Mr. Joseph Mitchel,

This gentleman was the son of a Stone-cutter in Scotland, and was born about the year 1684.  He received an university education while he remained in that kingdom, and having some views of improving his fortune, repaired to the metropolis.  We are not able to recover many particulars concerning this poet, who was never sufficiently eminent to excite much curiosity concerning him.  By a dissipated imprudent behaviour he rendered those, who were more intimately acquainted with him, less sollicitous to preserve the circumstances of his life, which were so little to his advantage.  We find him enjoying the favour of the earl of Stair, and Sir Robert Walpole, to whom he addresses some of his poems.  He received so many obligations from the latter, and was so warm in his interest, that he obtained the epithet of Sir Robert Walpole’s Poet, and for a great part of his life had an entire dependence on the bounty of that munificent statesman.  Mr. Mitchel, who was a slave to his pleasures, and governed by every gust of irregular appetite, had many opportunities of experiencing the dangerous folly of extravagance, and the many uneasy moments which it occasions.  Notwithstanding this, his conduct was never corrected, even when the means of doing it were in his power.  At a time when Mr. Mitchel laboured under severe necessities, by the death of his wife’s uncle several thousand pounds devolved to him, of which he had no sooner got possession, than he planned schemes of spending it, in place of discharging the many debts he had contracted.  This behaviour, as it conveyed to his creditors no high idea of his honesty, so it obliged him to be perpetually skulking, and must consequently have embittered even those hours which he falsly dedidicated to pleasure; for they who live under a perpetual dread of losing their liberty, can enjoy no great comfort even in their most careless moments.

Of the many poems which Mr. Mitchel wrote, but few succeeded to any degree, nor indeed much deserved it.  At a time when the politicians were engaged in settling the Land-Tax, and various opinions were offered concerning the ability of that branch of the commonwealth, so that a proper medium or standard might be fixed; he versified the Totness Address, much about the time of his present Majesty’s accession to the throne; in which it is humourously proposed, that the landed interest should pay twenty shillings in the pound.  This poem having a reference to a fashionable topic of conversation, was better received than most of his other pieces.

There was likewise a poem of Mr. Mitchel’s, called The Shoe-heel, which was much read on account of the low humour it contains.  He has addressed to Dr. Watts a poem on the subject of Jonah in the Whale’s Belly.  In the dedication he observes, ’That it was written for the advancement of true virtue and reformation of manners; to raise an emulation amongst our young poets to attempt divine