Denham.
Which Mr. Pope has thus parodied;
Flow Welsted, flow; like thine inspirer, beer,
Tho' stale, not ripe; tho' thin, yet never clear;
So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull;
Heady, not strong; and foaming, tho' not full.
How far Mr. Pope's insinuation is true, that Mr. Welsted owed his inspiration to beer, they who read his works may determine for themselves. Poets who write satire often strain hard for ridiculous circumstances, in order to expose their antagonists, and it will be no violence to truth to say, that in search of ridicule, candour is frequently lost.
In the year 1726 Mr. Welsted brought upon the stage a comedy called The Dissembled Wantons or My Son get Money. He met with the patronage of the duke of Newcastle, who was a great encourager of polite learning; and we find that our author had a very competent place in the Ordnance-Office.
His poetical works are chiefly these,
The Duke of Marlborough's Arrival, a Poem printed in fol. 1709, inscribed to the Right Hon the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex.
A Poem to the Memory of Mr. Philips, inscribed to Lord Bolingbroke, printed in fol. 1710.
A Discourse to the Right Hon. Sir Robert Walpole; to which is annexed Proposals for Translating the whole Works of Horace, with a Specimen of the Performance, viz. Lib. Ist. Ode 1, 3, 5 and 22, printed in 4to. 1727.
An Ode to the Hon. Major General Wade, on Occasion of his disarming the Highlands, imitated from Horace.