FOOTNOTE: 
[1] Crawford’s Peerage of Scotland.

* * * * *

DR. JOSEPH TRAPP

This poet was second son to the rev.  Mr. Joseph Trapp, rector of Cherington in Gloucestershire, at which place he was born, anno 1679.  He received the first rudiments of learning from his father, who instructed him in the languages, and superintended his domestic education.  When he was ready for the university he was sent to Oxford, and was many years scholar and fellow of Wadham College, where he took the degree of master of arts.  In the year 1708 he was unanimously chosen professor of poetry, being the first of that kind.  This institution was founded by Dr. Henry Birkhead, formerly fellow of All-Souls, and the place of lecturer can be held only for ten years.

Dr. Trapp was, in the early part of his life, chaplain to lord Bolingbroke, the father of the famous Bolingbroke, lately deceased.  The highest preferment Dr. Trapp ever had in the church, though he was a man of extensive learning, was, the rectory of Harlington, Middlesex, and of the united parishes of Christ-Church, Newgate Street, and St. Leonard’s Foster-Lane, with the lectureship of St. Lawrence Jewry, and St. Martin’s in the Fields.  The Dr’s principles were not of that cast, by which promotion could be expected.  He was attached to the High-Church interest, and as his temper was not sufficiently pliant to yield to the prevalence of party, perhaps for that very reason, his rising in the church was retarded.  A gentleman of learning and genius, when paying a visit to the Dr. took occasion to lament, as there had been lately some considerable alterations made, and men less qualified than he, raised to the mitre, that distinctions should be conferred with so little regard to merit, and wondered that he (the Dr.) had never been promoted to a see.  To this the Dr. replied, ’I am thought to have some learning, and some honesty, and these are but indifferent qualifications to enable a man to rise in the church.’

Dr. Trapp’s action in the pulpit has been censured by many, as participating too much of the theatrical manner, and having more the air of an itinerant enthusiast, than a grave ecclesiastic.  Perhaps it may be true, that his pulpit gesticulations were too violent, yet they bore strong expressions of sincerity, and the side on which he erred, was the most favourable to the audience; as the extreme of over-acting any part, is not half so intolerable as a languid indifference, whether what the preacher is then uttering, is true or false, is worth attention or no.  The Dr. being once in company with a person, whose profession was that of a player, took occasion to ask him, ’what was the reason that an actor seemed to feel his part with so much sincerity, and utter it with so much emphasis and spirit, while a preacher, whose profession is of a higher nature, and whose doctrines are of