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Eusden, Rector of Spalsworth, in Yorkshire, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, took orders, and became Chaplain to Lord Willoughby de Broke. He obtained the patronage of Lord Halifax by a Latin version of his Lordship's poem on the Battle of the Boyne, in 1718. By the influence of the Duke of Newcastle, then Lord Chamberlain, he was made Poet-laureate, upon the death of Rowe.
A court, at which Pope and Swift, Young and Thomson were strangers, had precisely that share of Augustan splendor which enabled such as Eusden to shine lustrously. And so Eusden shone and wrote, and in the fulness of time September, 1730 died and was buried; and his laurel others desired. The leading claimants were Richard Savage and Colley Cibber.
We would desire to be heard by our Counsel, but that we fear in their very Pleadings they would betray our Cause: Besides, we have been oppressed so many Years, that we can appear no other way, but in forma pauperis. All which considered, we hope you will be pleased to do that which to Right and Justice shall appertain. And your Petitioners, &c. Laurence Eusden, son of Dr.
"Eusden, a laurelled bard, by fortune raised, By very few was read, by fewer praised," Pope, as cavalierly, in the "Dunciad": "She saw old Prynne in restless Daniel shine, And Eusden eke out Blackmore's endless line." Jacobs, in his "Lives of the Poets," speaks of him as a multifarious writer of unreadable trash, and names but few of his productions.
In the meantime we have Ben. Ben Kirby is a year younger than Joe, and the school-fellow and rival of Jem Eusden. To be sure his abilities lie in rather a different line: Jem is a scholar, Ben is a wag: Jem is great in figures and writing, Ben in faces and mischief.
Eusden, disappointed of the Laureate's place, wrote the following verses; which were no sooner published, but the late queen sent to a bookseller for them.
The truth was, Eusden, secluding himself at his rectory among the fens of Lincolnshire, took no part in society, declined all association with the polite circles of the metropolis, thus inviting attacks, from which his talents were not respectable enough to screen him.
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