17 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, Sub noctem, et questu notos complere penates 2.' And again at the conclusion 3: 'Illa suo senium secludit corpore toto Haud numerans jugi fugientia secula lapsu, Ergo ubi postremum mundi compage solutâ Ipsa leves cineres nube amplectetur opacâ Et prisco imperio rursus dominabitur UMBRA '.' 18 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 5. 19 In the last stanza, having mentioned the sudden eruption of new created light, he says 'Awhile th' Almighty wondering stood [viewed]".' 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 20 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 negligences of enthusiasm 1. Yalden, though a Doctor of Divinity, translated Ovid's Art of Love, bk. ii. Eng. Poets, xxxix. 60. Of this translation it could not be said, as Johnson said of King's Art of Love (ante, KING, 12), that 'it is remarkable, notwithstanding its title, for purity of sentiment.' In Swift's Works, viii. 463, is included a humorous paper by Yalden, entitled 'Squire Bickerstaff Detected, or the Astrological Impostor Convicted. By John Partridge, Student in Physics and Astrology.' For a list of Yalden's publications see Reg. of Mag. Coll. vi. 115. 1 1TH 2 TICKELL HOMAS TICKELL, the son 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 Oxford1: in 1708 he was made Master of Arts, and two years afterwards was chosen Fellow; for which, as he did not comply with the statutes by taking orders, he obtained a dispensation from the Crown3. 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 busy in publick affairs, in which he was initiated under the The fellowships at Queen's were confined to Cumberland and Westmorland men. Ayliffe's Oxford, 1714, i. 295; ante, ADDISON, 8. Tickell, in a poem On Queen Caroline's Rebuilding the Lodgings of the Black Prince and Henry V at Queen's College, addressing that bright saint' Queen Philippa, says:— 'O could'st thou win young William's bloom to grace His mother's walls, and fill thy Edward's place. Eng. Poets, xxxix. 1 52. 'Young William' was 'the butcher of Culloden.' Mr. Courthope quotes the following epigram on nine Oxford wits (Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 328):— 'Alma novem genuit celebres Rhedycina poetas, Bubb, Stubb, Cobb, Crabb, Trapp, Young, Carey, Tickell, Evans.' Rhedycina is a fanciful name for Oxford. Parker's Early Hist. of Oxford, p. 364. 2 Nov. 8, 1710. This day was an election of Fellows of Queen's College, when Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Tickle were elected over the heads of several of their seniors, and such as were better scholars. This Tickle is a pretender to poetry.' HEARNE, Collections, ed. Doble, iii. 77. 3 I owe the following note to the Provost of Queen's :-The College, on Sept. 23, 1715, "agreed that Mr. Tickell be dispensed with for not taking orders according to Statute, for ye full space of three years from this day. He haveing thereby a more speedy prospect of preferment." On Oct 25, 1717, "K. George's Mandamus for Mr. Tickell's Dispensation passed unanimi consensu." Such dispensations, though rare, were not unexampled.' See ante, ADDISON, 16 n. For degrees conferred by mandamus see post, AKENSIDE, 12 n. 'He married a Miss Eustace,' with a fortune of £8,000 or £10,000, on April 23, 1726.' Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, ii. 319. See also Swift's Works, xix. 282. Mrs. Delany (Auto. iii. 205) wrote of Mrs. Tickell in 1753" She talks, and cries, and laughs as fast as she can, ringing the changes. . .; but what makes it surprising is that she really has sense and wit.' Their grandson, Richard Tickell, wrote The Epistle from the Hon. Charles Fox, &c., quoted in Boswell's Johnson, ii. 292 n. 4, iii. 388 n. 3, and The Project, ib. iii. 318. patronage of Addison, whose notice he is said to have gained by his verses in praise of Rosamond'. To those verses it would not have been just to deny regard, 3 for they contain some of the most elegant encomiastick strains ; and, among the innumerable poems of the same kind, it will be hard to find one with which they need to fear a comparison. It may deserve observation that when Pope wrote long afterwards in praise of Addison he has copied, at least has resembled, Tickell 2. 'Let joy salute fair Rosamonda's shade, And wreaths of myrtle crown the lovely maid, Since Love, which made them wretched, made [makes] them great, Nor longer that relentless doom bemoan, Which gain'd a Virgil and an Addison.' 'Then future ages with delight shall see TICKELL 3. POPE'. He produced another piece of the same kind at the appearance 4 of Catos, with equal skill but not equal happiness. 3 Eng. Poets, xxxix. 174. It first appeared in Dryden's Sixth Misc., 1709. Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, ii. 320. Moral Essays: Epistle to Mr. Addison, 1. 59. Published in 1721. 5 It is entitled A Prologue to the University of Oxford. For Cato acted there see ante, ADDISON, 68 n.6. In it he makes the players say of the Muse and the University: 'May none pretend upon her throne to sit But such as, sprung from you, are born to wit: Chosen by the mob, their lawless claim we slight: Yours is the old hereditary right.' Eng. Poets, xxxix. 195. Cibber said of an Oxford audience that 'applause was not to be purchased there but by the true sterling, the sal atticum of a genius. ShakeX 5 6 When the ministers of queen Anne were negotiating with France Tickell published The Prospect of Peace, a poem of which the tendency was to reclaim the nation from the pride of conquest to the pleasures of tranquillity. How far Tickell, whom Swift afterwards mentioned as Whiggissimus, 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, suffered his friendship to prevail over his publick spirit, and gave in The Spectator such praises of Tickell's poem that when, after having long wished to peruse it, I laid hold on it at last, I thought it unequal to the honours which it had received, and found it a piece to be approved rather than admired 3. But the speare and Jonson had there a sort of classical authority.' Apology, ed. 1826, p. 267. ... When Tickell was Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland (post, TICKELL, 16) Swift wrote of him to Dr. Sheridan: I think you need not quit his and Balaguer's company, because they are above suspicions as whiggissimi and unsuspectissimi. Works, xvi. 478. Swift warmly acknowledged his kindness. 'I have title to your favour,' he wrote in 1725 to him, as you were Mr. Addison's friend, and, in the most honourable part, his heir [ante, ADDISON, 103]; and if he had thought of your coming to this kingdom, he would have bequeathed me to you.' Ib. xix. 275, 280. Tickell was no Whig, when in his lines On a Picture of Charles I, Taken at the Time of his Trial, asking who was like the King, he wrote: 'All names but one too low-that one too high: All parallels are wrongs-or blasphemy.' The poem contains one fine couplet: 'In those sunk eyes the grief of years I trace, And sorrow seems acquainted with that face.' Eng. Poets, xxxix. 196. "I hope it will meet with such a reward from its patrons as so noble a performance deserves.' The Spec- 3 'For fools admire, but men of sense POPE, Essay on Criticism, l. 391. Pope wrote to Caryll on Nov. 29, 1712: 'I believe you will think Mr. Tickell's poem upon the Peace to have its beauties, especially in the versification.' He goes on to point out 'some strokes of mastery.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vi. 167. 'This,' wrote Gray, 'is not only a state-poem (my ancient aversion), but a state-poem on the peace of Utrecht. If Mr. Pope had wrote a panegyric on it, one could hardly have read him with patience; but this is only a poor short-winded imitator of Addison, who had himself not above three or four notes in poetry, sweet enough indeed, like those of a German flute, but such as soon tire and satiate the ear with their frequent return. Tickell has added to this a great poverty of sense, and a string of transitions that hardly become a school-boy.' Mitford's Gray, iii. 89. One of the finest passages begins :— 'Sweet Solitude! when life's gay hours are past, Howe'er we range, in thee we fix at last.' Eng. Poets, xxxix. 165. Perhaps this couplet lingered in Goldsmith's ear when he wrote: |