Thomas Osbert Mordaunt

Thomas Osbert Mordaunt , FRS (born January 30, 1730 in London , † February 13, 1809 ) was a British soldier and occasional poet .

Life

Little is known about his life these days. He was related to the noble line of the Earls of Peterborough - his great-uncle was Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough - and was born in early 1730 as the second child of Colonel Charles Mordaunt and his second wife Ann Scroope. With Charles Louis (1729–1808) and Henry (1732–1778) he had two brothers. His godparents were his uncles Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke (1693-1750) and Thomas Page and aunt Juliana Page. The family lived on Gerard Street in London (now the center of Chinatown there ). In his youth Thomas Osbert worked as the Page of Honor for Augusta von Hannover . It is also certain that he fought in the Seven Years War and rose to become Lieutenant General in the British Army . On April 14, 1796 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society .

The call

Mordaunt achieved lasting fame through a single - initially nameless - poem with 14 stanzas . It was the first time in the by on 12 October 1791 Oliver Goldsmith founded, a week in Edinburgh appearing literary magazine The Bee published and under the heading "A Poem, Said to be written by Major Mordaunt during the load-German War. Never before published. “In 1816 the famous Scottish writer Walter Scott took up the eleventh stanza for his novel Old Mortality , changed it slightly and introduced it to Chapter XIII of the second volume. He gave anonymous as the author .

Mordaunt's version of the eleventh stanza

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife,

Throughout the sensual world proclaim,

One crowded hour of glorious life

Is worth an age without a name.

Scott's version of the eleventh stanza

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!

To all the sensual world proclaim,

One crowded hour of glorious life

Is worth an age without a name.

Since Scott was known to publish some of his works anonymously, it was believed for over a century that the lines were written by him. Although the said issue of The Bee was found in his private library after his death , no further attention was paid to the magazine. Over the years, the stanza - called The Call for lack of a title - grew in popularity, and the last two lines in particular became one of the most cited lines in the UK to this day .

It was not until the summer of 1920 that James Rankin discovered the literary connection from Galashiels and thus brought Mordaunt into the focus of the public and the literary specialist world.

Web links

Wikisource: The Call (Mordaunt)  - Sources and full texts (English)