HAMMOND, James, known to the world by the Love-Elegies,
Hampshire. Elegies, which some years after his death, were published by the earl of Chesterfield, was the son of Anthony Hammond above-mentioned, and was preferred to a place about the person of the late prince of Wales, which he held till an unfortunate accident deprived him of his senses. The cause of this calamity was a passion he entertained for a lady, who would not return it: upon which he wrote those love-elegies which have been so much celebrated for their tenderness. The editor observes, that he composed them before he was 21 years of age: a period, says he, when fancy and imagination commonly riot at the expence of judgment and correctness. He was sincere in his love as in his friendship; and wrote to his mistress, as he spoke to his friends, nothing but the genuine sentiments of his heart. Tit-bullus seems to have been the model our author judiciously preferred to Ovid; the former writing directly from the heart to the heart, the latter too often yielding and addressing himself to the imagination. Mr Hammond died in the year 1743, at Stow, the seat of Lord Cobham, who, as well as the earl of Chesterfield, honoured him with a particular intimacy.