rated. Tate took the royal and popular view of the case against the House of Commons, and wrote a poem called "The Kentish Worthies." For this he was severely assailed. In "The History of Faction," we read: "Nor had they reason to think that the court would discountenance them in such practices; for the Poet-Laureate, who is a sworn servant to the Crown, was ordered to write a poem called 'The Kentish Worthies,' which he otherwise durst not have done." Another writer tells us:[1] "And to complete the show (the liberation of the petitioners), that it might look somewhat majestic, the ballad-maker of Whitehall was ordered to compose some lines to the laud and praise of the five Kentish Worthies, which he did with like success as when he and the parson (Dr. Brady), rebelled against King David, and broke his lute, and murdered his psalms."
Tate's Laureate Odes are not more meritorious than his other official poetic offerings. The one for the year 1705 is preserved. It was performed to music before her Majesty, on the 1st of January. The grand chorus with which it concludes runs thus:
"While Anne and George their empire maintain
Of the land and the main,
And a Marlborough fights
Secure are the rights
Of Albion and Europe in Piety's reign."
Whatever envy among contemporaneous, or contempt among later writers, Tate's official eminence provoked, he had his share of eulogy as well. In some lines prefixed to his "Miscellanea Sacra," the writer thus addresses him:
"Long may the laurel nourish on your brow,
Since you so well a Laureate's duty know,
For virtue's rescue daring to engage
Against the tyrant vices of the age."
- ↑ "Account of some late designs to create a misunderstanding between the King and the people," quoted in Wilson's Life of De Foe.
