102
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vm. AUG. 9, 1913.
The next owner was the Rev. T. R. O'fflahertie, sometime Vicar of Capel, near Dorking. An official chronicle of Mr. O'fflahertie's career would read as follows: B.A. St. John's College, Cambridge, 1842; deacon 1843; priest 1844; Vicar of Capel from 1849 till his death in 1895; but those who knew him tell me there was behind this a life worthy of record. Upon very small means he brought up thirteen children of his own, and one more whom he adopted. He was a most estimable and charitable parish priest, and in addition a zealous and deeply, read antiquary. He copied out a great part of the manorial rolls of Dorking and other MSS. in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk. He communicated, I believe, a few papers to learned societies' Transactions, but want of means prevented him from leaving any printed record of the result of long years of patient labour.
To return to Reed and his notes. On the title-page of the "Full and Authentick Account" of Duck, the author is styled "J— S— Esq., Poetry Professor for the University of Oxford"; and Reed observes: "This account is very different from that prefixed to Stephen Duck's Poems. It probably was surreptitiously obtained"; but in a later note he says:—
"Bishop Lowth told Mr. Nichols that this pamphlet was published by Mr. Spence himself, and that his name was printed with the addn. of Esq. to it merely as a Blind to mislead the Publick into the idea that it appeared without his consent."
Duck's first wife did not live to share his advancement; she died at Calne a few weeks after her husband's poems were read at Windsor. In July, 1733, Duck married Sarah Big, the Queen's housekeeper at Kew, and the bride received from her royal mistress "a purse of guineas and a fine gown." Reed records her death as happening in 1749 at Kew, "after a long illness"; but this was not the death of Sarah Big, of the date of which we are ignorant, but that of a third wife, whom Duck had married in 1744. Edward Young, author of 'Night Thoughts,' was also Vicar of Welwyn, Portland, whence he wrote to the Duchess of Portland on 16 Sept., 1744:—
"I blessed Mr. Stephen Duck yesterday with a third wife, they were pleased to come to Welwyn for that benediction. How long they will think fit to esteem such is uncertain."
This marriage is not mentioned in the 'D.N.B.,' nor in any other biography of Duck that I have seen.
Reed credits the Earl of Macclesfield, and not Lady Sundon, with the introduction of Duck to royalty. The 'D.N.B.,' by the way, has a misprint in the date of the reading of the poems to the Queen at Windsor; it should be 11 Sept., 1730, and not 1750. There is also a slip in the list of authorities at the end of the article: the reference to ' N. & Q.' should be 4 S. iv. 423, 549. and not 529 as printed. A reference to Duck not given in the 'D.N.B.' will be found in 'N. & Q.,' 1 S. x. 160, where the late H. T. Riley called attention to the points of resemblance between a poem of Duck's published in 1731, and Gray's 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton-College' published many years later. Mr. Riley suggested what is not at all improbable: that Gray saw the poem, which was published whilst he was at Eton, and, consciously or unconsciously, used and improved upon the ideas and phrases contained in Duck's poem. One thing is certain: if Gray's 'Ode' had appeared first, Duck would have been denounced as a plagiarist and imitator.
On the death of Eusden, Duck was put forward for the post of Laureate. His enemies urged his claim with assumed vehemence in order to make him the more ridiculous, and at the same time poured out a flood of bitter satire. The epigram ascribed to Swift is well known, but perhaps the following is worth quoting:—
Old Homer, tho' a Bard divine,
(If not by Fame bely'd)
Stroll'd about Greece; old Ballads sung;
A Beggar liv'd and dy'd.
Fam'd Milton too, our British Bard,
Who as divinely wrote,
Sung like an Angel, but in vain;
And dy'd not worth a Groat.
Thrice happy DUCK! a milder fate
Thy Genius does attend:
Well hast thou thresh'd thy Barns and Brains,
To make a Queen thy Friend!
O I may she still new Favours grant,
And make the Laurel thine!
Then shall we see next New-Year's Ode,
By far the last outshine.
On 19 Nov., 1730, Swift wrote to Gay:—
"But the vogue of our honest folks here is, that Duck is absolutely to succeed Eusden in the laurel, the contention being between Concanen or Theobald or some other hero of the Dunciad."
The post, as we know, went to Cibber. About the same time Pope wrote to Gay:—
"There may indeed be a wooden image or two of poetry set up, to preserve the memory that there were once bards in Britain; and, like the giants in Guildhall, show the bulk and bad taste of our ancestors. At present the poor laureat and Stephen Duck serve for this purpose; a drunken sot of a parson holds for the emblem
