The author of the once popular 'Choice,' was born in 1667. He was the
son of the rector of Luton, in Bedfordshire, and, after attending
Queen's College, Cambridge, himself entered the Church. He became
minister of Malden, which is also situated in Bedfordshire, and there he
wrote and, in 1699, published a volume of poems, including some Pindaric
essays, in the style of Cowley and 'The Choice.' He might have risen
higher in his profession, but Dr Compton, Bishop of London, was
prejudiced against him on account of the following lines in the
'Choice:'--
'And as I near approached the verge of life,
Some kind relation (for I'd have no wife)
Should take upon him all my worldly care,
Whilst I did for a better state prepare.'
The words in the second line, coupled with a glowing description, in a
previous part of the poem, of his ideal of an 'obliging modest fair'
one, near whom he wished to live, led to the suspicion that he preferred
a mistress to a wife. In vain did he plead that he was actually a
married man. His suit for a better living made no progress, and while
dancing attendance on his patron in London he caught small-pox, and died
in 1703, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.
His Pindaric odes, &c., are feeble spasms, and need not detain us. His
'Reason' shews considerable capacity and common sense. His 'Choice'
opens up a pleasing vista, down which our quiet ancestors delighted to
look, but by which few now can be attracted. We quote a portion of what
a biographer calls a 'modest' preface, which Pomfret prefixed to his
poems:--'To please every one would be a new thing, and to write so as to
please nobody would be as new; for even Quarles and Withers have their
admirers. It is not the multitude of applauses, but the good sense of
the applauders which establishes a valuable reputation; and if a Rymer
or a Congreve say it is well, he will not be at all solicitous how great
the majority be to the contrary.' How strangely are opinions now
altered! Rymer was some time ago characterised by Macaulay as the worst
critic that ever lived, and Quarles and Withers have now many admirers,
while 'The Choice' and its ill-fated author are nearly forgotten.