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HAMMOND.

Ο

F Mr. HAMMOND, though he

be well remembered as a man

esteemed and careffed by the elegant and

great, I was at firft able to obtain no other memorials than fuch as are fupplied by a book called Cibber's Lives of the Poets; of which I take this

opportu

nity to testify that it was not written, nor, I believe, ever feen, by cither 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 manufcript of Shiels is now in my poffeffion.

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 Dafhwood, for a time difordered his understanding. He was

unextinguishably amorous, and his mif

trefs inexorably cruel.

Of this narrative part is true, and part falfe. 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 Westminster-school; but it does not appear that he was of any univerfity. He was equerry to the prince of Wales, and feems to have come very early into publick notice, and to have been distinguished by those whofe patronage and friendship prejudiced mankind at that time in favour of thofe on

whom they were beftowed; for he was the companion of Cobham, Lyttelton, and Chesterfield. He is faid to have divided his life between pleasure 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 miftrefs long outlived him, and in 1779 died unmarried. The character which her lover bequeathed

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queathed her was, indeed, not likely to attract courtship.

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 ftrong prejudices in their favour.

But of the prefacer, whoever he was, it may be reasonably fufpected 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 exprefs a real paffion in the language of