In 1710 he became fellow of the college; and next year, entering into Orders, was prefented by the fociety with a living in Warwickshire, confiftent with the fellowship, and chofen lecturer of moral philofophy, a very honourable office. On the acceffion of queen Anne he wrote another poem; and is faid, by the author of the Biographia, to have declared himself of the party who had the honourable diftinction of High churchmen. In 1706 he was duke of Beaufort. received into the family of the Next year he became doctor in divinity, and foon after refigned 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 finecures, of Deans, Hains, and Pendles, in Devorfhire. He had before been chofen, in 1698, preacher of Bridewell Hofpital, upon the refignation of Dr. Atterbury. From this time he seems to have led a quiet and inoffenfive life, till the clamour was raifed about Atterbury's plot. Every loyal eye was on the watch for abettors or partakers of the horrid confpiracy; and Dr. Yalden, having fome acquaintance with the bishop, and being familiarly converfant with Kelly his fecretary, fell under fufpicion, and was taken into cuftody. *Not long after. N. + Dr. Atterbury retained the office of preacher at Bridewell till his promotion to the Bishoprick of Rochester. Dr. Yalden fucceeded him as preacher in June 1713. N. S 4 Upon Upon his examination he was charged with a dan gerous correfpondence with Kelly. The corefpondence 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, tho rough paced doctrine. This expreffion the imagination of his examiners had impregnated with treason, and the doctor was enjoined to explain. 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 ashamed 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 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 fet at liberty. It will not be fuppofed 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 fplendid fet of acquaintance. He died July 16, 1736, in the 66th year of his age. of that irregular kind, poetical character, was Having fixed his atten Of his poems, many are which, when he formed his fuppofed to be Pindarick. tion on Cowley as a model, he has attempted in fome fort to rival him, and has written a Hymn to Dark, 3 nefs, ess, evidently as a counter-part to Cowley's Hymn to Light. This hymn feems to be his beft performance, and is, for the most part, imagined with great vigour, and expressed with great propriety. I will not tranfscribe it. The seven first stanzas are good; but the third, fourth, and feventh, 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 religious, and therefore not suitable 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 stanza, which answers in fome fort to these lines: Illa fuo præeft nocturnis numine facris- And again, at the conclufion : Illa fuo fenium fecludit corpore toto His Hymn to Light is not equal to the other. He feems to think that there is an East abfolute and pofitive where the Morning rifes. In the laft ftanza, having mentioned the fudden cruption of new created Light, he says, A while th' Almighty wondering 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 fufficient to say, that they deserve perufal, though they are not always exactly polished, though the rhymes are fometimes very ill forted, and though his faults feem rather the omif. fions of idleness than the negligences of enthusiasm. TICKELL. TICKEL L. T HOMAS TICKELL, the son of the reverend Richard Tickell, was born in 1686 at Bridekirk in Cumberland; and in 1701 became a member of Queen's College in Oxford; in 1708 he was made Master of Arts, and two years afterwards was chosen 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 thofe fcholars 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 said to have gained by his verses in praife of Rofamond. To those verses it would not have been just to deny regard; for they contain fome of the moft elegant encomiaftick strains; and, among the innumerable of the fame kind, it will be hard to find one poems |