only make each other contemptible. To Tickell, however, cannot be refufed a high place among the minor poets; nor fhould it be forgotten that he was one of the contributors to the Spectator. With refpect to his perfonal character, he is faid to have been a man of gay conversation, at least a temperate lover of wine and company, and in his domeftick relations without cenfure. VOL. X. T HAM HAMMON D. O F Mr. HAMMOND, though he be well remem bered as a man efteemed and careffed by the elegant and the great, I was at first able to obtain no other memorials than fuch as are fupplied by a book called Cibber's Lives of the Poets; of which I take this opportunity to teftify that it was not written, nor, I believe, ever feen, by either of the Cibbers; but was the work of Robert Shiels, a native of Scotland, a man of very acute understanding, though with little fcholaftick education, who, not long after the publication of his work, died in London of a confumption. His life was virtuous, and his end pious. Theophilus Cibber, then a prifoner for debt, imparted, as I was told, his name for ten guineas. The manufcript of Shiels is now in my poffeffion. was I have fince found that Mr. Shiels, though he was no negligent enquirer, had been mifled by falle accounts; for he relates that James Hammond, the author of the Elegies, was the fon of a Turkey merchant, merchant, and had fome office at the prince of Wales's court, till love of a lady, whofe name was Dashwood, for a time difordered his understanding. He was unextinguishably amorous, and his miftrefs inexorably cruel. Of this narrative, part is true, is true, and part falfe. He was the second fon of Anthony Hammond, a man of note among the wits, poets, and parliamentary orators, in the beginning of this century, who was allied to Sir Robert Walpole by marrying his fifter*. He was born about 1710, and educated at Weftminfter-school; but it does not appear that he was of any univerfity. He was equerry to the prince of Wales, and feems to have come very early into publick notice, and to have been diftinguished by those whose friendship prejudiced mankind at that time in favour of the man to whom they were beflowed; for he was the companion of Cobham, Lyttelton, and Chesterfield. He is faid to have divided his life between pleasure and books; in his retirement forgetting the town, and in his gaiety lofing the ftudent. Of his literary hours all the effects are here exhibited, of which the Elegies were written very early, and the Prologue not long before his death. In 1741, he was chofen into parliament for Truro in Cornwall, probably one of those who were elected by the Prince's influence; and died next year in * This account is ftill erroneous. James Hammond our author was of a different family, the fecond fon of Anthony Hammond, of Somerfham-place, in the county of Huntingdon, Efq. See Gent. Mag. vol. LVII. p. 780. R. June at Stowe, the famous feat of lord Cobham, His miftrefs long outlived him, and in 1779 died unmarried. The character which her lover bequeathed her was, indeed, not likely to attract courtship. The Elegies were published after his death; and while the writer's name was remembered with fondnefs, they were read with a refolution to admire them. The recommendatory Preface of the editor, who was then believed, and is now affirmed by Dr. Maty, to be the earl of Chefterfield, raised ftrong prejudices in their favour. But the prefacer, whoever he was, it may be reasonably fufpected that he never read the poems; for he profeffes to value them for a very high fpecies of excellence, and recommends them as the genuine effufions of the mind, which expreffes a real paffion in the language of nature. But the truth is, thefe elegies have neither paffion, nature, nor manners. Where there is fiction, there is no paffion: he that defcribes himself as a fhepherd, and his Neæra or Delia as a fhepherdefs, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no paffion. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deferves to lose her; for fhe may with good reason fufpect his fincerity. Hammond has few fentiments from nature, and few images from modern life. He pro duces nothing but frigid pedantry. It would be hard to find in all his productions three ftanzas that deferve to be remembered. Like other lovers, he threatens the lady with dying; and what then fhall follow ? Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corfe attend; And cull my afhes with thy trembling hand : And all the pride of Afia's fragrant year And, what is ftill more precious, give thy tear. Surely no blame can fall upon a nymph who rejected a fwain of fo little meaning. His verses are not rugged, but they have no fweetnefs; they never glide in a stream of melody. Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten fyllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell. The character of the Elegy is gentlenefs and tenuity; but this ftanza has been pronounced by Dryden, whose knowledge of English metre was not inconfiderable, to be the most magnificent of all measures which our language affords. |