Thomas Yalden

Thomas Yalden (2 January 1670 – 16 July 1736) was an English poet and translator. Educated at Magdalen College, Yalden entered the Church of England, in which he obtained various preferments. His poems include A Hymn to Darkness, Pindaric Odes, and translations from the classics.

Yalden was born in 1670 in the city of Oxford,and was the sixth son of Mr. John Yalden of Sussex. Having been educated in the grammar-school belonging to Magdalen College there, he was in 1690, at the age of nineteen, admitted commoner of Magdalen Hall, under the tuition of Josiah Pullen. The next year, he became one of the scholars of Magdalen College, where he was distinguished by a lucky accident.

It was his turn one day to pronounce a declamation, and Dr. John Hough, the president, happening to attend, thought the composition too good to be the speaker's. Some time after, the doctor, finding him a little irregularly busy in the library, gave him a writing exercise for punishment, and, that he might not be deceived by any artifice, locked the door. Yalden, as it happened, had been lately reading on the subject given, and produced with little difficulty a composition, which so pleased the president that he told him his former suspicions, and promised to favour him.

Among his contemporaries in the college were Joseph Addison and Henry Sacheverell, men who were in those times friends, and who both adopted Yalden to their intimacy. Yalden continued throughout his life to think as probably he thought at first, yet did not lose the friendship of Addison.

When Namur was taken by William III of England, Yalden created an ode. There was never any reign more celebrated by the poets than that of William, who had very little regard for song himself, but happened to employ ministers who pleased themselves with the praise of patronage.

Of this ode mention is made in a humorous poem of that time, called "The Oxford Laureat", in which, after many claims had been made and rejected, Yalden is represented as demanding the laurel, and as being called to his trial instead of receiving a reward. 'His crime was for being a felon in verse, And presenting his theft to the king; The first was a trick not uncommon or scarce, But the last was an impudent thing: Yet what he had stol'n was so little worth stealing, They forgave him the damage and cost; Had he ta'en the whole ode, as he took it piece-mealing, They had fin'd him but ten pence at most.' The poet whom he was charged with robbing was William Congreve.

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