# The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland/Volume 4/The Revd. Mr. Lawrence Eusden

The Revd. Mr. Lawrence Euſden.
This gentleman was deſcended from a very good family in the kingdom of Ireland, but received his education at Trinity-college in Cambridge. He was honoured with the encouragement of that eminent patron of the poets the earl of Halifax, to whom he conſecrated the firſt product of his Muſe. He enjoyed likewiſe the patronage of the duke of Newcaſtle, who being lord chamberlain, at the death of Mr. Rowe, preferred him to the Bays.
Mr. Euſden was for ſome part of his life chaplain to Richard lord Willoughby de Brook: In this peaceful ſituation of life, one would not expect Mr. Euſden ſhould have any enemies, either of the literary, or any other ſort. But we find he has had many, amongſt whom Mr. Pope is the moſt ​formidable both in power and keenneſs. In his Dunciad, Book I. Line 101. where he repreſents Dulneſs taking a view of her ſons, he ſays
She ſaw old Pryn, in reſtleſs Daniel ſhine, And Euſden eke out Blackmore’s endleſs line.
Mr. Oldmixon likewiſe in his Art of Logic and Rhetoric, page 413, affirms, ‘That of all the Galimatias he ever met with, none comes up to ſome verſes of this poet, which have as much of the ridiculum and the fuſtian in them, as can well be jumbled together, and are of that ſort of nonſenſe, which ſo perfectly confounds all ideas, that there is no diſtinct one left in the mind. Further he ſays of him, that he hath propheſy’d his own poetry ſhall be ſweeter than Catullus, Ovid and Tibullus; but we have little hope of the accompliſhment of it from what he hath lately publiſhed.’ Upon which Mr. Oldmixon has not ſpared a reflexion, that the placing the laurel on the head of one who wrote ſuch verſes, will give poſterity a very lively idea of the juſtice and judgment of thoſe who bellowed it.
Mr. Oldmixon no doubt by this reflexion inſinuates, that the laurel would have better become his own brows than Euſden’s; but it would perhaps have been more decent for him to acquieſce in the opinion of the duke of Buckingham (Sheffield) who in his Seſſion of the Poets thus mentions Euſden.
—In ruſh’d Euſden, and cry’d, who ſhall have it, But I the true Laureat to whom the king gave it? Apollo begg’d pardon, and granted his claim, But vow’d that till then, he ne’er heard of his name.
Mr. Cooke, in his Battle of the Poets, ſpeaks thus of our author.
Euſden, a laurel’d bard, by fortune rais’d By very few was read, by fewer prais’d.
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 the duke of Marlborough’s victory at Oudenard.
A Letter to Mr. Addiſon.
On the king’s acceſſion to the throne.
To the reverend doctor Bentley, on the opening of Trinity-College Chapel, Cambridge.
On a Lady, who is the moſt beautiful and witty when ſhe is angry.
This poem begins with theſe lines.
Long had I known the ſoft, inchanting wiles, Which Cupid practiſed in Aurelia’s ſmiles. ’Till by degrees, like the fam’d Aſian taught, Safely I drank the ſweet, tho’ pois’nous draught. Love vex’d to ſee his favours vainly ſhown, The peeviſh Urchin murthered with a frown.
Verſes at the laſt public commencement at Cambridge, ſpoken by the author.
The Court of Venus, from Claudian.
The Speech of Pluto to Proſerpine.
Hero and Leander, tranſlated from the Greek of Muſæus.
This Piece begins thus,
Sing Muſe, the conſcious torch, whoſe mighty flame, (The ſhining ſignal of a brighter dame) Thro’ trackleſs waves, the bold Leander led, To taſte the dangerous joys of Hero’s bed: Sing the ſtol’n bliſs, in gloomy ſhades conceal’d, And never to the bluſhing morn reveal’d.
A Poem on the Marriage of his grace the duke of Newcaſtle to the right honourable Henrietta Godolphin, which procured him, as we have obſerved already, the place of laureat.
​The lord Roſcommon’s Eſſay on tranſlated verſe, rendered into Latin.
An Epiſtle to Sir Robert Walpole.
Three Poems; I. On the death of the late king; II. On the Acceſſion of his preſent majeſty. III. On the Queen.
On the arrival of Prince Frederic.
The origin of the Knights of the Bath, inſcribed to the Duke of Cumberland.
An Ode for the Birth-Day, in Latin and Engliſh, printed at Cambridge.
He died at his rectory at Coneſby in Lincolnſhire, the 27th of September, 1730.