Laurence Eusden—a Poet-Laureate Peterite

A POET-LAUREATE PETERITE.

The name of Laurence Eusden is unknown to-day to any but the most curious students of English Letters. Indeed, his fame, such as it was, scarcely survived his death, and he was quickly swept into the oblivion which Pope and other contemporary poets predicted for him. It would seem, too, that he is in some danger of being overlooked even by Peterites, who have better reason than the rest of the world to preserve his memory. For Eusden is unique in this, that he is the only poet laureate produced by St. Peter's. Perhaps, then, a few observations on this obscure versifier may be justified on the grounds that, though a poor thing, he is, at any rate, our own.

Eusden was born in 1688 at Spofforth, in Yorkshire, where his father, the Rev. Laurence Eusden, was rector. From St. Peter's he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1705, and in the following year was elected a Scholar. His career at Trinity was not undistinguished and eventually, in 1712, he became a Fellow. In those days, of course, fellowship by no means necessarily implied scholarship, but Eusden seems to have made his mark by his facility in writing Latin verses, and his first publication was a Latin version of a poem by Lord Halifax on the Battle of the Boyne. With that appreciation of the benefits of publicity and patronage which was probably his greatest asset he drew attention to his own effusion by writing an English poem in praise of Lord Halifax which was published in Steele's " Poetical Miscellany " in 1714. His master stroke, however, was made in 1718, when he wrote an ode celebrating the wedding of the Duke of Newcastle and Lady Henrietta Godolphin. Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, then only twenty-five years old, had recently combined the vast estates of the Newcastles and Pelhams and was one of the richest landowners in England. His efforts to ensure the acceptance of George I on the death of Anne had already won him the favour of the Court, and his marriage to the grand-daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough further increased his influence. In 1718 Newcastle was well on the way to the powerful pre-eminence in the Whig oligarchy which 55

dominated England for so long in the 18th century. If Eusden had wished to hitch his wagon to a star he could not have chosen one more surely in the ascendant.

His ode on the nuptials was a piece of shameless adulation. Southey in " Later English Poets " describes it as " a strain of fulsome flattery in mediocre poetry." But it earned the award of the Poet Laureateship, which the Duke of Newcastle, as Lord Chamberlain of the Household, had in his gift, and which was conveniently vacant by reason of the death of Nicholas Rowe on December 6th, 1718. Eusden thus became seventh in a moderately distinguished line since the title of Poet Laureate was first officially recognised by the grant of Letters Patent to Dryden in 1670. It is not uncommon for poets laureate to suffer from the malicious attacks of disgruntled rivals, but rarely in the history of the office can an appointment have been received with such unanimous ridicule. Led by the jaundiced muse of Pope, the poets of the day lashed Eusden unmercifully, though, if one's reading of his character is right, it is highly probable that the new laureate was easily consoled by the material fact that the office carried with it an annual emolument of £300 and a butt of Canary wine.

Later Eusden became rector of Coningsby, in Lincolnshire, where he died in 1730, being succeeded in his position as Court poet by the more illustrious Colley Cibber. Of a not insignificant output of verses (including, naturally, a number of birthday and New Year odes) nothing has received even passing commendation. His poetry is not now readily available and seems only to have survived, as curiosities, in Nichols's collection of poems. The charges of sycophancy may, indeed, be largely discounted, for in the Augustan period advancement by patronage and the jobbery of party politics was the rule rather than the exception. But with Eusden the motive of self-interest was unrelieved by any real merit. The verdict of another minor poet, Thomas Cooke (1703-56) seems justified :— by Fortune raised, By very few been read, by fewer praised."

Pope, with virulence which characterised all his comments on the Addisonian poets (to which circle Eusden appears to have belonged) 1 is bitterly satirical in the Dunciad. He wrote Eusden's epitaph thus :- "Know Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise ; He sleeps among the dull of ancient days." 56