Mr. Eusden was for some part of his life chaplain to Richard lord Willoughby de Brook: In this peaceful situation of life, one would not expect Mr. Eusden should have any enemies, either of the literary, or any other sort. But we find he has had many, amongst whom Mr. Pope is the most formidable both in power and keenness. In his Dunciad, Book I. Line 101. where he represents Dulness taking a view of her sons, he says
She saw old Pryn, in restless Daniel shine,
And Eusden eke out Blackmore's endless line.
Mr. Oldmixon likewise in his Art of Logic and Rhetoric, page 413, affirms, 'That of all the Galimatias he ever met with, none comes up to some verses of this poet, which have as much of the ridiculum and the fustian in them, as can well be jumbled together, and are of that sort of nonsense, which so perfectly confounds all ideas, that there is no distinct one left in the mind. Further he says of him, that he hath prophesy'd his own poetry shall be sweeter than Catullus, Ovid and Tibullus; but we have little hope of the accomplishment of it from what he hath lately published.' Upon which Mr. Oldmixon has not spared a reflexion, that the placing the laurel on the head of one who wrote such verses, will give posterity a very lively idea of the justice and judgment of those who bestowed it.
Mr. Oldmixon no doubt by this reflexion insinuates, that the laurel would have better become his own brows than Eusden's; but it would perhaps have been more decent for him to acquiesce in the opinion of the duke of Buckingham (Sheffield) who in his Session of the Poets thus mentions Eusden.
—In rush'd Eusden, and cry'd, who shall have it,
But I the true Laureat to whom the king gave it?
Apollo begg'd pardon, and granted his claim,
But vow'd that till then, he ne'er heard of his name.
The truth is, Mr. Eusden wrote an Epithalamium on the marriage of his grace the duke of Newcastle, to the right honourable the lady Henrietta Godolphin; which was considered as so great a compliment by the duke, that in gratitude for it, he preferred him to the laurel. Nor can I at present see how he could have made a better choice: We shall have occasion to find, as we enumerate his writings, that he was no inconsiderable versifier, and though perhaps he had not the brightest parts; yet as we hear of no moral blemish imputed to him, and as he was dignified with holy-orders, his grace acted a very generous part, in providing for a man who had conferred an obligation on him. The first rate poets were either of principles very different from the government, or thought themselves too distinguished to undergo the drudgery of an annual Ode; and in this case Eusden seems to have had as fair a claim as another, at least a better than his antagonist Oldmixon. He succeeded indeed a much greater poet than himself, the ingenious Mr. Rowe, which might perhaps draw some ridicule upon him.
Mr. Cooke, in his Battle of the Poets, speaks thus of our author.
Eusden, a laurel'd bard, by fortune rais'd
By very few was read, by fewer prais'd.
A fate which some critics are of opinion must befall the very poet himself, who is thus so ready to expose his brother.
The chief of our author's poetical writings are these,