The poet whom he was charged with robbing was Congreve.

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

In 1700 he became fellow of the college; and next year, 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, and is said, by the author of the Biographia, to have declared himself of the party who had the honourable distinction of high-churchmen.

In 1706 he was received into the family of the duke of Beaufort. Next year he became doctor in divinity, and soon after resigned his fellowship, and lecture; and, as a token of his gratitude, gave the college a picture of their founder.

He was made rector of Chalton and Cleanville, two adjoining towns and benefices in Hertfordshire; and had the prebends, or sinecures, of Deans, Hains, and Pendles, in Devonshire. He had before been chosen, in 1698, preacher of Bridewell hospital, upon the resignation of Dr. Atterbury'.

From this time he seems to have led a quiet and inoffensive life, till the clamour was raised about Atterbury's plot. Every loyal eye was on the watch for abettors or partakers of the horrid conspiracy; and Dr. Yalden, having some acquaintance with the bishop, and being familiarly conversant with Kelly, his secretary, fell under suspicion, and was taken into custody.

Upon his examination he was charged with a dangerous correspondence with Kelly. The correspondence he acknowledged; but maintained, that it had no treasonable tendency. His papers were seized; but nothing was found that could fix a crime upon him, except two words in his pocket-book, “thorough-paced doctrine." This expression the imagination of his examiners had impregnated with treason, and the doctor was enjoined to explain them. Thus pressed, he told them, that the words had lain unheeded in his pocket-book from the time of queen Anne, and that he was ashamed to give an account of them; but the truth was, that he had gratified his curiosity one day, by hearing Daniel Burgess in the pulpit, and those words were a memorial hint of a remarkable sentence by which he warned his congregation to "beware of thoroughpaced 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 arising against him, he was set at liberty.

It will not be supposed that a man of this character attained high dignities in the church; but he still retained the friendship, and frequented the conversation, of a very numerous and splendid 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 Pindaric. Having fixed his attention on Cowley as a

The vicarage of Willoughby, which he resigned in 1708. N.

This preferment was given him by the duke of Beaufort. N.

3 Not till long after. N.

Dr. Atterbury retained the office of preacher at Bridewell till his promotion to the bishopric of Rochester. Dr. Yalden succceded him as preacher in June, 1713. N.

model, he has attempted in some sort to rival him, and has written a Hymn to Darkness, evidently as a counter-part to Cowley's Hymn to Light.

This hymn seems to be his best performance, and is, for the most part, imagined with great vigour, and expressed with great propriety. I will not transcribe it. The seven first stanzas are good; but the third, fourth, and seventh, are the best: the eighth seems to involve a contradiction; the tenth is exquisitely beautiful; the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, are partly mythological, and partly religious, and therefore not suitable to each other: he might better have made the whole merely philosophical. There are two stanzas in this poem where Yalden may be suspected, though hardly convicted, of having consulted the Hymnus ad Umbram of Wowerus, in the sixth stanza, which answers in some sort to these lines:

Illa suo præest nocturnis numine sacris→→
Perque vias errare novis dat spectra figuris,
Manesque excitos medios ululare per agros
Sub noctem, et questu notos complere penates.

And again, at the conclusion:

Illa suo senium secludit corpore toto

Haud numerans jugi fugientia secula lapsu ;
Ergo ubi postremum mundi compage solutâ
Hanc rerum molem suprema absumpserit hora,
Ipsa leves cineres nube amplectetur opacâ,

Et prisco imperio rursus dominabitur UMBRA.

His Hymn to Light is not equal to the other. He seems to think that there is an East absolute and positive where the Morning rises.

In the last stanza, having mentioned the sudden eruption of new-created light, he

says,

Awhile th' Almighty wond'ring stood.

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 sufficient to say, that they deserve perusal, though they are not always exactly polished, though the rhymes are sometimes very ill sorted, and though his faults seem rather the omissions of idleness than the negligencies of enthusiasm.

POEMS

OF

DR. YALDEN.

With gloomy smiles thy rival Night
Beholds thy glorious dawn of light:

Not all the wealth she views in mines below
Can match thy brighter beams, or equal lustre show.
At thy approach, Nature erects her head,
The smiling Universe is glad;
The drowsy Earth and Seas awake,
And from thy beams, new life and vigour take:
When thy more chearful rays appear,
Evin Guilt and women cease to fear:
Horrour, Despair, and all the sons of Night
Retire before thy beams, and take their hasty flight.
To thee, the grateful East their altars raise,
And sing with early hymns thy praise;
Thou dost their happy soil bestow,
Enrich the Heavens above, and Earth below:
Thou risest in the fragrant East,

Like the fair Phoenix from her balmy nest:

[shrine!

No altar of the gods can equal thine,
The Air's thy richest incense, the whole land thy

But yet thy fading glories soon decay.

Thine 's but a momentary stay;

[light.

Too soon thou 'rt ravish'd from our sight,
Borne down the stream of day, and overwhelm'd with
Thy beams to their own ruin haste,
They 're fram'd too exquisite to last:
Thine is a glorious, but a short-liv'd state.
Pity so fair a birth should yield so soon to Fate!

Before th' Almighty Artist fram'd the sky,
Or gave the Earth its harmony,
His first command was for thy light:
He view'd the lovely birth, and blessed it:

In purple swaddling-bands it struggling lay,
Not yet maturely bright for day:

[own

Old Chaos then a chearful smile put on,
And, from thy beauteous form, did first presage its

"Let there be Light!" the great Creator said,
His word the active child obey'd:
Night did her teeming womb disclose;
And then the blushing Morn, its brightest offspring,
Awhile th' Almighty wondering view'd, [rose.
And then himself pronounc'd it good:

With Night," said he, " divide th' imperial sway; Thou my first labour art, and thou shalt bless the Day

HYMN TO DARKNESS.

DARKNESS, thou first great parent of us all,
Thou art our great original:
Since from thy universal womb

Involv'd in thee, we first receive our breath,
Thou art our refuge too in death,

Great monarch of the grave and womb, [come.
Where-e'er our souls shall go, to thee our bodies
The silent Globe is struck with awful fear,
When thy majestic shades appear:
Thou dost compose the Air and Sea,
And Earth a sabbath keeps, sacred to Rest and thee.
In thy serener shades our ghosts delight,

And court the umbrage of the Night;
But fly the Morning's beams, and sicken at the Day.
In vaults and gloomy caves they stray,

Though solid bodies dare exclude the light,
Nor will the brightest ray admit;
No substance can thy force repel,
Thou reign'st in depths below, dost in the centre dwell.
The sparkling gems, and ore in mines below,
To thee their beauteous lustre owe;
Though form'd within the womb of Night,
Bright as their sire they shine, with native rays oflight.
When thou dost raise thy venerable head,

And art in genuine Night array'd.
Thy Negro beauties then delight; [bright.
Beauties, like polish'd jet, with their own darkness
Thou dost thy smiles impartially bestow,

And know'st no difference here below:
All things appear the same by thee,
Though Light distinction makes, thou giv'st equality,
Thou, Darkness, art the lover's kind retreat,
And dost the nuptial joys compleat;
Thou dost inspire them with thy shade, [maid,
Giv'st vigour to the youth, and warm'st the yielding
Calm as the bless'd above the anchorites dwell,
Within their peaceful gloomy cell.

Their minds with heavenly joys are fill'd;
The pleasures Light deny, thy shades for ever yield.

In caves of Night, the oracles of old

Did all their mysteries unfold:
Darkness did first Religion grace,
Gave terrours to the God,and reverence to the place,
When the Almighty did on Horeb stand,

Thy shades enclos'd the hallow'd land:
In clouds of Night he was array'd,
And venerable Darkness his pavilion made.

When he appear'd arm'd in his power and might,
He veil'd the beatific Light;

When terrible with majesty,

In tempests he gave laws, and clad himself in thee.
Ere the foundation of the Earth was laid,

Or brighter firmament was made;
Ere matter, tine, or place, was known,

Does all thou shad'st below, thy numerous offspring, Thou, monarch Darkness, sway'dst these spacious

come.

Thy wondrous birth is ev'n to Time unknown,
Or, like Eternity, thou 'dst none;
Whilst Light did its first being owe

Unto that awful shade it dares to rival now.

Say, in what distant region dost thou dwell,
To reason inaccessible?

From form and duller matter free,
Thou soar'st above the reach of man's philosophy.

realms alone.

But, now the Moon (though gay with borrow'd light)
Invades thy scanty lot of Night,

By rebel subjects thou 'rt betray'd,
The anarchy of Stars depose their monarch Shade.
Yet fading Light its empire must resign,

And Nature's power submit to thine:
And Fate confirm thy kingdom evermore thy own.
An universal ruin shall erect thy throne,