April 1701 became a member of Queen's College in Oxford; in 1708 he was made Master of Arts, and two years afterwards was chofen Fellow; for which, as he did not comply with the statutes by taking orders, he obtained a difpenfation from the crown. He held his fellowship till 1726, and then vacated it by marrying, in that year, at Dublin.

Tickell was not one of those scholars who wear away their lives in clofets; he entered early into the world, and was long bufy in public affairs; in which he was initiated under the patronage of Addifon, whofe notice he is faid have gained by his verfes in praife of Rofamond.

To thofe verfes it would not have been juft to deny regard; for they contain fome of the most elegant encomiaftic strains; and, among the innumerable poems of the fame kind, it will be hard to

find one with which they need to fear a comparifon. It may deferve obfervation, that when Pope wrote long afterwards in praife of Addifon, he has copied, at least has refembled, Tickell.

Let joy falute fair Rofamonda's fhade,
And wreaths of myrtle crown the lovely maid,
While now perhaps with Dido's ghost she roves,
And hears and tells the ftory of their loves,
Alike they mourn, alike they bless their fate,

Since Love, which made them wretched, made them

great.

Nor longer that relentless doom bemoan,

Which gain'd a Virgil and an Addison.

Then future ages with delight fhall fee

How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's, looks agree;
Or in fair feries laurel'd bards be shown,
A Virgil there, and here an Addison.

TICKELL.

POPE.

He produced another piece of the fame kind at the appearance of Cato, with equal skill, but not equal happiness.

When the minifters of queen Anne were negotiating with France, Tickell published The Profpect of Peace, a poem, of which the tendency was to reclaim the nation from the pride of conqueft to the pleasures of tranquillity. How far Tickell, whom Swift afterwards mentioned as Whiggiffimus, had then connected himself with any party, I know not; this poem certainly did not flatter the practices, or promote the opinions, of the men by whom he was afterwards befriended.

Mr. Addison, however he hated the men then in power, fuffered his friendship to prevail over his public fpirit, and gave in the Spectator fuch praises

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of.

of Tickell's poem, that when, after having long wifhed to perufe it, I laid hold on it at laft, I thought it unequal to the honours which it had received, and found it a piece to be approved rather than admired. But the hope excited by a work of genius, being general and indefinite, is rarely gratified. It was read at that time with fo much favour, that fix editions were fold.

At the arrival of king George he fung The Royal Progress; which being inferted in the Spectator is well known, and of which it is just to say, that it is neither high nor low.

The poetical incident of most importance in Tickell's life was his publication of the first book of the Iliad, as tranflated by himself, an apparent oppofition to Pope's Homer, of which the first part made its entrance into the world at the fame time.

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Addifon declared that the rival verfions were both good; but that Tickell's was the beft that ever was made; and with Addison the wits, his adherents and followers, were certain to concur. Pope does not appear to have been much difmayed; "for," fays he, I have the town, that is, the mob on my fide." But he remarks, "that it is common for the fmaller party to make up in diligence what they want in numbers; he appeals to the people as his proper judges; and if they are not "inclined to condemn him, he is in little care "about the high-flyers at Button's."

Pope did not long think Addifon an impartial judge; for he confidered him, as the writer of Tickell's verfion. The reafons for his fufpicion I will literally tranfcribe from Mr. Spence's Collection.

"There