Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/205

Rh The truth is, Mr. Euſden wrote an Epithalamium on the marriage of his grace the duke of Newcaſtle, to the right honourable the lady Henrietta Godolphin; which was conſidered as ſo great a compliment by the duke, that in gratitude for it, he preferred him to the laurel. Nor can I at preſent ſee how he could have made a better choice: We ſhall have occaſion to find, as we enumerate his writings, that he was no inconſiderable verſifier, and though perhaps he had not the brighteſt parts; yet as we hear of no moral blemiſh imputed to him, and as he was dignified with holy-orders, his grace acted a very generous part, in providing for a man who had conferred an obligation on him. The firſt rate poets were either of principles very different from the government, or thought themſelves too diſtinguifhed to undergo the drudgery of an annual Ode; and in this caſe Euſden ſeems to have had as fair a claim as another, at leaſt a better than his antagoniſt Oldmixon. He ſucceeded indeed a much greater poet than himſelf, the ingenious Mr. Rowe, which might perhaps draw ſome ridicule upon him.

Mr. Cooke, in his Battle of the Poets, ſpeaks thus of our author.

A fate which ſome critics are of opinion muſt befall the very poet himſelf, who is thus ſo ready to expoſe his brother.

The chief of our author’s poetical writings are theſe,

To the lord Hallifax, occaſioned by the tranſlating into Latin his lordſhip’s Poem on the Battle of the Boyne. On