Thomas Tickell

The son of a clergyman, Thomas Tickell attended Queen's College Oxford (B.A. 1705, M.A. 1709, Fellow 1710-26); in 1711 he acted as Joseph Trapp's deputy as Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Tickell contributed to the Spectator and the Guardian; his rival translation of the first book of the Iliad occasioned Pope's falling-out with Addison. Tickell served as undersecretary of state under Addison and Craggs, and later in Ireland as secretary to the lords justices, where he visited and corresponded with Jonathan Swift.

TEXT RECORDS:

1707Oxford. A Poem.
1713A Poem, on the Prospect of Peace.
1713Guardian 22 [On Pastoral Poetry.]
1713Guardian 23 [On Pastoral Poetry.]
1713Guardian 28 [On Pastoral Poetry.]
1713Guardian 30 [On Pastoral Poetry.]
1713Guardian 32 [Allegorical History of Pastoral.]
1722Kensington Garden.

PUBLICATIONS:

Oxford: a poem. 1707.
A poem to his Excellency the Lord Privy-Seal on the prospect of peace. 1713.
An imitation of the prophecy of Nereus, from Horace, book I, ode XV. 1715.
The first book of Homer's Iliad. 1715.
An epistle from a lady in England to a gentleman at Avignon. 1717.
An ode occasioned by his Excellency the Earl Stanhope's voyage to France. 1718.
An ode inscribed to the Right Honourable Earl of Sunderland at Windsor. 1720.
The works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison esq. 4 vols, 1721.
Kensington Gardens. A poem. 1722.
To Sir Godfrey Kneller, at his country seat. 1722.
Lucy and Colin: a song written in imitation of William and Margaret. 1725.
Poem in praise of the horn-book, written by a gentleman in England, under a fit of the gout. 1728.
On her Majesty's re-building of the lodgings of the Black Prince and Henry V at Queen's-College, Oxford. 1733.
Poetical works. 1796.
Poetical works, ed. Thomas Park. 1807.
Poetical works, ed. F. J. Child. 1854.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Irish
Anglican

Queen's College Oxford
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts
College Fellow

secretary
diplomat
professor
poet
essayist
translator

The Spectator
The Guardian

Joseph Addison
Thomas Cooke
Rev. Abel Evans
Bezaleel Morrice
Ambrose Philips
John Philips
Sir Richard Steele
Rev. Jonathan Swift
Edward Young

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL.

Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); Robert Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1748-58); Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets (1753); Thomas Percy, Reliques (1765); Bell's Poets of Great Britain (1776-82); Samuel Johnson, Life in Works of the English Poets (1779-81); John Nichols, Select Collection of Poems (1780-82); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); Francis Godolphin Waldron, in Biographical Mirror (1795, 1798) [portrait]; Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); John Aikin, Select Works of the British Poets (1820); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Foster, Alumni Oxon (1887-91); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); John E. Butt, "Notes for a Bibliography of Thomas Tickell" Bodleian Quarterly Record 5 (1927) 299-302; R. Eustace Tickell, Thomas Tickell and the Eighteenth-Century Poets 1685-1740 (1931); R. Eustace Tickell, "Pope and Tickell" TLS (February 1935) 124; Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1939); Dobree, OHEL (1959); Michael F. Suarez, ed., Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1997) 1:214-16.

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Thomas Tickell:

1.	1711  Thomas Hearne, 1711; R. Eustace Tickell, Thomas Tickell and the Eighteenth-Century Poets (1931) 21-22.
2.	1717  Jonathan Smedley, "Cloe to Mr. Tickell, occasioned by his Avignon-Letter" 1717; Smedley, Poems on Several Occasions (1721) 81-85.
3.	1718  Anonymous, The Tickler Tickell'd: being an Epistle to the Author of the incomparable Ode, call'd, A Voyage to France, &c. (1718) 3-5.
4.	1721  Anonymous, "A Letter to Mr. Tickell, occasion'd by the Death of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison" Miscellaneous Collection of Poems, Songs, and Epigrams (1721) 192-98.
5.	1725  Thomas Cooke, in Battle of the Poets (1725) 18.
6.	1729  Thomas Cooke, in "The Battle of the Poets" Tales, Epistles, Odes, Fables (1729) 124-28.
7.	1730  Anonymous, in "A New Session of the Poets for the Year 1730" Universal Spectator (6 February 1731).
8.	1738  John Ward, "An Epistle to Mr. Tickell, desiring him to present the Petition" Gentleman's Magazine 8 (March 1738) 158.
9.	1740  Catherine Jemmat, "Inscription on the Monument of Thomas Tickel, Esq." 1740; Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1766) 172.
10.	1740  John Winstanley, "Epitaph on Thomas Tickell, Esq." 1740; Winstanley, Poems written Occasionally (1742) 13.
11.	1748  Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole, 1748; Works, ed. Gosse (1895) 2:219.
12.	1754  Michael Clancy, "For a Monument which is to be erected to Thomas Tickell at Glasnevin, Ireland" London Magazine 23 (November 1754) 518.
13.	1767  Oliver Goldsmith, in Beauties of English Poesy (1767) 2:24.
14.	1779  Vicesimus Knox, in "Minor English Poets" Essays Moral and Literary (1779) 2:277.
15.	1787  Henry Headley, in Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry (1787; 1810) 2:xxiii-iv.
16.	1794  Thomas Sanderson, in "Ode to the Genius of Cumberland" 1794; Original Poems (1800) 84, 226n.
17.	1795  Robert Anderson, in Works of the British Poets (1795) 8:402.
18.	1799  Catherine Rebecca Manners, in Review of Poetry (1799) 23.
19.	1806  John Aikin, in Letters to a Young Lady (1806) 248-49.
20.	1807  Robert Southey, in Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807) 1:381.
21.	1824  Bryan Waller Procter, in Effigies Poeticae, or, the Portraits of the British Poets (1824) 76.
22.	1831  William Wordsworth to Alexander Dyce, 23 July 1831; Letters of the Wordsworth Family, ed. Knight (1907) 3:14-15.
23.	1860  George Gilfillan, in Specimens with Memoirs of the less-known British Poets (1860) 3:29-30.
24.	1862  Thomas Arnold, in A Manual of English Literature (1862; 1885) 361-62.
25.	1880  Edmund Gosse, in The English Poets: Selections with Critical Introductions, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880) 3:154-55.
26.	1882  Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 141.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Thomas Tickell:

1.	1720  Giles Jacob, in Historical Account of the Lives and Writings of our most considerable English Poets (1720) 212.
2.	1753  Anonymous, in Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) 5:17-23.
3.	1779  Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1779-81); ed. Hill (1905) 2:304-11.
4.	1782  Isaac Reed; in Dodsley, A Collection of Poems (1782) 1:3-4n.
5.	1808  Samuel Jackson Pratt, in Cabinet of Poetry (1808) 3:182-83.
6.	1812  Alexander Chalmers, in General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17) 29:363-66.
7.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 367.
8.	1820  John Aikin, in Select Works of the British Poets (1820) 321.
9.	1832  William Clarke and Robert Shelton Mackenzie, in The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most eminent Persons who have flourished in Great Britain (1832-34) 3:523.
10.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 1:566.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1707  William Congreve:   Thomas Tickell, in Oxford, a Poem (1707) 6.
2.	1707  John Philips:   Thomas Tickell, in Oxford, a Poem, 1707; Nichols, Select Collection of Poems (1780-82) 5:42.
3.	1707  Rev. Joseph Trapp:   Thomas Tickell, in Oxford, a Poem (1707) 6.
4.	1707  Rev. Thomas Yalden:   Thomas Tickell, in Oxford, a Poem (1707) 7.
5.	1709  Joseph Addison:   Thomas Tickell, "To the Author of Rosamond, an Opera" Poetical Miscellanies: the Sixth Part (1709) 413-16.
6.	1713  Joseph Addison:   Thomas Tickell, in Prospect of Peace (1713; 1714) 26.
7.	1713  William Congreve:   Thomas Tickell, in Prospect of Peace (1713; 1714) 26.
8.	1713  Ambrose Philips:   Thomas Tickell, in Prospect of Peace (1713; 1714) 26.
9.	1713  Alexander Pope:   Thomas Tickell, in Prospect of Peace (1713; 1714) 26.
10.	1713  Matthew Prior:   Thomas Tickell, in Prospect of Peace (1713; 1714) 26.
11.	1714  Joseph Addison:   Thomas Tickell, "Commendatory Verses to the Author of Cato" 1714; Addison, Works (1909) 1:166-67.
12.	1721  Joseph Addison:   Thomas Tickell, "To the Right Honourable the Earl of Warwick, &c." Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq. (1721) 1:xvii-xxi.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(biography records)

1.	1721  Joseph Addison:   Thomas Tickell, Preface, in Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq. (1721) 1:v-xxi.