Author: Rose, E. H.
Biography:
ROSE, Edward Hampden (b c. 1780 d 1810: Navy Chronicle)
pseudonym A Foremast Man
Born in Dublin in the late 1770s or early 1780s, Edward Hampden Rose was a provincial poet of modest talent. He claimed to be the son of a bellows-mender and to have had a meagre education, but that might be an invention. The poet articled to a Dublin attorney “of considerable practice,” so his obituarist’s belief that he had a “good education and connections” is more likely. In Oct. 1795 “in a youthful frolic” he absconded from the attorney and broke with his family to join HMS L’ Impétueux, a 74-gun man-of-war captured from the French. He served aboard L’ Impétueux until 1808 or 1809 when he was transferred to a 36-gun frigate, HMS Semiramis. He was one of thousands of British servicemen lost to disease in the ill-fated July to Dec. 1809 Walcheren Expedition. Anticipating his fate, he wrote a poem about the unhealthy conditions on the island, “To the Fleas of Walcheren.” Having contracted consumption, he was treated at the Stonehouse Navy Hospital, Plymouth, and died there, unmarried, on 21 Aug. 1810. Several of his pieces appeared in the Sun newspaper and in the Navy Chronicle under the pseudonym, “A Foremast Man.” The Plymouth poet Nicholas Toms Carrington (q.v.) took it upon himself to collect, edit, and publish Rose’s writings. Trifles, in Verse and Prose includes a “Recommendatory” preface by Eliza James (q.v.). The Monthly Review critic judged the poems “doggerel verses,” but it was an unfairly harsh assessment. Joseph Wilde (q.v.) revised, corrected, and completed Rose’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Sea-Devi l(1811, 1818). (Wilde wrote page 173 forward in volume one and all of volume two.) Eccentric, sarcastic, subversive, and unkempt, the poet repeatedly refused promotion, complained constantly about his poverty, and made enemies among the crew. He never rose higher than purser’s steward (equivalent to paymaster cadet), an inferior position. He called purser’s stewards “offspring of hell” and vividly described himself in the role: “Obedient to his betters, low he bow’d, / The humblest creature of a cringing crowd.” (Star, 22 Sep. 1810; Limerick Gazette, 2 Oct. 1810; European Magazine 58 [1810], 234; Navy Chronicle 24 [1810], 176, 264; MR, 67 [1812], 332; N&Q 3d ser., 5 [1864], 255; EN2) JC