By Rev. Chr. Wordsworth. 317 



bishops, clergy, ladies, and gentry, among his subscribers — several 

 painters and upholster[er]s — Alex. Pope, Rob. and Horatio Walpole, 

 Dean Swift/ and the Rev. Joseph Spence, critic, and Professor of 

 Poetry at Oxford, who wrote (in 1730) tlie memoir of Duck prefixed 

 to the volume in 1738, and printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, 

 vi., 317. Vincent Bourne (Cowper's master at Westminster) 

 summed up the particulars of Duck's career in fourteen elegant 

 latin elegiac lines of encomium on his modesty and industry. 

 Stephen Duck's poems were re-published in duodecimo form 

 in 1738, with a portrait. A (so-called) " seventh " edition, 

 8vo, is dated " 1730." It has a different portrait ot the author, 

 full-length, standing in front of a barn, with an open Milton held 

 lack-a-daisically in his right hand, and 5, flail in his left. Another, 

 16mo, is dated 1753. The "4th," duodecimo, 1764. So there are 

 apparent difficulties in the bibliography. 



In the course of time Duck was ordained, and Spence procured 

 for him the Rectory of Bytleet, Surrey, in 1752. The poor man 

 subsequently became deranged, and drowned himself in the Kennet, 

 near Reading, in the spring of 1756. The poet G. Crabbe, who 

 was an apothecary's asssistant, at Trowbridge, in 1770, and rector 

 in 1814, refers to him in his Village, published in 1783. 



In 1755 he published " Cresar's Camp on St. George's Hill," in 

 imitation of Sir J. Denham's poem, " Cooper's Hill," which ap- 

 peared in 1642. Duck's letter is as follows : — 



' Swift, in his humourously imaginative poem, " On the Death of Dean 

 Swift," made this allusion. (He is fancying a country squire asking his 

 publisher, Bernard Lintot, for his works, and getting this reply) : — 



" The Dean was famous in his time, 

 And had a kind of knack at rhyme. 

 His way of writing now is past, 

 The town has got a better taste. 

 I keep no antiquated stuff : 

 But spick-and-span I have enough. 

 Pray do but give me leave to show 'em : 

 Here's Colly Cihber's, Birthday Poem. 

 This Ode you never yet have seen, 

 By Stephen Duck upon the Queen." 



