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mind, at least, that proceeds from being reasona-| doch is in town, tutor to Admiral Vernon's son, ble and moderate in our desires, as you. These and is in good hope of another living in Suffolk, are the treasures dug from an inexhaustible mine that country of tranquillity, where he will then in our own breasts, which, like those in the king- burrow himself in a wife and be happy. Gooddom of heaven, the rust of time can not corrupt, natured, obliging Miller, is as usual. Though the nor thieves break through and steal. I must learn Doctor* increases in business he does not decrease to work this mine a little more, being struck off in spleen, that is both humane and agreeable, like from a certain hundred pounds a year which you Jacques in the play; I sometimes, too, have a touch know I had. West, Mallet, and I, were all rout-of it. ed in one day; if you would know why-out of "But I must break off this chat with you about resentment to our friend in Argyll-street. Yet I your friends, which, were I to indulge in, would have hopes given me of having it restored with be endless. As for politics, we are, I believe, on interest some time or other. Oh, that some time the brink of a peace. The French are vapouring or other is a great deceiver. at present in the siege of Maestricht, at the same "Coriolanus has not yet appeared on the stage, time they are mortally sick in their marine, and from the little, dirty jealousy of Tullus* towards through all the vitals of France. It is a pity we him who alone can act Coriolanus. Indeed, the can not continue the war a little longer, and put first has entirely jockeyed the last off the stage, for their agonizing trade quite to death. This siege, this season, like a giant in his wrath. Let us I take it, they mean as their last flourish in the have a little more patience, Paterson; nay, let us war. be cheerful; at last all will be well, at least all will be over, here I mean: God forbid it should be so hereafter! But, as sure as there is a God, that will not be so.

"May your health, which never failed you yet, still continue, till you have scraped together enough to return home and live in some snug corner, as happy as the corycium senex, in Virgil's fourth Georgic, whom I recommend both to you and myself as a perfect model of the honest happy life. Believe me to be ever,

Most sincerely and affectionately yours,
JAMES THOMSON."

"Now that I am prating of myself, know that, after fourteen or fifteen years, the Castle of Indolence comes abroad in a fortnight. It will certainly travel as far as Barbadoes. You have an apartment in it as a night pensioner; which, you may remember, I filled up for you during our delightful party at North End. Will ever these days return This communication discloses the reason of again? Do not you remember eating the raw fish" Coriolanus" being delayed, and the same or some that were never caught? All our friends are pret-other cause continuing to prevent its appearance, ty much in statu quo, except it be poor Mr. Lyttel- its author was destined never to witness its recepton. He has had the severest trial a human ten-tion.

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der heart can have; but the old physician, Time, It was Thomson's habit to walk from his resiwill at last close up his wounds, though there must dence in Kew Lane, near Richmond, whenever always remain an inward smarting. Mitchells is the weather rendered going by water ineligible. In in the house for Aberdeenshire, and has spoke one of these journeys from London, he found himmodestly well; I hope he will be something else self, on reaching Hammersmith, tired and oversoon; none deserves better: true friendship and heated, and he imprudently took a boat to convey humanity dwell in his heart. Gray is working him to Kew. The walk from the landing place hard to pass his accounts; I spoke to him about to his house did not remove the chill which the air that affair. If he gave you any trouble about it, on the water produced, and the next day he found even that of dunning, I shall think strangely, but himself in a high fever, a state which his pletho I dare say he is too friendly to his old friends, and ric habit rendered alarming. His disorder yieldyou are among the oldest. ed, however, to care and medicine, and he was soon "Symmer is at last tired of gaiety, and is going out of danger; but being tempted by a fine eveto take semi-country house at Hammersmith. Ining to expose himself to the dew before he was am sorry that honest, sensible Warrender, who is perfectly restored, a relapse took place, and he was in town, seems to be stunted in church preferment. speedily beyond the powers of human aid. The He ought to be a tall cedar in the house of the moment his situation became known in town, his Lord. If he is not so at last it will add more fuel friends, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Reid, and Dr. Armto my indignation, that burns already too intense-strong hastened to him at midnight; but their prely, and throbs towards an eruption. Patrick Mur-sence availed nothing, and they had only the me

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lancholy satisfaction of witnessing his last mo ments. He expired on the 27th of August, 1748,

• Dr. Armstrong.

having within a few days completed his forty-eighth | Somerset, requested him to allow Dodsley to add year. Of his death-bed no particulars are record- to his collection his poem called "Damon's Bower," ed. Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Lyttelton charged them- addressed to William Lyttelton, Esq., and offered selves with the care of his effects; and on the 25th to lend him a copy in case he had lost the original. of October, 1748, letters of administration were These passages prove her grace's respect for his granted to them as attorneys of Mary Craig, of memory, and render Johnson's remark, that he Edinburgh, formerly Thomson, wife of William had displeased her, unlikely. Shenstone speaks Craig, his sister, and next of kin, for her use. feelingly of Thomson's death in a letter written on the 3d of September following:

As

It was the next object of these generous friends to bring Thomson's posthumous tragedy before "Poor Mr. Thomson, Mr. Pitt tells me, is dead. the public, and in 1749, "Coriolanus" was acted He was to have been at Hagley this week, and for the benefit of his relations. The Prologue, then I should probably have seen him here. which was written by Mr. Lyttelton, and was it is I will erect an urn in Virgil's Grove to his spoken by Quin, is peculiarly entitled to notice memory. I was really as much shocked to hear from the affecting manner in which the writer of his death, as if I had known and loved him speaks of the author:

"I come not here your candour to implore
For scenes, whose author is, alas! no more;
He wants no advocate his cause to plead;
You will yourselves be patrons of the dead.
No party his benevolence confin'd,
No sect-alike it flow'd to all mankind.
He loved his friends, forgive this gushing tear;
Alas! I feel I am no actor here,

He loved his friends with such a warmth of heart,
So clear of interest, so devoid of art,

Such generous friendship, such unshaken zeal,
No words can speak it, but our tears may tell.
Oh candid truth, O faith without a stain,
Oh manners gently firm, and nobly plain,
Oh sympathizing love of others' bliss,
Where will you find another breast like his ?
Such was the Man--the Poet well you know
Oft has he touch'd your hearts with tender woe:
Oft in this crowded house, with just applause
You heard him teach fair Virtue's purest laws;
For his chaste Muse employ'd her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire,

Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line, which dying he could wish to blot.
Oh, may to-night your favourable doom
Another laurel add to grace his tomb:
Whilst he, superior now to praise or blame,
Hears not the feeble voice of human fame.
Yet if to those, whom most on earth he loved,
From whorn his pious care is now removed,
With whom his liberal hand, and bounteous heart,
Shared all his little fortune could impart;
If to those friends your kind regard shall give
What they no longer can from his receive,
That, that, even now, above yon starry pole,
May touch with pleasure his immortal soul."

Truly was the speaker made to say he was no actor on that occasion, and the feeling which he evinced, in reciting these verses, gave increased effect to their touching eloquence.

for a number of years. God knows I lean on a very few friends, and if they drop me, I become a wretched misanthrope."

The author of The Seasons is thus alluded to in the poem mentioned by the Duchess of Somerset:

"Though Thomson, sweet descriptive bard! Inspiring Autumn sung;

Yet how should we the months regard
That stopp'd his flowing tongue ?

"Ah! luckless months, of all the rest,
To whose hard share it fell!
For sure he was the gentlest breast
That ever sung so well.

"He! he is gone, whose moral strain
Could wit and mirth refine:
He! he is gone, whose social vein
Surpass'd the power of wine.

"Fast by the streams he deign'd to praise

In yon sequester'd grove,

To him a votive urn I raise,

To him and friendly Love.

"Yes, there, my Friend! forlorn and sad,

I grave your Thomson's name,

And there his lyre, which Fate forbade

To sound your growing fame.

There shall my plaintive song recount

Dark themes of hopeless woe,

And faster than the dropping fount

I'll teach my eyes to flow.

"There leaves, in spite of Autumn green,

Shall shade the hallow'd ground,

And Spring will there again be seen

To call forth flowers around.
"But no kind suns will bid me share,
Once more, his social hour;
Ah! Spring! thou never canst repair
This loss to Damon's bower."

Within a few months of his death, his old pa- Thomson's funeral was attended by Quin, Maltroness, the Countess of Hertford, stated in a let-let, Mr. Robertson, the brother-in-law of his ter to Lady Luxborough, that Shenstone had Amanda, and another friend, probably either Mr. shown her his poem on Autumn, and the honour Lyttelton or Mr. Mitchell. He was buried in he had done Thomson's memory in it; adding Richmond Church, under a plain stone without that he told her he purposed erecting an urn to any inscription, and his works formed the only him in Virgil's Grove. In a letter to Shenstone monument to his memory until the erection of the in November, 1753, that lady, then Duchess of one in Westminster Abbey, which was opened to

so well known and so often discussed. He was the Poet of Nature, and his chief merit consisted in describing her, and the pleasure afforded by a contemplation of her infinite and glorious varieties. Studying her deeply, his mind acquired that placidity of thought and feeling which an abstraction from public life is sure to generate. She was to him, as he has himself said, a source of happiness of which fortune could not deprive him;

public view on the 10th of May, 1762, the expense In the whole range of British poetry Thomson's of which was defrayed by an edition of his works" Seasons" are, perhaps, the earliest read, and printed in that year in two quarto volumes, and most generally admired; hence it is not necessary published by subscription. It is situated between to say much on the peculiar character of a genius those of Shakspeare and Rowe, and presents a figure of Thomson sitting, leaning his left arm upon a pedestal, and holding a book with the cap of liberty in his right hand. Upon the pedestal is carved a bas-relief of "The Seasons," to which a boy points, offering him a laurel crown as the reward of his genius." At the feet of the figure is a magic mask and ancient harp. The whole is sup ported by a projecting pedestal; and on a pannel is inscribed his name, age, and the date of his death, with the lines which are inserted at the commencement of this Memoir, taken from his Summer. The monument was designed by Adam, and executed by Michael and Henry Spang.

Lord Buchan afterwards placed a small brass tablet in Richmond Church with the following inscription:

In the earth, below this tablet,
are the remains of
JAMES THOMSON,

author of the beautiful poems, entituled, "The Seasons," the "Castle of Indolence," who died at Richmond

on the 27th of August,

and was buried

"on the 29th O. S. 1748.
The Earl of Buchan,
unwilling that

so good a man, and sweet a poet,
should be without a memorial,
has denoted the place of his interment,
for the satisfaction of his admirers,
in the year of our Lord,

M.DCC.XCII.

"I care not, fortune, what you me deny;
You can not rob me of free nature's grace;
You can not shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You can not bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream at eve:
Let health my nerves, and finer fibres leave;
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave."

His pictures of scenery and of rural life are the productions of a master, and render him the Claude of poets. The Seasons are the first book from which we are taught to worship the goddess to whose service the bard of Ednam devoted himself, and who is there that has reflected on the magni

nia," Poem to Newton, the Hymn, and an Essay on Descriptive Poetry, for 1057. On the 16th of June, 1738, Andrew Millar purchased these Poems of John Millan at the original price. On the 13th of June, 1769, Andrew Millar's executors sold the copyright of the whole by Auction to fifteen London booksellers, for the sum of 505. Soon after Davis, the Bookseller, sold half his twelfth, for the shares were unequal, to Becket and Dehondt, not of the original list of purchasers, for 21. being the price he had paid for that proportion.

It is a curious fact that this was a close sale; and Alexander

Beneath this inscription, his lordship added this Donaldson, the Edinburgh Bookseller, who wished to attend beautiful passage from Winter,

"Father of Light and life! thou Good Supreme!
O teach me what is good! teach me thyself!

Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit! and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred, substantial, never fading bliss!"

was not admitted. He then published a copy of "The Seasons" at Edinburgh, stated in the title to be printed in 1768, the sale of which was said, however, to have begun before the auction of the copyright took place.

A singular anecdote was related in the Edinburgh Star, dated from Logan House, G. D. October, 1821, and signed "An Old Shepherd," which tends to fix the authorship of

The Gentle Shepherd," attributed to Allan Ramsay on Thomson. To what degree of credit it is entitled is left to the reader to determine. The following is the statement on the subject which was copied into the Gentleman's Magazine, voh xci. part ii. p. 351.

By the sale of an edition of his works, undertaken for the purpose of aiding his relations, and the profits of his last Tragedy, a sufficient sum was "About thirty years ago, there was a respectable old man, raised to liquidate all his debts and to leave a hand-of the name of John Steel, who was well acquainted with some residue.*

Allan Ramsay; and he told John Steel himself, that when Mr. Thomson, the author of "The Seasons," was in his shop * A correspondent in the European Magazine, for 1819, has at Edinburgh, getting himself shaven, Ramsay was repeating afforded very satisfactory information about the sums which some of his poems. Mr. Thomson says to him, 'I have someThomson obtained for several of his works, and of the dates thing to emit to the world, but I do not wish to father it' of the agreements respecting them, derived from an appeal Ramsay asked what he would give him, and he would father against a decision of the Court of Chancery, many years it. Mr. Thomson replied, all the profit that arose from the since, on a question of literary property.

publication. A bargain be it,' said Ramsay. Mr. Thomson It appears Thomson sold Sophonisba, a Tragedy, and delivered him the manuscript. So, from what is said above, Spring, a Poem, to Andrew Millar, 16th January, 1729, for Mr. Thomson, the author of "The Seasons,' is the author of 1371. 10s. On the 28th of July, in the same year, he sold to The Gentle Shepherd,' and Allan Ramsay is the father of it. John Millan, "Summer," "Winter." "Autumn," "Britan- This, I believe, is the truth."

ficence of an extended landscape, viewed the sunrated in words glowing with the fervor of inspiraas he emerges from the horizon, or witnessed the ration. Whilst he pursues the thread of his tale, setting of that glorious orb when he leaves the we are reminded of the Poet alone, and though we world to reflection and repose, and does not feel his descriptions rush upon the mind, and heighten his enjoyment?

"I solitary court

The inspiring breeze, and meditate the book
Of Nature, ever open; aiming thence,
Warm from the heart to pour the moral song;"

may admire his skill, it is only when he breaks upon us in some spontaneous burst of passion that we sympathise with the man, and are excited to It has been said that the style of that work is kindred enthusiasm. pompous, and that it contains many faults. The To the power of painting scenery, and delinearemark is partially true. His style is, in some ting the softer and more pleasing traits of characplaces, monotonous, from its unvaried elevation; ter, Thomson's genius seems to have been confined. but to him Nature was a subject of the profoundest Truly has he said of himself, reverence, and he, doubtless, considered that she ought to be spoken of with solemnity; though it is evident from one of his verses, which is often cited, that he was aware simplicity is the most becoming garb of majesty and beauty. Another objection to The Seasons is, that they contain fre- but he was incapable of describing the heart when quent digressions, and, notwithstanding that it is assailed by boisterous passions, and his representamade by an authority, from which it may be pre- tions of ambition, patriotism, or revenge, are comsumptuous to dissent, the justice of the observation paratively feeble. His tragedies, though not withcan not, perhaps, be established. Every one who out merit as compositions, are declamatory, cold, has read them will admit that the History of Cale- and vapid. His heroes and heroines relate their don and Amelia and of Lavinia, for example, have woes in good verse, but we remain unmoved, and afforded as much pleasure as any other parts, and follow them to their fate with the indifference of a poem descriptive of scenery, storms, and sun- stoics. No man was animated by a stronger or shine, requires the introduction of human beings more disinterested love of public freedom than to give it life and animation. A painter is not Thomson, and he every where inculcates patriotic censured for adding figures to a landscape, and he sentiments; but his "Liberty" neither stimulates is only required to render them graceful, and to our patriotism, nor increases our veneration for his make them harmonize with his subject. The idol. No writer has said more on these subjects, characters in The Seasons are all in keeping: a and when he lived, it was the fashion to pretend gleaner is as necessary to a harvest field as a lover to be actuated by noble and generous motives, but to a romance; and it seems hypercritical to say it may be doubted if any poet ever produced them that there should be nothing of interest in the lives of the inhabitants of the villages or hamlets which are alluded to.

less in his own time; and the idea that he, or any one else, could excite them now is ridiculous. Liberty" is, therefore, read only because it is one of his works, and it is not likely that it will ever become popular.

Another test of the soundness of this criticism is, to inquire, whether that work does not owe its chief popularity to those very digressions. Few The Castle of Indolence" displays greater poetipersons will read a volume, however beautiful the cal invention than any other of his pieces; and, descriptions which it contains, unless they are re-little as allegory is suited to the existing taste, it lieved by incidents of human life; and if it were possible to strip The Seasons of every passage not strictly relevant, they would lose their chief attractions, and soon be thrown aside.

must still be read with pleasure. Of his Odes and minor articles there is little that need be said; and part of them have already been sufficiently noticed. His Hymn is destined to be as permanent a faOne charm of poetry is, that it often presents vourite as The Seasons, to which, indeed, it is an a vivid picture of the idiosyncrasy of an author's appropriate conclusion, and, like every other promind, and this is most conspicuous in the episodes duction of its author, it displays the highest veto the immediate subject of his labours. The chain neration for the Deity. of thought which led him astray may not unfre- Thomson's only prose work is an Essay on Dequently be discovered, and it is on such occasions, scriptive Poetry, which was advertised as a sepachiefly, that those splendid emanations which be-rate production, in 1730, but which formed the come aphorisms to future ages are produced. Ge- Preface to the second edition of " Winter," and in nius seems then to cast aside all the fetters which this edition it is prefixed to The Seasons. That art imposes, and individual feeling usurping for Essay is remarkable, not so much for ingenuity or the moment entire dominion, the mistress who has original conceptions as for the arguments used to cheered his hopes, or the coquette who has aban-show that poetry ought to be devoted to loftier subdoned him, his friend, or his enemy, as either may jects than those on which many had exercised occur to his imagination, is sure to be commemo-their talents. It was his especial merit that he

founded a new school in his art, and disdaining coarse; but his zealous defender, Lord Buchan,

to follow in the path which conducted most of his contemporaries to fame, he, with the daring of genius, struck out a course for himself...

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asserts, on the contrary, that Lord Chatham, Lord Temple, Lord Lyttelton, Sir Andrew Mitchel, Dr. Armstrong, and Dr. Murdoch, agreed in deIt must be evident from the letters in this me- claring that he was a gentleman at all points." moir, that Thomson did not excel in correspon- His intimate friend, Mr. Robertson, told Mr. dence; and his dislike to writing letters, which was Park, that "Thomson was neither a petit maître very great, may have been either the cause or effect of his being inferior in this respect to other poets of the last century.

nor a boor; he had simplicity without rudeness, and a cultivated manner without being courtly;" and this may, perhaps, be considered the most accurate definition of his deportment.

Thomson's character was in every respect consistent with what his writings lead us to expect. He Much light is often thrown on a man's characwas high-minded, amiable, generous, and humane. ter by authenticated anecdotes. Of Thomson, Equable in his temper, and affable in his deport- however, very few are remembered, and the folment, he was rarely ruffled but by the knowledge lowing are introduced because his previous biograof some act of cruelty or injustice; and as he mag-phers have thought them worthy of notice rather nanimously forgave the petty assaults which envy than from any particular claims which they posor malignity leveled at him, and stood aloof from sess to attention.

the poetical warfare which raged with great heat It is said that he was so careless about money, during some part of his career, he was soon, as if that once, when paying a brewer he gave him by common consent, respected by all the bellige- two bank notes rolled together instead of one, rents. His society was select and distinguished. and, when told of his mistake, he appeared perPope, Hill, Dr. Armstrong, the Bishop of Derry, fectly indifferent, saying, "he had enough to go Mr. afterwards Sir Andrew Mitchell, Mendez, on without it." On one occasion he was robbed Dr. De la Cour, Mallet, Hammond whom he eulo- of his watch between London and Richmond, gises in "The Seasons," Quin, and above all Mr. and when Mr. Robertson expressed regret for his Lyttelton, were his most intimate friends. With loss, he replied, "Pshaw, I am glad they took it Pope he lived on terms of great friendship; and, from me, it was never good for any thing." Havaccording to Dr. Johnson, he displayed his regarding invited some friends to dinner, one of them in a poetical epistle addressed to Thomson, whilst informed him that there was a general stipulation he was in Italy in 1731, but of which Pope "aba- there should be no hard drinking, Thomson acted the value by transplanting some of the lines quiesced, only requiring that each man should into his Epistle to Arbuthnot." Mr. Robertson drink his bottle. The terms were accepted unstated, in reply to Mr. Park's question,* whether conditionally, and, when the cloth was removed, Pope did not often visit Thomson, "Yes, frequent- a three quart bottle was set before each of his ly. Pope has sometimes said, 'Thomson, I'll walk guests. to the end of your garden, and then set off to the bottom of Kew Foot Lane, and back. Pope courted Thomson, and Thomson was always admitted to Pope, whether he had company or not."

In person Thomson was rather stout and above the middle size; his countenance was not remarkable for expression, though in his youth, he was considered handsome, but in conversation his face Next to poetry he was fond of civil and natural became animated and his eye fiery and intellechistory, voyages and travels, and in his leisure tual. Silent in mixed company, his wit and vivahours he found amusement in gardening. Of the city seemed reserved for his friends, and in their fine arts, music was his chief delight; but he was society he was communicative, playful, and enteran admirer of painting and sculpture, and formed taining. Few men possessed in a greater degree a valuable collection of prints and drawings from the art of creating firm and affectionate friendthe antique. ship. Those with whom he became acquainted The besetting sin of Thomson's character was at the commencement of his career loved him till indolence, and of this he was himself fully aware, its close, and the individuals who had given to as he alludes to the failing in himself and some his life its sweetest enjoyments watched over his of his friends, in the "Castle of Indolence." He death-bed, and became the guardians of his fame, seldom rose before noon, and his time for compo- by superintending the only monuments of which sition was generally about midnight. His man-genius ought to be ambitious, a complete edition ners are sometimes represented as having been of his works, and a tablet in Westminster Abbey. It has been remarked that the poets of the day

* In October, 1791, Thomas Park, Esq. the poet, called on did not commemorate Thomson's genius by exMr. Robertson, who was surgeon to the Royal Household at

Kew, the intimate friend of Thomson, with the view of gain-erting their own in honour of his memory; and ing information about him. He committed to paper all he an epigram appeared in consequence. There is gleaned, and it has since been printed. not, however, much justice in the remark. Not

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