THOMSON, James, a poet of great eminence, was born in the parish of Ednam and county of Roxburgh, on the 11th of September 1700. His father was minister of that parish, which is contiguous to Kelso. The maiden name of his mother was Beatrix Trotter, and she was co-heiress of a small demesne in the county. In Dr Johnson’s life of the poet she is called Hume; a mistake which is pointed out by Boswell, who supplied the great biographer with some materials for his narrative, which he either forgot or neglected. Mrs Thomson presented her husband with nine children, whose maintenance and education may have been a pleasing, but could not be a light burden, to parents circumstanced as they were. At an early age James showed great aptitude for learning; and Mr Riccarton,^[1. So the name is given by Dr Murdoch; but it may perhaps be doubted whether this was not the same individual whose works were published under the following title: “The Works of the lnte Reverend Mr Robert Riccaltoun, Minister of the Gospel at Hobkirk." Edinb. 1771-2, 3 vols. 8vo. The parishes of Hobkirk and Ednam are within a very moderate distance of each other. ] a neighbouring clergyman, furnished him with books, and took upon himself the chief direction of his studies. The elementary branches of knowledge Thomson acquired at Jedburgh school. There he was inoculated with the love of versifying; but how his thoughts were directed into that channel, does not appear. Mediocrity is easily satisfied with its own attainments, and cherishes its mean performances with pious care. After the first gaze of parental fondness, the mens divinior turns from its offspring with indifference or aversion, and endeavours to breathe life into a more perfect progeny. On the first day of every year, Thomson committed to the flames all the poetical effusions of the preceding twelvemonth. The master could perceive in his pupil no indications of superior capacity; but schoolmasters are not unfrequently the most fallible of all prophets. One youth, who was to enter upon a career of glory, often dwindles into insignificance; and another, who has been consigned to perpetual obscurity, as often covers his oracular preceptor with confusion by arriving at distinction.

From Jedburgh school Thomson was removed to the university of Edinburgh. After he had prosecuted his studies there for two years, he received a hasty summons to attend his father in his last extremity, but did not arrive in time to receive his dying benediction. His mother now removed with her family to Edinburgh; and in order to carry this arrangement into effect, it became necessary for her to raise money by the mortgage of her little estate. Although somewhat of an enthusiast in religious matters, she conducted her domestic affairs with great prudence and economy, and lived to see her son distinguished by the favour of the great. The friends of Thomson were desirous that he should direct his views towards the church; but he does not appear to have had any great predilection for the clerical profession. At college he remained unnoticed, until Mr Hamilton, the professor of divinity, bestowed a mixture of praise and censure upon a probationary exercise of his, explanatory of one of the psalms. The professor commended the fervour of his sentiments and the majesty of his diction; but added, that if he wished to be of any use as a preacher of the gospel, he must descend to the level of vulgar understandings. Whether the commendation was cold, and the reproof warm, or whether Thomson had anticipated unqualified applause, and was disgusted by the modification with which it was administered, he now abandoned all thoughts of continuing his theological studies. His discourse had been censured as too poetical; and the poems which he handed about at this time were condemn [7:21:249]ed by some small critics of the city, upon what ground it is unnecessary to inquire. That his youthful productions were not without their faults, it is very easy to conceive, and these were pointed out with laborious minuteness; but their beauties, of which it is improbable that they were entirely destitute, passed unobserved. Finding that his countrymen had formed a standard of composition, both in prose and verse, which he was unable to reach, Thomson resolved to submit his productions to a tribunal of strangers. But although the former were insensible to his merits when their favour might have been of some use to him, they did not fail to praise him when their praise was of little value; nor did they neglect the accustomed tribute of lamentation when all tears were vain. Long after the tomb had closed over his remains, a society of gentlemen in the Scotish metropolis was formed for the purpose of celebrating his birth-day by a musical entertainment. These tuneful associates, who continued their union for several years, were pleased to call themselves the Knights Companions of the Cape.

Thomson now repaired to London, carrying with him letters of recommendation to various individuals of influence; but of these credentials he had the misfortune to be robbed. They were tied up in a handkerchief, and when he was staring at the wonders of the metropolis, he was eased of his bundle by a pickpocket, who was probably as much chagrined by what he had gained, as Thomson was by what he had lost. To London it is said that he was allured by the hopes excited in him by Lady Grizzel Baillie, who promised much, and performed nothing. For the supply of his numerous wants, and among others that of a pair of shoes, his sole dependence was upon his poem of Winter, which the booksellers manifested little eagerness to purchase. At last he sold it for a trifling sum, but it was ong in finding admirers, and the publisher, “J. Millan, at Locke’s Head in Shug-Lane,” had some misgivings that his parsimony savoured of rashness. It however fell in the way of some persons of taste and discernment, who spread its fame, and it was finally received with very general applause. It appeared in 1726, with a prose dedication to Sir Spencer Compton.^[2. Winter; a Poem. By James Thomson, A. Μ. Lond. 1726, fol. ] ' At this period of his history, the indigent bard was much indebted to the friendship of Mallet, who was then tutor to the sons of the duke of Montrose. Mallet was a man of consummate dexterity, and very well qualified to enlighten his countryman in the art of pushing his fortune. In his zeal for the dignity of letters, Dr Johnson remarks that Thomson at this time “obtained the notice of Aaron Hill, whom, being friendless and indigent, and glad of kindness, he courted with every expression of servile adulation.” Hyperbolical encomium can expect little sympathy from those who have never been obliged, anymore than raving resentment from those who have never been injured; but surely the eloquence of gratitude is not so frequently heard as to create disgust. It appears from the interchange of high-flown compliments in the correspondence between Hill and Richardson, that flattery seldom came amiss to either; yet Hill was an ingenious and benevolent man, upon whom much praise could be conscientiously bestowed. He was also a man of spirit, as Pope had occasion to ascertain, when he provided him with a niche in the Dunciad. A proof of all these qualities now appeared in his conduct to the young poet. Of the dedication Sir Spencer Compton took no notice, until there appeared in the newspapers a copy of complimentary verses, addressed by Hill to Thomson, lamenting the miseries of genius, and condemning the paltry Maecenases of the age. The result of this memento was an interview with Thomson, in which Sir Spencer, with much of the grace and delicacy of one bestowing alms upon a mendicant, made the poet a present of twenty guineas. The successful author of the present day has reason to be thankful that the multiplicity of readers has placed him above dependence upon any other patronage, whether private or political. A second impression of Winter was now called for, and the author’s friends began rapidly to increase. Among these was Dr Rundle, afterwards bishop of Derry, who introduced him to the Lord Chancellor Talbot. In 1727 appeared Summer, which was followed by “A Poem sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton." To this production he was enabled, by the instruction of his friend Mr Gray, to impart a philosophic spirit, worthy of the departed sage. This year also produced Britannia, in which was echoed the general cry against the ministry for remissness in vindicating the national honour, which had been insulted by the maritime depredations of the Spaniards. In 1728 was published Spring, dedicated to the countess of Hertford, afterwards duchess of Somerset, by whom the poet was invited to pass some time at the family-seat. The countess was herself addicted to the muses, and regaled her visitor by reciting to him many of her poetical lucubrations. This species of pastime, however, Thomson found somewhat insipid, and sought relief so frequently in the jovial company which surrounded his lordship’s table, that he forfeited the favour of his learned hostess, and this invitation to become her guest, which was the first, was also the last that he ever received. In 1729, the tragedy of Sophonisba was acted at Drury Lane; and in the following year, by the addition of Autumn, the plan of “The Seasons” was completed, and they were combined in a quarto volume. The success of the play was much more moderate than was anticipated by the author’s numerous and powerful friends. The feeble verse,

O, Sophonisba, Sophonisba. O!

and the parody to which it gave rise,

O, Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O!

are still remembered; a fate which has attended few of his other tragic lines. His genius does not seem to have been dramatic: he is often flat, and when he rises, he seldom rises above rant; even his declamation, into which his dialogue too often degenerates, is not splendid, and his pathos is not affecting. In this, and in all his other plays, there is a perpetual repetition of the word glory, which argues great poverty of sentiment; and Hurd did him little injustice when he applied to his palpable and laborious art in tragedy the words of Horace, promissus grandia turget. Nor does he display any skill in depicting character, being a more diligent observer of external nature, than of the qualities of men. His heroine hates the Romans, and, with little variation of expression, she says so every time she appears upon the scene. Syphax is only another Bajazet, and his rival Masinissa a common tragic lover, with whose raptures and lamentations no one has much sympathy.

About this time, Thomson is said to have been under great obligations to the eccentric generosity of Quin, the celebrated actor, who, as the story goes, relieved him from a spιmging-house in Holborn. After the publication of his Seasons, one of his creditors had him arrested, judging that a likely time to procure payment. the amount of the debt was not forthcoming, and Thomson had every prospect of a lengthened sojourn in his involuntary retirement, when he was visited by Quin, with whom he had no personal acquaintance. The comedian gracefully apologized for his intrusion, to which Thomson was easily reconciled. The additional liberty of ordering supper was also taken in good part. After they bad supped luxuriously and drunk freely, Quin informed his new associate that he was indebted to him in the sum of one hundred pounds for pleasure received in the perusal of the Seasons. He then deposited[7:21:250] the money on the table, and took his departure, leaving the imprisoned bard full of gratitude and amazement.

Thomson’s poetical labours were now agreeably interrupted by an invitation to attend the eldest son of Lord Talbot upon his travels. For this advantageous opportunity of extending his experience, he was indebted to the friendship of Dr Rundle. Upon his return to England, he was made secretary of briefs; the profits of which appointment were fully adequate to all his wants and desires. When in Italy, he conceived the idea of writing the poem of Liberty, which was afterwards completed in five parts, successively published in quarto; the first, second, and third in 1735, the fourth and fifth in 1736. This poem he dedicated to the prince of Wales. One who has read the achievements of the masters of the world, and seen their posterity sunk in slavery and vice, is apt to imagine that he can say something that is new on the blessings of freedom and the horrors of oppression. But his sensations, which have been felt by all, have been described by many; and in the fervour of composition, mistaking the children of memory for the offspring of fancy, a great writer may produce, upon such an impracticable theme, nothing but a tissue of common-places, when he dreams that he has been making an invaluable addition to the treasures of knowledge. No man, whether sane or otherwise, prefers darkness and chains to light and the free range of creation; and when Thomson proved, by a multiplicity of examples drawn from the history of every age and nation, that the former were to be shunned and the latter pursued, the reader was neither amused nor instructed. By a species of infatuation not uncommon among authors, Thomson considered this poem the best of all his productions. It was coldly received by the public when it first appeared; and after the poet’s death, when Sir George Lyttelton was collecting his works for the press, he thought the best way of consulting the reputation of his deceased friend was to abridge it; a strange and unwarrantable proceeding, which no motives can justify. In the mutilated condition to which it was reduced by Lyttelton, it now appears.

The mortification of finding the public opinion of his poem opposed to his own, was followed by the death of Lord Talbot, an event which deprived Thomson of his place. The new chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, kept it vacant for some time, in order to afford him an opportunity of applying, in the usual form, to be reinstated; but no such application was made, and his lordship bestowed it upon another person. The silence of Thomson probably proceeded from an incurable habit of neglecting his own affairs; for his experience was sufficient to inform him, that the dignity of a needy man who expects to be loaded with unsolicited benefits, will soon be his sole possession. His great friends, however, did not desert him; and soon after he had ceased to be a placeman, he was introduced to the prince of Wales, who, among other modes of courting popularity, professed himself a friend to men of letters. Being questioned by the prince on the state of his affairs, Thomson informed his royal highness that “they were in a more poetical posture than formerly.” This gay reply produced what might have been denied to a tedious catalogue of grievances, a pension of one hundred pounds a year. This allowance, well-timed as it was, being insufficient to support him in his former mode of living, he again had recourse to his pen. In 1738 his tragedy of Agamemnon was acted at Drury Lane. The performance was graced by the presence of Pope, who, on his entering the theatre, received from the audience nearly all the applause of the evening; for although supported by the acting of Quin in the hero, the play, to use the words of Johnson, “had the fate which commonly attends mythological stories, and was only endured, but not favoured.” Being still compelled to write for the stage, Thomson next produced Edward and Eleanora, to the first edition of which is prefixed the following advertisement: “The representation of this tragedy on the stage was prohibited in the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine.” Brooke’s Gustavus Vasa was the first, and Thomson’s the second, play prohibited by the operation of the new act for licensing dramatic performances. In both cases this act seems to have been exercised with very superfluous rigour. The following lines, however, which occur near the beginning of Thomson’s tragedy, may perhaps have arrested the eye of authority, and sealed its fate.

In times like these, Disturb’d and low'ring with unsettled freedom. One step to lawless power, one old attempt Renew’d, the least infringement of our charters. Would burl the giddy nation into tempest.

In conjunction with Mallet, he afterwards wrote the masque of Alfred, which was played before the prince of Wales. To the favour of that illustrious personage, who was on bad terms with the court, it is probable that he owed, in some degree, the prohibition of his former drama. The tragedy of Tancred and Sigismunda, taken from the novel in Gil Blas, was performed at Drury Lane in 1745. It was the most successful of his dramatic efforts, and kept possession of the stage until a recent period. This tragedy was followed by the Castle of Indolence, the last of his works that was published in his life-time, and, in the opinion of many, the most brilliant effort of his genius. The frequent recurrence of the rhyme in the Spenserian measure occasionally produces a redundance both of sentiment and expression; but this objection scarcely applies to any one stanza of the first canto of this poem. Every line breathes the spirit of seductive languor, to which every new image lends additional force, until the mind is steeped in luxurious lethargy. In the second canto the obvious reasoning of Sir Industry is a feeble antidote to the eloquent sophistry of the wizard Indolence in the first The necessity for further literary exertion was removed by his appointment to the office of surveyor-general of the Leeward Islands, which was procured for him by the influence of Lyttelton. His clear emoluments amounted to about three hundred pounds a year, and the duties of his office he was suffered to perform by deputy.^[3. His friend Paterson, the author of the tragedy of Arminius, which was prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain soon after Edward and Eleanora had met a similar fate, was Thompson’s deputy, and lived to succeed him in his office. ]

Thomson had now every prospect of enjoying many years of learned ease; but he had scarcely ceased to be the sport of fortune, when he was suddenly removed from the scene. A cold caught upon the river between London and Kew, was succeeded by a fever, of which he had partly recovered, when imprudent exposure to the evening dews induced a recurrence of his malady, and terminated his life on the 27th of August 1748. His remains were interred in the church of Richmond in Surrey; and in 1762 a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. The expense of this memorial was defrayed by an edition of his works, published during that year, in two volumes quarto. The king subscribed one hundred pounds. A life of the author was prefixed by his intimate friend Dr Murdoch. But the noblest tribute to the memory of Thomson is the beautiful ode of Collins, beginning,

In yonder grave a Druid lies, Where slowly winds the stealing wave;

The year’s best sweets shall duteous rise To deck its poet’s sylvan grave.
[7:21:251]

The tragedy of Coriolanus, which he bad prepared for the stage, was after his death performed at Covent Garden. The profits of the representation discharged his debts, and left a considerable overplus, which was remitted to his sisters. The principal character was supported by Quin, who also delivered a prologue written by Lyttelton. When he had to utter the following lines, the great comedian, who had long lived on terms of the most affectionate intimacy with Thomson, was entirely overcome by his emotions:

He lov’d his friends—forgive this gushing tear.— Alas! I feel I am no actor here.

Thomson was a man of a gross habit of body, and of a dull aspect. In a mixed or numerous company he was ill at ease, and appeared to disadvantage; but when surrounded by a few familiar faces, his embarrassment disappeared, and he became frank, cheerful, and amusing. As a son and brother, his conduct was exemplary. A letter to his sister, inserted in Johnson’s narrative, breathes the purest spirit of fraternal affection. He was warmly attached to his friends, whom he inspired with the same degree of cordial tenderness. He was not easily roused to personal exertion, either in his own behalf or that of others; but his money was freely shared with those whom he loved or pitied. In his prosperous days, he was never known to shake oft’ a humble friend; and even Savage, the most inconvenient of all associates, whose pride, although he lived by borrowing, was as sensitive as an unhealed wound, praised Thomson’s steady friendship to the skies. Upon the same authority, as related by Johnson, we learn that his habits of life formed rather a ludicrous contrast to the delicacy of sentiment which pervades his writings. The veracity of Savage was not his most shining quality, but if Thomson had the failings imputed to him, he had also the grace to be ashamed of them; an example which might have been followed with advantage by succeeding writers, who have endeavoured to earn money and applause by making the world a confidant of their vices.

From Thomson, as an author, has never been withheld the highest praise, that of originality. “He thinks,” says Johnson, “in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius; he looks round on nature and life with the eye which nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes, in every thing presented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute. The reader of the Seasons wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson impresses.” Where intellectual eminence was not conspicuous, Johnson distributed commendation with a very sparing hand, whether the character reviewed was dignified by rank, which he valued much, or by virtue, which he valued more. Upon a lover of liberty, a man of easy morals, and a writer of blank verse, in his estimation a delinquent almost as odious as either, he would have bestowed no praise that he could conscientiously have withheld. This liberal encomium on Thomson, therefore, ought to satisfy the warmest admirers of that poet, and to silence those who would detract from his reputation.

The Seasons have been translated into several languages. A translation into Latin verse was published by Brownell. There are three different versions into French prose; and a version into French verse was published by J. Poullin in the year 1802. Of Spring and Winter a Danish version was executed by Peter Foersom, and was printed in the posthumous collection of his poems.^[4. Digte af Peter Foersom, kongelig Skuespiller: udgivne efter hans Död. Kiöbenhavn, 1818, 8vo. It may not be superfluous to mention, that a beautiful edition of the Seasons was printed by Bodoni: “The Seasons. By James Thomson.” Parma, 1794, 4to. It is dedicated "To David Steuart, Esquire of Cardneys, late Lord Provost of the City of Edinburg.” ]