“O, Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O!”
which for a while was echoed through the town.
I have been told by Savage, that of the prologue to _Sophonisba_, the
first part was written by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish it;
and that the concluding lines were added by Mallet.
Thomson was not long afterwards, by the influence of Dr. Rundle, sent to
travel with Mr. Charles Talbot, the eldest son of the Chancellor. He was
yet young enough to receive new impressions, to have his opinions
rectified and his views enlarged; nor can he be supposed to have wanted
that curiosity which is inseparable from an active and comprehensive
mind. He may therefore now be supposed to have revelled in all the joys
of intellectual luxury; he was every day feasted with instructive
novelties; he lived splendidly without expense: and might expect when he
returned home a certain establishment.
At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert Walpole had filled
the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the want, and
with care for liberty which was not in danger. Thomson, in his travels
on the Continent, found or fancied so many evils arising from the tyranny
of other governments, that he resolved to write a very long poem, in five
parts, upon Liberty. While he was busy on the first book, Mr. Talbot
died; and Thomson, who had been rewarded for his attendance by the place
of secretary of the briefs, pays in the initial lines a decent tribute to
his memory. Upon this great poem two years were spent, and the author
congratulated himself upon it as his noblest work; but an author and his
reader are not always of a mind. Liberty called in vain upon her
votaries to read her praises, and reward her encomiast: her praises were
condemned to harbour spiders, and to gather dust: none of Thomson’s
performances were so little regarded. The judgment of the public was not
erroneous; the recurrence of the same images must tire in time; an
enumeration of examples to prove a position which nobody denied, as it
was from the beginning superfluous, must quickly grow disgusting.
The poem of “Liberty” does not now appear in its original state; but,
when the author’s works were collected after his death, was shortened by
Sir George Lyttelton, with a liberty which, as it has a manifest tendency
to lessen the confidence of society, and to confound the characters of
authors, by making one man write by the judgment of another, cannot be
justified by any supposed propriety of the alteration, or kindness of the
friend. I wish to see it exhibited as its author left it.
Thomson now lived in ease and plenty, and seems for a while to have
suspended his poetry: but he was soon called back to labour by the death
of the Chancellor, for his place then became vacant; and though the Lord
Hardwicke delayed for some time to give it away, Thomson’s bashfulness or
pride, or some other motive perhaps not more laudable, withheld him from
soliciting; and the new Chancellor would not give him what he would not
ask. He now relapsed to his former indigence; but the Prince of Wales
was at that time struggling for popularity, and by the influence of Mr.
Lyttelton professed himself the patron of wit; to him Thomson was
introduced, and being gaily interrogated about the state of his affairs
said “that they were in a more poetical posture than formerly,” and had a
pension allowed him of one hundred pounds a year.
Being now obliged to write, he produced (1738) the tragedy of
_Agamemnon_, which was much shortened in the representation. It had the
fate which most commonly attends mythological stories, and was only
endured, but not favoured. It struggled with such difficulty through the
first night that Thomson, coming late to his friends with whom he was to
sup, excused his delay by telling them how the sweat of his distress had
so disordered his wig that he could not come till he had been refitted by
a barber. He so interested himself in his own drama that, if I remember
right, as he sat in the upper gallery, he accompanied the players by
audible recitation, till a friendly hint frighted him to silence. Pope
countenanced Agamemnon by coming to it, the first night, and was welcomed
to the theatre by a general clap; he had much regard for Thomson, and
once expressed it in a poetical epistle sent to Italy, of which, however,
he abated the value by transplanting some of the lines into his Epistle
to Arbuthnot.
About this time (1737) the Act was passed for licensing plays, of which
the first operation was the prohibition of _Gustavus Vasa_, a tragedy of
Mr. Brooke, whom the public recompensed by a very liberal subscription;
the next was the refusal of _Edward and Eleonora_, offered by Thomson.
It is hard to discover why either play should have been obstructed.
Thomson likewise endeavoured to repair his loss by a subscription, of
which I cannot now tell the success. When the public murmured at the
unkind treatment of Thomson, one of the Ministerial writers remarked that
“he had taken a _Liberty_ which was not agreeable to _Britannia_ in any
_Season_.” He was soon after employed, in conjunction with Mr. Mallet,
to write the masque of _Alfred_, which was acted before the Prince at
Cliefden House.
His next work (1745) was, _Tancred and Sigismunda_, the most successful
of all his tragedies, for it still keeps its turn upon the stage. It may
be doubted whether he was, either by the bent of nature or habits of
study, much qualified for tragedy. It does not appear that he had much
sense of the pathetic; and his diffusive and descriptive style produced
declamation rather than dialogue. His friend Mr. Lyttelton was now in
power, and conferred upon him the office of Surveyor-General of the
Leeward Islands; from which, when his deputy was paid, he received about
three hundred pounds a year.
The last piece that he lived to publish was the “Castle of Indolence,”
which was many years under his hand, but was at last finished with great
accuracy. The first canto opens a scene of lazy luxury that fills the
imagination. He was now at ease, but was not long to enjoy it, for, by
taking cold on the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder,
which, with some careless exasperation, ended in a fever that put an end
to his life, August 27, 1748. He was buried in the church of Richmond,
without an inscription; but a monument has been erected to his memory in
Westminster Abbey.
Thomson was of stature above the middle size, and “more fat than bard
beseems,” of a dull countenance and a gross, unanimated, uninviting
appearance; silent in mingled company, but cheerful among select friends,
and by his friends very tenderly and warmly beloved. He left behind him
the tragedy of _Coriolanus_, which was, by the zeal of his patron, Sir
George Lyttelton, brought upon the stage for the benefit of his family,
and recommended by a prologue, which Quin, who had long lived with
Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in such a manner as showed him “to be,”
on that occasion, “no actor.” The commencement of this benevolence is
very honourable to Quin, who is reported to have delivered Thomson, then
known to him only for his genius, from an arrest by a very considerable
present; and its continuance is honourable to both, for friendship is not
always the sequel of obligation. By this tragedy a considerable sum was
raised, of which part discharged his debts, and the rest was remitted to
his sisters, whom, however removed from them by place or condition, he
regarded with great tenderness, as will appear by the following letter,
which I communicate with much pleasure, as it gives me at once an
opportunity of recording the fraternal kindness of Thomson, and
reflecting on the friendly assistance of Mr. Boswell, from whom I
received it:—
“Hagley in Worcestershire, October the 4th, 1747.
“MY DEAR SISTER,—I thought you had known me better than to interpret
my silence into a decay of affection, especially as your behaviour
has always been such as rather to increase than diminish it. Don’t
imagine, because I am a bad correspondent, that I can ever prove an
unkind friend and brother. I must do myself the justice to tell you
that my affections are naturally very fixed and constant; and if I
had ever reason of complaint against you (of which, by-the-bye, I
have not the least shadow), I am conscious of so many defects in
myself as dispose me to be not a little charitable and forgiving.
“It gives me the truest heart-felt satisfaction to hear you have a
good kind husband, and are in easy contented circumstances; but were
they otherwise, that would only awaken and heighten my tenderness
towards you. As our good and tender-hearted parents did not live to
receive any material testimonies of that highest human gratitude I
owed them (than which nothing could have given me equal pleasure),
the only return I can make them now is by kindness to those they left
behind them. Would to God poor Lizy had lived longer, to have been a
farther witness of the truth of what I say and that I might have had
the pleasure of seeing once more a sister who so truly deserved my
esteem and love! But she is happy, while we must toil a little
longer here below: let us, however, do it cheerfully and gratefully,
supported by the pleasing hope of meeting you again on a safer shore,
where to recollect the storms and difficulties of life will not
perhaps be inconsistent with that blissful state. You did right to
call your daughter by her name: for you must needs have had a
particular tender friendship for one another, endeared as you were by
nature, by having passed the affectionate years of your youth
together: and by that great softener and engager of hearts, mutual
hardship. That it was in my power to ease it a little, I account one
of the most exquisite pleasures of my life. But enough of this
melancholy, though not unpleasing, strain.
“I esteem you for your sensible and disinterested advice to Mr. Bell,
as you will see by my letter to him. As I approve entirely of his
marrying again, you may readily ask me why I don’t marry at all. My
circumstances have hitherto been so variable and uncertain in this
fluctuating world, as induce to keep me from engaging in such a
state: and now, though they are more settled, and of late (which you
will be glad to hear) considerably improved, I begin to think myself
too far advanced in life for such youthful undertakings, not to
mention some other petty reasons that are apt to startle the delicacy
of difficult old bachelors. I am, however, not a little suspicious
that, was I to pay a visit to Scotland (which I have some thought of
doing soon), I might possibly be tempted to think of a thing not
easily repaired if done amiss. I have always been of opinion that
none make better wives than the ladies of Scotland; and yet who more
forsaken than they, while the gentlemen are continually running
abroad all the world over? Some of them, it is true, are wise enough
to return for a wife. You see, I am beginning to make interest
already with the Scots ladies. But no more of this infectious
subject. Pray let me hear from you now and then; and though I am not
a regular correspondent, yet perhaps I may mend in that respect.
Remember me kindly to your husband, and believe me to be
“Your most affectionate Brother,
“JAMES THOMSON.”
(Addressed) “To Mrs. Thomson in Lanark.”
The benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but not active; he would give on
all occasions what assistance his purse would supply, but the offices of
intervention or solicitation he could not conquer his sluggishness
sufficiently to perform. The affairs of others, however, were not more
neglected than his own. He had often felt the inconveniences of
idleness, but he never cured it; and was so conscious of his own
character that he talked of writing an Eastern tale “Of the Man who Loved
to be in Distress.” Among his peculiarities was a very unskilful and
inarticulate manner of pronouncing any lofty or solemn composition. He
was once reading to Dodington, who, being himself a reader eminently
elegant, was so much provoked by his odd utterance that he snatched the
paper from his hands and told him that he did not understand his own
verses.
The biographer of Thomson has remarked that an author’s life is best read
in his works; his observation was not well timed. Savage, who lived much
with Thomson, once told me how he heard a lady remarking that she could
gather from his works three-parts of his character: that he was “a great
lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent;” “but,” said Savage,
“he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was, perhaps, never in
cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that
comes within his reach.” Yet Savage always spoke with the most eager
praise of his social qualities, his warmth and constancy of friendship,
and his adherence to his first acquaintance when the advancement of his
reputation had left them behind him.
As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode
of thinking and of expressing his thoughts is original. His blank verse
is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the
rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his
diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation.
He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius;
he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which Nature bestows
only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes in everything 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. His is one of the works in which blank verse seems properly
used. Thomson’s wide expansion of general views, and his enumeration of
circumstantial varieties, would have been obstructed and embarrassed by
the frequent intersections of the sense, which are the necessary effects
of rhyme. His descriptions of extended scenes and general effects bring
before us the whole magnificence of Nature, whether pleasing or dreadful.
The gaiety of Spring, the splendour of Summer, the tranquillity of
Autumn, and the horror of Winter, take in their turns possession of the
mind. The poet leads us through the appearances of things as they are
successively varied by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us so
much of his own enthusiasm that our thoughts expand with his imagery and
kindle with his sentiments. Nor is the naturalist without his part in
the entertainment, for he is assisted to recollect and to combine, to
arrange his discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his contemplation.
The great defect of the “Seasons” is want of method; but for this I know
not that there was any remedy. Of many appearances subsisting all at
once, no rule can be given why one should be mentioned before another;
yet the memory wants the help of order, and the curiosity is not excited
by suspense or expectation. His diction is in the highest degree florid
and luxuriant, such as may be said to be to his images and thoughts “both
their lustre and their shade;” such as invests them with splendour,
through which, perhaps, they are not always easily discerned. It is too
exuberant, and sometimes may be charged with filling the ear more than
the mind.
These poems, with which I was acquainted at their first appearance, I
have since found altered and enlarged by subsequent revisals, as the
author supposed his judgment to grow more exact, and as books or
conversation extended his knowledge and opened his prospects. They are,
I think, improved in general; yet I know not whether they have not lost
part of what Temple calls their “race,” a word which, applied to wines in
its primitive sense, means the flavour of the soil.
“Liberty,” when it first appeared, I tried to read, and soon desisted. I
have never tried again, and therefore will not hazard either praise or
censure. The highest praise which he has received ought not to be
suppressed: it is said by Lord Lyttelton, in the Prologue to his
posthumous play, that his works contained
“No line which, dying, he could wish to blot.”