James Thomson, the son of a minister well esteemed for his piety and
diligence, was born September 7, 1700, at Ednam, in the shire of
Roxburgh, of which his father was pastor. His mother, whose name was
Hume[160], inherited, as coheiress, a portion of a small estate. The
revenue of a parish in Scotland is seldom large; and it was, probably,
in commiseration of the difficulty with which Mr. Thomson supported his
family, having nine children, that Mr. Riccarton, a neighbouring
minister, discovering in James uncommon promises of future excellence,
undertook to superintend his education, and provide him books.
He was taught the common rudiments of learning at the school of Jedburg,
a place which he delights to recollect in his poem of Autumn; but was
not considered by his master as superiour to common boys, though, in
those early days, he amused his patron and his friends with poetical
compositions; with which, however, he so little pleased himself, that,
on every new-year's day, he threw into the fire all the productions of
the foregoing year.
From the school he was removed to Edinburgh, where he had not resided
two years when his father died, and left all his children to the care of
their mother, who raised, upon her little estate, what money a mortgage
could afford, and, removing with her family to Edinburgh, lived to see
her son rising into eminence.
The design of Thomson's friends was to breed him a minister. He lived at
Edinburgh, as at school, without distinction or expectation, till, at
the usual time, he performed a probationary exercise by explaining a
psalm. His diction was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, the
professor of divinity, reproved him for speaking language
unintelligible to a popular audience; and he censured one of his
expressions as indecent, if not profane[161].
This rebuke is reported to have repressed his thoughts of an
ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated, with new
diligence, his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some danger
of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some who thought
themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but,
finding other judges more favourable, he did not suffer himself to sink
into despondence.
He easily discovered, that the only stage on which a poet could appear,
with any hope of advantage, was London; a place too wide for the
operation of petty competition and private malignity, where merit might
soon become conspicuous, and would find friends as soon as it became
reputable to befriend it. A lady, who was acquainted with his mother,
advised him to the journey, and promised some countenance, or
assistance, which, at last, he never received; however, he justified his
adventure by her encouragement, and came to seek, in London, patronage
and fame.
At his arrival he found his way to Mr. Mallet, then tutor to the sons of
the duke of Montrose. He had recommendations to several persons of
consequence, which he had tied up carefully in his handkerchief; but as
he passed along the street, with the gaping curiosity of a new-comer,
his attention was upon every thing rather than his pocket, and his
magazine of credentials was stolen from him.
His first want was a pair of shoes. For the supply of all his
necessities, his whole fund was his Winter, which for a time could find
no purchaser; till, at last, Mr. Millan was persuaded to buy it at a low
price; and this low price he had, for some time, reason to regret[162];
but, by accident, Mr. Whatley, a man not wholly unknown among authors,
happening to turn his eye upon it, was so delighted that he ran from
place to place celebrating its excellence. Thomson obtained, likewise,
the notice of Aaron Hill, whom, being friendless and indigent, and glad
of kindness, he courted with every expression of servile adulation.
Winter was dedicated to sir Spencer Compton, but attracted no regard
from him to the author; till Aaron Hill awakened his attention by some
verses addressed to Thomson, and published in one of the newspapers,
which censured the great for their neglect of ingenious men. Thomson
then received a present of twenty guineas, of which he gives this
account to Mr. Hill:
"I hinted to you in my last, that on Saturday morning I was with sir
Spencer Compton. A certain gentleman, without my desire, spoke to him
concerning me; his answer was, that I had never come near him. Then the
gentleman put the question, if he desired that I should wait on him: he
returned, he did. On this, the gentleman gave me an introductory letter
to him. He received me in what they commonly call a civil manner; asked
me some commonplace questions; and made me a present of twenty guineas.
I am very ready to own that the present was larger than my performance
deserved; and shall ascribe it to his generosity, or any other cause,
rather than the merit of the address."
The poem, which, being of a new kind[163], few would venture at first
to like, by degrees gained upon the publick; and one edition was very
speedily succeeded by another.
Thomson's credit was now high, and every day brought him new friends;
among others Dr. Rundle, a man afterwards unfortunately famous, sought
his acquaintance, and found his qualities such, that he recommended him
to the lord chancellor Talbot.
Winter was accompanied, in many editions, not only with a preface and a
dedication, but with poetical praises by Mr. Hill, Mr. Mallet, (then
Malloch,) and Mira, the fictitious name of a lady once too well known.
Why the dedications are, to Winter and the other seasons, contrarily to
custom, left out in the collected works, the reader may inquire.
The next year, 1727, he distinguished himself by three publications; of
Summer, in pursuance of his plan; of a Poem on the Death of sir Isaac
Newton, which he was enabled to perform as an exact philosopher by the
instruction of Mr. Gray; and of Britannia, a kind of poetical invective
against the ministry, whom the nation then thought not forward enough in
resenting the depredations of the Spaniards. By this piece he declared
himself an adherent to the opposition, and had, therefore, no favour to
expect from the court.
Thomson, having been some time entertained in the family of the lord
Binning, was desirous of testifying his gratitude by making him the
patron of his Summer; but the same kindness which had first disposed
lord Binning to encourage him, determined him to refuse the dedication,
which was, by his advice, addressed to Mr. Dodington, a man who had more
power to advance the reputation and fortune of a poet.
Spring was published next year, with a dedication to the countess of
Hertford; whose practice it was to invite every summer some poet into
the country, to hear her verses, and assist her studies. This honour was
one summer conferred on Thomson, who took more delight in carousing with
lord Hertford and his friends than assisting her ladyship's poetical
operations, and, therefore, never received another summons.
Autumn, the season to which the Spring and Summer are preparatory, still
remained unsung, and was delayed till he published, 1730, his works
collected.
He produced in 1727 the tragedy of Sophonisba, which raised such
expectation, that every rehearsal was dignified with a splendid
audience, collected to anticipate the delight that was preparing for the
publick. It was observed, however, that nobody was much affected, and
that the company rose as from a moral lecture.
It had upon the stage no unusual degree of success. Slight accidents
will operate upon the taste of pleasure. There is a feeble line in the
play:
O, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O!
This gave occasion to a waggish parody:
O, Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O!
which for awhile 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 publick 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 awhile, 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[164]; 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[165], 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 the act was passed for licensing plays, of which the
first operation was the prohibition of Gustavus Vasa[166], a tragedy of
Mr. Brooke, whom the publick 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 publick 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
mask 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 pathetick; 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[167].
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, Oct. 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 by, 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 heartfelt 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 further 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 yet 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 thoughts 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 inconveniencies 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
propounding 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
hand, 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, 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 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.
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 intersection 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 horrour 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 invest 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[168], 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.
-----
[Footnote 160: According to the Biographical Dictionary the name of
Thomson's mother was Beatrix Trotter. Hume was the name of his
grandmother. ED.]
[Footnote 161: See the Life of Beattie, by sir William Forbes, for some
additional anecdotes. ED.]
[Footnote 162: Warton was told by Millan that the book lay a long time
unsold on his stall. ED.]
[Footnote 163: "It was at this time that the school of Pope was giving
way: addresses to the head rather than to the heart, or the fancy; moral
axioms and witty observations, expressed in harmonious numbers, and with
epigrammatick terseness; the _limae labor_, all the artifices of a
highly polished style, and the graces of finished composition, which had
long usurped the place of the more sterling beauties of the imagination
and sentiment, began first to be lessened in the public estimation by
the appearance of Thomson's Seasons, a work which constituted a new era
in our poetry." Censura Literaria, iv. 280.]
[Footnote 164: An interesting anecdote respecting Thomson's deportment
before a commission, instituted in 1732, for an inquiry into the state
of the public offices under the lord chancellor, is omitted by Johnson
and all the poet's biographers. We extract it from the nineteenth volume
of the Critical Review, p. 141. "Mr. Thomson's place of secretary of the
briefs fell under the cognizance of this commission; and he was summoned
to attend it, which he accordingly did, and made a speech, explaining
the nature, duty, and income of his place, in terms that, though very
concise, were so perspicuous and elegant, that lord chancellor Talbot,
who was present, publicly said he preferred that single speech to the
best of his poetical compositions." The above praise is precisely such
as we might anticipate that an old lawyer would give, but it, at all
events, exempts the poet's character from the imputation of listless
indolence, advanced by Murdoch, and leaves lord Hardwicke little excuse
for _his_ conduct. ED.]
[Footnote 165: It is not generally known that in this year an edition of
Milton's Areopagitiea was published by Millar, to which Thomson wrote a
preface.]
[Footnote 166: See vol. v. p. 329 of this edition, and Mr. Roscoe's Life
of Pope, for some anecdotes respecting Gay's Beggars' Opera and Polly,
illustrative of the efficacy of a lord-chamberlain's interference with
the stage. ED.]
[Footnote 167: Several anecdotes of Thomson's personal appearance and
habits are scattered over the volumes of Boswell. ED.]
[Footnote 168: For an interesting collection of the various readings of
the successive editions of the Seasons, see vols. ii. in. and iv. of the
Censura Literaria. Thomson's own preface to the second edition of Winter
may be found in vol. ii. p. 67, of the above-quoted work. ED.]