Tickell, THOMAS

Tickell, THOMAS, poet, was born in 1686 at Bridekirk in Cumberland, and had his education at Queen's College, Oxford, a fellowship of which he held (without orders by dispensation) from 1710 till 1726. His complimentary verses on Rosamond (in Tonson's Sixth Miscellany, 1709) gained him the favour, his own virtues the friendship of Addison, who introduced him both into the world of letters and public life, and on becoming in 1717 Secretary of State made him his under-secretary. He held the office of secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland from about 1725 till his death, at Bath, 23d April 1740. He was skilful and timorous in occasional poetry, as in The Prospect of Peace under Queen Anne, and The Royal Progress at the arrival of George I., and he was puffed with all the partiality of affection in the Spectator. The most memorable incident in his life was his translation of the first book of the Iliad about the same time as the first part of Pope's Homer. Addison declared that the rival versions were both good, but that Tickell's was the best that ever was made. Pope believed, or professed to believe it the work of Addison himself, deliberately prepared to eclipse his version, and wrote in reply the famous satire on Atticus. But there need be no doubt that Tickell made his own translation, although Addison corrected it, as he confessed he did. Tickell's 'letter to Avignon,' says Johnson, 'stands high among party poems; it expresses contempt without coarseness, and superiority without insolence.' His longest poem is Kensington Gardens; his most popular, the ballad of Colin and Lucy; his finest, the exquisite elegy to Addison prefixed to his edition of Addison's Works (4 vols. 1721).