Thomas Yalden, the sixth son of Mr. John Yalden, of Sussex, was born in
the city of Exeter, in 1671. Having been educated in the grammar-school
belonging to Magdalen college in Oxford, he was in 1690, at the age of
nineteen, admitted commoner of Magdalen hall, under the tuition of
Josiah Pullen[38], 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; and Dr. Hough, the
president, happening to attend, thought the 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. Yalden continued, throughout his life, to think, as
probably he thought at first, yet did not forfeit the friendship of
Addison.
When Namur was taken by king William, Yalden made an ode. 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 a humorous poem of that time, called the
Oxford Laureate; 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 fined him but tenpence at most.
The poet whom he was charged with robbing was Congreve.
He wrote another poem on the death of the duke of Gloucester.
In 1700, he became fellow of the college; and next year, entering into
orders, was presented by the society with a living in Warwickshire[39],
consistent with the fellowship, and chosen lecturer of moral philosophy,
a very honourable office.
On the accession of queen Anne he wrote another poem; and is said, by
the author of the Biographia, to have declared himself of the party who
had the honourable distinction of high-churchmen.
In 1706, he was received into the family of the duke of Beaufort. Next
year he became doctor in divinity, and soon after resigned his
fellowship and lecture; and, as a token of his gratitude, gave the
college a picture of their founder.
He was made rector of Charlton and Cleanville[40], two adjoining towns
and benefices in Hertfordshire; and had the prebends, or sinecures, of
Deans, Hains, and Pendles, in Devonshire. He had before[41] been
chosen, in 1698, preacher of Bridewell Hospital, upon the resignation of
Dr. Atterbury[42].
From this time he seems to have led a quiet and inoffensive life, till
the clamour was raised about Atterbury's plot. Every loyal eye was on
the watch for abetters 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 pocketbook,
"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 pocketbook 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 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 evidence arising
against him, he was set at liberty.
It will not be supposed that a man of this character attained 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 age.
Of his poems, many are of that irregular kind, which, when he 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 counterpart to
Cowley's Hymn to Light.
This hymn seems to be his best performance, and is, for the 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 mythological, and partly
religious, and, therefore, not suitable to each other: he might better
have made the whole merely philosophical.
There are two stanzas in this poem where Yalden may be suspected, though
hardly convicted, of having consulted the Hymnus ad Umbram of Wowerus,
in the sixth stanza, which answers, in some sort, to these lines:
Illa suo præest nocturnis numine sacris--
Perque vias errare novis dat spectra figuris,
Manesque excitos medios ululare per agros
Sub noctem, et questu notos complere penatcs.
And again, at the conclusion:
Illa suo senium secludit corpore toto
Haud numerans jugi fugientia secula lapsu.
Ergo ubi postremum mundi compage soluta
Hanc rerum molem suprema absumpserit hora
Ipsa leves cineres nube amplectetur opaca,
Et prisco imperio rursus dominabitur UMBRA.
His Hymn to Light is not equal to the other. He seems to think that
there is an East absolute and positive, where the morning rises.
In the last stanza, having mentioned the sudden eruption of new-created
light, he says,
Awhile th' Almighty wond'ring stood.
He ought to have remembered that infinite knowledge can never wonder.
All wonder is the effect of novelty upon ignorance.
Of his other poems it is sufficient to say, that they deserve perusal,
though they are not always exactly polished, though the rhymes are
sometimes very ill sorted, and though his faults seem rather the
omissions of idleness than the negligences of enthusiasm.
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[Footnote 38: We need not remark to any of our readers, but to those who
are not Oxford men, that Pullen's name is now remembered in the
university, not as a tutor, but by the venerable elm tree which was the
term of his morning walks. "I have the honour to be well known to Mr.
Josiah Pullen, of our hall above-mentioned, (Magdalen hall,) and
attribute the florid old age I now enjoy to my constant morning walks up
Headington lull, in his cheerful company." Guardian, No. 2. ED.]
[Footnote 39: The vicarage of Willoughby, which he resigned in 1708. N.]
[Footnote 40: This preferment was given him by the duke of Beaufort. N.]
[Footnote 41: Not long after.]
[Footnote 42: Dr. Atterbury retained the office of preacher at Bridewell
till his promotion to the bishoprick of Rochester. Dr. Yalden succeeded
him as preacher, in June, 1713. N.]