LAURENCE

EUSDEN (1688-1730)  , English poet, son of the Rev . Laurence Eusden, rector of Spofforth, Yorkshire, was baptized on the 6th of September 1688 . He was educated at St Peter's school, York, and at Trinity College, Cambridge . He became a minor fellow of his college in 1711, and in the next year was admitted to a full fellowship: He was made poet laureate in 1718 by the lord chancellor, the duke of Newcastle, as a reward for a flattering poem on his marriage . He was rector of Coningsby, Lincolnshire, where he died on the 27th of September 1730 . His name is less remembered by his translations and gratulatory poems than by the numerous satirical allusions of Pope, e.g . " Know, Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise; He sleeps among the dull of ancient days." Dunciad, bk. i . II . 293-294 .