Upon his examination he was charged with a dangerous correspondence with Kelly. The correfpondence he acknowledged; but maintained that it had no treasonable tendency. His papers were feized; but nothing was found that could fix a crime upon him, except two words in his pocket-book, thoroughpaced doctrine. This expreffion the imagination of his examiners had impregnated with treason, and the doctor was enjoined to explain 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 thofe words were a memorial hint of a remarkable fentence by which he warned his congregation to "beware of" thorough-paced doctrine, "that doc"trine 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 set 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 converfation, of a very numerous and fplendid fet 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 fupposed 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 Darknefs,

ness, 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 tranfcribe it. The feven firft ftanzas are good; but the third, fourth, and feventh, are the beft; the eighth feems to involve à contradiction; the tenth is exquifitely beautiful; the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, are partly mythological, and partly religious, and therefore not fuitable to each other: he might better have made the whole merely philefophical.

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 these lines:

Illa fuo præeft nocturnis numine facris―
Perque vias errare novis dat spectra figuris,
Manefque excitos medios ululare per agros
Sub noctem, et queftu notos complere 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 abfumpferit 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 positive where the the Morning rises.

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

Awhile th' Almighty wond'ring ftood.

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

TICKELL.

TICKEL L.

THOMAS 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 ftatutes 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 closets; he entered early into the world, and was long bufy in publick affairs; in which he was initiated under the patronage of Addifon, whofe notice he is faid to have gained by his verfes in praise of Rofamond.

To those verses it would not have been just to deny regard; for they contain fome of the most elegant encomiaftick ftrains; and, among the innumerable poems of the fame kind, it will be hard to find one

with which they need to fear a comparison. It may deferve obfervation, that, when Pope wrote long afterwards in praise of Addison, he has copied, at leaft has refembled, Tickell.

Let joy falute fair Rofamonda's fhade,

And wreaths of myrtle crown the lovely maid.
While now perhaps with Dido's ghoft the 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 Addifon.

TICKELL.

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.

POPE.

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

When the minifters of queen Anne were negotiating with Fance, Tickell published The Profpect of Peace, a poem, of which the tendency was to reclaim the nation from the pride of conqueft to the pleafures of tranquillity. How far Tickell, whom Swift afterwards mentioned as Whiggiffimus, had then connected himfelf 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. Addifon, however he hated the men then in power, fuffered his friendship to prevail over hist

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