And, lastly, Pope rendered the ridicule still more familiar and permanent, by affirming of the Goddess of Dulness, that

She saw old Pryn in restless Daniel shine,

And Eusden eke out Blackmore's endless line.*

It is not known what could have induced, the irritable bard of Twickenham to enroll our hapless Laureat among the Dunces. He had never abused or offended him; and his talents, though not brilliant, were certainly above contempt. It would appear, however, that the title he was decorated with, was considered by the wits as lawful game, especially if it were not supported by the efforts of genius. That our author's immediate successor, a man certainly of wit and humour, if no great poet, experienced similar treatment, the following epigram will abundantly prove :

In merry Old England it once was a rule,
The King had his poet and also his fool:

But now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it,
That Cibber can serve both for fool and for poet.

1

There is much reason to suppose, that the ludicrous ideas, so generally associated with this poetical dignity, arose from Shadwell's promotion to the Laurel on the dethronement of Dry

• Dunciad, book i. lines 103 and 104.

den at the revolution. Shadwell was a man of worth and integrity, but of no poetical ability; and Dryden, full of resentment at the indignity which he had suffered, took an unjustifiable pleasure in rendering his successor an object of derision. His efforts were but too successful; nor was Tate, the next possessor of the office, in any respect calculated to retrieve the honours due to

his situation. Rowe indeed for a time conferred respectability on the Laureatship; but Eusden, Cibber, and Whitehead, who successively wore the bays, were little more than nominally poets. It should be recollected, however, that the majority of those who have filled this Parnassian throne, from the commencement of the seventeenth century to the present period, has consisted of men of great and acknowledged poetic powers. This will immediately appear from the series, if we assist the eye by a distinction in the type. Johnson, Davenant, Dryden, Shadwell, Tate, Rowe, Eusden, Cibber, Whitehead, Warton, and Pye.

Of Eusden little further is known, than that he continued to perform his official duty for about twelve years; and that, during the above period, he translated, but never published, the Jerusalemme Liberata of Tasso. Toward the close of his life he became addicted to the pernicious

1

habit of intoxication; his health and mental faculties were soon irretrievably injured by the practice; and he expired on the 27th of September, 1730, in his rectory at Conningsby, in Lincolnshire.

That several compositions by our author were admitted into the Spectator, is clear from the acknowledgment of Steele in N° 555 which closes the seventh volume. Only two letters, however, have been hitherto pointed out by the annotators; one in N° 54, descriptive of the University Loungers, and one in N° 87 on Idols; not much importance can be attached to either of them; and it is, therefore, probable, that by far the greater part of the Laureat's contributions to this paper remains unknown.

In the Guardian three communications are attributed to him; the first is a letter in N°124, under the title of More Roarings of the Lion, and which possesses a considerable portion of Addisonian humour; the second consists of a version of The Court of Venus, from Claudian, in N° 127; and the third occupies N° 164, which contains likewise a translation from the same poet of The Speech of Pluto to Proserpine.

Though the whole of N° 164 has been ascribed

A few poems by Eusden may be found in Nichols's Select Collection.

to Mr. Eusden, it would seem, from the nature of the prefatory matter, which terminates with a high compliment to the translator, that it must have been the production of another hand. Were we to acquiesce in the common attribution, the modesty of Mr. Eusden would appear indeed to be of a very peculiar kind. The versions of Claudian are tolerably faithful; the diction is occasionally happy, and the versification is, in general, correct.

16. HENRY MARTYN. Of this gentleman the only account extant is in Ward's Lives of the Professors of Gresham College. He was, according to his biographer, the eldest son "of Edward Martyn of Upham, in the parish of Alborn, in Wiltshire, Esq. and Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. William Eyre, master of arts of Magdalen-hall in Oxford, and sometime minister of St. Edmund's church in Salisbury; but silenced, in 1662, for nonconformity. He afterwards retired to Milksham, in Wilts, where he had purchased an estate, and died there in the month of January, 1669.Mr. Martyn had by his wife four sons, Heury, Edward, (afterwards Professor of Rhetoric in Gresham College) Richard, and William; as also two daughters, whose names were Mary and Elizabeth.

Henry was bred to the bar, and was both an excellent scholar and an able lawyer; but his infirm state of health would not permit him to attend the courts. He was the author of many of those ingenious papers which in the years 1711 and 1712 were published weekly in the SPECTATOR, and by their agreeable mixture of the utile dulci afforded no less instruction than entertainment to the public. And the high opinion which the editor, Mr. Steele, afterwards Sir Richard, had of his abilities, is evident, from the particular compliment he pays him among his other correspondents, when he gives us their names. The first,' says he, 'I am going to name can hardly be mentioned in a list, wherein he would not deserve the precedence;'* and then he begins with Mr. Henry Martyn. In 1713, when the greatest endeavours were used to get the treaty of commerce, which had been made with France at the peace of Utrecht, rati fied by parliament, he was principally concerned in writing the paper against it, called the British Merchant, or Commerce Preserved; in answer to the Mercator, or Commerce Retrieved, published in its favour by Daniel De Foe. As the rejecting that treaty, so destructive to the, British trade, was very much owing to the success of this paper,

• Spectator, vol. vii. No. 555.