Eusden, Laurence
EUSDEN, LAURENCE (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. 11. 293-294.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
