HAMMON D. OF F Mr. HAMMOND, though he be well remembered as a man efteemed and careffed by the elegant and great, I was at first able to obtain no other memorials than fuch as are supplied by a book called Cibber's Lives of the Poets; of which I take this opportunity to testify that it was not written, nor, I believe, ever seen, by either of the Cibbers; but was the work of Robert Shiels, a native of Scotland, a man of very acute understanding, though with little fcholaftick education, who, not long after the publication of his work, died in London of a confumption. His life was virtuous, and his end was pious. Theophilus Cibber, then a prifoner for debt, imparted, as I was told, his name for ten guineas. The manuscript of Shiels is now in my poffeffion. VOL. III. M I have I have fince found that Mr. Shiels, though he was no negligent enquirer, has been misled by falfe accounts; for he relates that James Hammond, the author of the following Elegies, was the fon of a Turkey merchant, and had fome office at the prince of Wales's court, till love of a lady, whofe name was Dashwood, for a time difordered his understanding. He was unextinguishably amorous, and his mistress inexorably cruel. Of this narrative, part is true, and part false. He was the fecond fon of Anthony Hammond, a man of note among the wits, poets, and parliamentary orators in the beginning of this century, who was allied to Sir Robert Walpole by marrying his fifter. He was born about 1710, and educated at Westminfter-school; but it does not appear that he was of any university. He was equerry to the prince of Wales, and feems to have come very early into publick notice, and to have been diftinguished by thofe whose friendThip prejudiced mankind at that time in favour of the man on whom they were bestowed; for he was the companion of Cobham, Lyttelton, and Chesterfield. He is faid to have divided his life between pleafure and books; in his retirement forgetting the town, and in his gaiety lofing the ftudent. Of his literary hours all the effects are here exhibited, of which the elegies were written very early, and the Prologue not long before his death. In 1741, he was chofen into parliament for Truro in Cornwall, probably one of those who were elected by the Prince's influence; and died next year in June at Stowe, the famous feat of the lord Cobham. His mistress long outlived him, and in 1779 died unmarried. The character which her lover bequeathed her was, indeed, not likely to attract courtfhip. The Elegies were published after his death; and while the writer's name was remembered with fondness, they were read with a refolution to admire them. The recommendatory preface of the editor, who was then believed, and is now affirmed by Dr. Maty, to be the earl of Chesterfield, raised strong prejudices in their favour. But of the prefacer, whoever he was, it may be reasonably suspected that he never read the poems; for he profeffes to value them for a very high fpecies of excellence, and recommends them as the genuine effufions of the mind, which expreffes a real paffion in the language of nature. But the truth is, these ners. elegies have neither paffion, nature, nor manWhere there is fiction, there is no paffion; he that describes himself as a fhepherd, and his Neæra or Delia as a fhepherdefs, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no paffion. He that courts his miftrefs with Roman imagery deferves to lofe her; for fhe may with good reason suspect his fincerity. Hammond has few fentiments drawn from nature, and few images from modern life. He produces nothing but frigid pedantry. It would be hard to find in all his productions three ftanzas that deferve to be remembered. Like other lovers, he threatens the lady with dying; and what then shall follow ? Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corfe attend; To To footh the hovering foul be thine the care, With plaintive cries to lead the mournful band. In fable weeds the golden vafe to bear, And cull my ashes with thy trembling hand; Panchaia's odours be their coftly feast, And all the pride of Afia's fragrant year, Give them the treasures of the fartheft Eaft, And, what is ftill more precious, give thy tear, Surely no blame can fall upon the nymph who rejected a fwain of so little meaning. His verses are not rugged, but they have no fweetness; they never glide in a stream of melody. Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten fyllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell. The character of the Elegy is gentlenefs and tenuity, but this stanza has been pronounced by Dryden, whofe knowlege of English metre was not inconfiderable, to be the most magnificent of all the measures which our language affords, |