Welsted was educated at Westminster School (Queen's scholar, 1703) and Trinity College, Cambridge, though he never graduated from the latter. He married the daughter of Henry Purcell. His first written poem, "Apple-pye" was published in 1713 and is reprinted here, along with his version of Longinus's On the Sublime (1716), which Swift alleged was translated from Boileau's translation. This collection contains the first appearance of Welsted's Dissertation on the English language, which contained a slighting reference to Pope's Essay on Criticism, which prompted Pope to include him prominently in The Dunciad, and he is best known today as one of the Pope dunces, though his work is being reevaluated by recent scholars. "His complimentary poems are obsequious, his translations, verse tales, and love lyrics are, at best, competent; he was massively outgunned by Pope in satire; but there is merit in his relaxed, conversational, convivial poems, such as 'The Invitation' (Free-Thinker, 124, 1719), Oikographia, and his last published work, The Summum bonum, or, Wisest Philosophy (1741), a poem in praise of simple pleasures, such as the sociable drinking of wine and spirits..." (James Sambrook in Oxford DNB). Guermont, Pamphlet Attacks on Pope, pp. 88-90.