YALDEN'

HOMAS YALDEN, the sixth son of Mr. John Yalden of 1

ΤΗ

Sussex, was born in the city of Exeter in 16712. Having been educated in the grammar-school belonging to Magdalen College in Oxford, he was in 1690, at the age of nineteen 3, admitted commoner of Magdalen Hall, under the tuition of Josiah Pullen, a man whose name is still remembered in the university. He became next year one of the scholars of Magdalen College, where he was distinguished by a lucky accident. It was his turn one day to pronounce a declamation 5, and 2 Dr. Hough, the president, happening to attend, thought the

'Yalden is one of the four poets included in the Collection on Johnson's recommendation. Post, WATTS, I. 'The publishers of the English Poets have been censured for admitting Yalden. . . . His poems had never before been collected.' NICHOLS, A Select Collection of Poems, 1780, iii. 167.

In this Life Johnson follows Jacob's Poetical Register, ii. 238, and Biog. Brit. p. 4379.

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Anthony Wood is more correct in his statement of both date and place of the poet's birth. "Thomas Youlding," he writes (Ath. Oxon. iv. 601), "a younger son of John Youlding, a Page of the Presence and Groom of the Chamber to Prince Charles, afterwards a sufferer for his cause, and an exciseman in Oxford after the Restoration of King Charles II, was born in . . . Oxford on the 2nd day of January, 1669-70." The Merton College Register of Baptisms confirms this account: "C 'Jan. 16, 1669-70, Thomas, son of John Yalding, an exciseman, was baptized. Born 2nd Jan." Bloxam's Register of Magdalen College, vi. 113. It will be noticed that, including the form Yalden, the name is spelt three different ways.

3 He was a chorister of the College from 1678-89, with an interval in 1687-8, when he was ejected. He

matriculated in 1685, aged sixteen, and was elected a Demy or scholar (ante, ADDISON, 8) in 1690. Ib. p.

112.

4 'He was a great master of logic and no bad tutor, but one of the rough diamonds of the university.' Biog. Brit. p. 4379. The writer tells a coarse story of him, which, he adds, 'was preserved in my time.' In Aubrey's Brief Lives, i. 377, is a letter of Hobbes, dated Feb. 1, 1672-3, 'For my much honored freind Mr. Josias Pullen, Vice-principall of Magdalen Hall.' He was the chaplain who gave Bishop Sanderson absolution before his death, as told in Walton's Lives, 1838, p. 401. Ath. Oxon. iii. 626. 'I have the honour,' writes The Guardian in No. 2, 'to be well known to Mr. Joseph [sic] Pullen, and attribute the florid old age I now enjoy to my constant morning walks up Headington Hill in his cheerful company.' His name still lives in 'Joe Pullen's tree' at the top of the Hill, whither Gibbon and his tutor used to take their evening walks from Magdalen College. Gibbon's Memoirs, p. 61.

5 For declamations see Boswell's Johnson, i. 71; Gibbon's Memoirs, 59, 288.

PP: Hough was the President who

so boldly withstood James II and his Ecclesiastical Commissioners when

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composition too good to be the speaker's. Some time after, the doctor, finding him a little irregularly busy in the library, set him an exercise for punishment, and, that he might not be deceived by any artifice, locked the door. Yalden, as it happened, had been lately reading on the subject given, and produced with little difficulty a composition, which so pleased the president that he told him his former suspicions, and promised to favour him '.

Among his contemporaries in the college were Addison and Sacheverell, men who were in those times friends, and who both adopted Yalden to their intimacy 2. Yalden continued throughout his life to think as probably he thought at first, yet did not lose the friendship of Addison.

When Namur was taken by king William Yalden made an ode3. There was never any reign more celebrated by the poets than that of William, who had very little regard for song himself, but happened to employ ministers who pleased themselves with the praise of patronage*.

Of this ode mention is made in an humorous poem of that time, called The Oxford Laureat, in which, after many claims had been made and rejected, Yalden is represented as demanding the laurel, and as being called to his trial instead of receiving a reward.

'His crime was for being a felon in verse,

And presenting his theft to the king;

The first was a trick not uncommon or scarce,

But the last was an impudent thing:

Yet what he had stol'n was so little worth stealing,

They forgave him the damage and cost;

Had he ta'en the whole ode, as he took it piece-mealing,
They had fin'd him but ten pence at most.'

they trampled on the statutes of the
College. Macaulay's Hist. Eng. iii.
34.

For 'Hough's unsullied mitre' see Pope's Epil. Sat. ii. 240.

" This story was communicated by the author himself to an acquaintance.' Biog. Brit. p. 4379.

2 Addison matriculated two years and Sacheverell four years later than Yalden. In June 1713 is the following entry:-'Dr. Yalden et Dr. Sacheverell, beneficia adepti ecclesiastica, recessere.' Reg. of Mag. Coll. vi. 98, 112.

'Apollo smiles on Magd'len's peaceful bowers,

Perfumes the air, and paints the grot with flowers,

Where Yalden learned to gain the myrtle crown,

And every Muse was fond of Addison.'

TICKELL, Eng. Poets, xxxix. 296. For Sacheverell see ante, ADDISON,

Eng. Poets, xxxix. 105; ante, PRIOR, 58.

Ante, ADDISON, 17.

The poet whom he was charged with robbing was Congreve 1.

He wrote another poem on the death of the duke of 6 Gloucester 2.

In 1710 he became fellow of the college 3; and next year, 7 entering into orders, was presented by the society with a living in Warwickshire, consistent with his fellowship, and chosen lecturer of moral philosophy, a very honourable office *.

On the accession of queen Anne he wrote another poem 5; and 8 is said, by the author of the Biographia, to have declared himself of the party who had the honourable distinction of Highchurchmen❝.

In 1706 he was received into the family of the duke of 9 Beaufort". Next year he became doctor in divinity, and soon

I Ante, CONGREVE, 37.

'Of arms and war my Muse aspires to sing,

And strikes the lyre upon an untry'd string:

New fire informs my soul, unfelt before,

And on new wings to heights unknown I soar.'

CONGREVE, Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 139. Once more, my Muse, resume thy lyre!

Of heroes, arms, and lofty triumphs sing:

Strike, boldly strike th' unpractis'd string;

'Tis William's acts my soaring thoughts inspire,

And animate my breast with nobler

fire.' YALDEN, ib. xxxix. 105. 2 Not included in Eng. Poets. It was published in 1700. Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, ii. 312.

3 Probationer Fellow' in 1698, and 'True and Perpetual Fellow' in 1699. Vice President's Reg. Mag. Coll.

* He became Vicar of Willoughby in 1700, and Waynflete's Lecturer in 1705. It was a very honourable office' because it was much more than a College appointment. 'Waynflete's three Praelectors,' the President of Magdalen informs me, 'were to give instruction without fee to all comers, whether members of

the College or not. In 1673 Whyte's Professorship of Moral Philosophy became a perquisite of the Proctors, and continued so till 1829. It was so forgotten that it was never mentioned in the Oxford Calendar!

5 Not included in Eng. Poets.

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Biog. Brit. p. 4379. The High Churchmen had their city poet and tavern. 'Mr. Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet, of late years has kept a public-house in the City (but in a genteel way), and with his wit, humour, and good liquor has afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment; especially the High Church party, which is composed of men of his principles, and to whom he is very much obliged for their constant resort.' Poetical Register, ii. 225.

7 As Chaplain. Hearne's Collections, ed. Doble, i. 237. This was the second Duke, a young man of two-andtwenty. Swift, on March 6, 1711-12, wrote of the Brotherhood (ante, PRIOR, 45):-'The Duke of Beaufort had the confidence to propose his brotherin-law, the Earl of Danby, to be a member; but I opposed it so warmly that it was waived. Danby is not above twenty, and we will have no more boys.' Works, ii. 497.

Horace Walpole wrote in 1787:'There never was a Duke of Beaufort that made it worth knowing which Duke it was.' Letters, ix. 92.

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after resigned his fellowship and lecture; and as a token of his gratitude gave the college a picture of their founder 2.

He was made rector of Chalton and Cleanville, two adjoining towns and benefices in Hertfordshire3, and had the prebends or sinecures of Deans, Hains, and Pendles in Devonshire. He had before been chosen, in 1698*, preacher of Bridewell Hospital, upon the resignation of Dr. Atterbury.

From this time he seems to have led a quiet and inoffensive life, till the clamour was raised about Atterbury's plot 5. Every loyal eye was on the watch for abettors or partakers of the horrid conspiracy; and Dr. Yalden, having some acquaintance with the bishop, and being familiarly conversant with Kelly his secretary, fell under suspicion, and was taken into custody.

Upon his examination he was charged with a dangerous correspondence with Kelly. The correspondence he acknowledged, but maintained that it had no treasonable tendency'. His papers were seized; but nothing was found that could fix a crime upon him except two words in his pocket-book, 'thorough-paced doctrine.' This expression the imagination of his examiners had impregnated with treason, and the doctor was enjoined to explain them. Thus pressed 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 curiosity one day by hearing Daniel Burgess in the pulpit, and those words were a memorial

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'In 1708 he became D.D., and in 1713 he resigned. Reg. of Mag. Coll. vi. 114. He could not hold his preferments with his fellowship. Johnson, in his Dictionary, does not give lecture in the sense of lectureship.

2 William of Waynflete. This painting, placed over the High Table in the Hall, has no pretensions to be a correct portrait of the Founder. Tradition states that some artist was employed to pourtray a representation of an Anglo-Catholic Bishop of the 15th century.' Reg. of Mag. Coll.

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Post, POPE, 131.

Atterbury, in his defence before the House of Lords on March 22, 1723, spoke of 'Mr. Kelly, my supposed amanuensis,' and added:

That he is no stranger to me I own; but that he is in any degree intimate with me, or frequently saw me, I deny. Atterbury Corres. ed. 1783, ii. 121, 138.

7 Motte, the bookseller, describing to Swift in 1735 the examination of another bookseller about a libel, says:-'He made a confession, like poor Dr. Yalden's, of all that he knew, and more too.' Swift's Works, xviii. 320.

8' When Burgess deafens all the
listening press
[tiness.'
With peals of most seraphic emp-
GARTH, The Dispensary, iv. II.
'He knows very well that to brawl

hint of a remarkable sentence by which he warned his congregation to 'beware of thorough-paced doctrine, that doctrine which coming in at one ear passes through the head, and goes out at the other '.'

Nothing worse than this appearing in his papers and no 13 evidence arising against him, he was set at liberty 2.

It will not be supposed that a man of this character attained 14 high dignities in the church; but he still retained the friendship and frequented the conversation of a very numerous and splendid set of acquaintance. He died July 16, 1736, in the 66th year of his age3.

Of his poems many are of that irregular kind which, when he 15 formed his poetical character, was supposed to be Pindarick*. Having fixed his attention on Cowley as a model, he has attempted in some sort to rival him, and has written a Hymn to Darkness, evidently as a counter-part to Cowley's Hymn to Light'.

This hymn seems to be his best performance, and is for the 16 most part imagined with great vigour and expressed with great propriety. I will not transcribe it. The seven first stanzas are good; but the third, fourth, and seventh are the best; the eighth seems to involve a contradiction; the tenth is exquisitely beautiful; the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth are partly

out "My beloved!" and the words "grace! regeneration! sanctification! a new light! the day! ay, my beloved, the day! or rather the night! the night is coming!” and “judgment will come when we least think of it!" and so forth-He knows to be vehement is the only way to come at his audience.' SWIFT, The Tatler, No. 66.

Hearne called him 'that old Presbyterian rogue.' Remains, i. 187.

'But above all other pernicious doctrines, take heed and beware, my beloved, of the thorough-paced doctrine, that doctrine, I mean, which coming in at one ear passes straight through the head, and out at the opposite ear.' Biog. Brit. p. 4379. [Both in the Lives and Biog. Brit.' passes' is printed 'paces.']

He was taken into custody on March 26, 1723, and admitted to bail on April 12. Atterbury Corres.