known to have married. Jean, the eldest, was the wife of Mr. Robert Thomson, Master of the Grammar School at Lanark, with whom Boswell says, in July, 1777, he had placed two of his nephews. She was then an old woman, but having retained her memory, gave that writer many particulars of the Poet, together with the letter which Johnson has printed. Her son Robert, who was a student of medicine in Edinburgh, died in his father's lifetime at Lanark; and of her daughters, Elizabeth was born before 1747, and Beatrix married Mr. Thomas Prentice of Jerviswood. Mrs. Thomson died at Lanark, on the 3d of September, 1781.

Elizabeth, his second and favourite sister, was the wife of the Reverend Robert Bell, Minister of Strathaven in Clydesdale, and died some time before 1747. In reply to Mr. Bell's request that he would consent to their marriage he wrote her the following letter:

"MY DEAR SISTER.

“I RECEIVED a letter from Mr. Robert Bell, Minister of Strathaven, in which he asks my consent to his marriage with you. Mr. Gusthart acquainted me with this some time ago; to whose letter I have returned an answer, which he tells me he has showed you both. I entirely agree to this marriage, as I find it to be a marriage of inclination, and founded upon long acquaintance and mutual esteem. Your behaviour hitherto has been such as gives me very great satisfaction, in the small assistance I have been able to afford you. Now

you are going to enter upon a new state of life, charged with higher .cares and duties, I need not advise you how to behave in it, since you are so near Mr. Gusthart, who, by his good counsel and friendly assistance, has been so kind to you all along; only I must chiefly recommend to you to cultivate, by every method, that union of hearts, that agreement and sympathy of tempers, in which consists the true happiness of the marriage state. The economy and gentle management of a family is a woman's natural province, and from that her best praise arises. You will apply yourself thereto as it becomes a good and virtuous wife. I dare say I need not put you in mind of having a just and grateful sense of, and future confidence in, the goodness of God, who has been to you a‘Father to the fatherless.' Though you will hereafter be more immediately under the protection of another, yet you may always depend upon the sincere friendship, and tenderest good offices of your most affectionate brother,

"JAMES THOMSON.

"By last post I wrote to Jeany about the affairs she mentioned to me. Remember me kindly to all friends."

Mrs. Bell had two sons, Dr. James Bell, Minister of Coldstream, who printed a volume of sermons, and who intended to publish an edition of his uncle's works, and Thomas Bell, who died a merchant at Jamaica.

Mary, the poet's youngest sister, married Mr. William Craig, merchant of Edinburgh; and dying on the 11th of September, 1790, was buried in the Grey Friars Churchyard, beside the re

mains of her mother, on the 22d of that month. She had only one son, James Craig, an ingenious architect, who planned the New Town of Edinburgh, and died in that city on the 23d of June, 1795. He intended to erect a pillar to his uncle in the village of Ednam, and wished Dr. Beattie to write an appropriate inscription. The intention was not carried into effect, but Beattie's sensible letter in reply to the request, in which he ridicules inscriptions in Latin to an English poet, and states what ought to be said on these occasions, might have been read with advantage by those who superintended Burns' monument. Lord Buchan's exuberant zeal, in honour of Thomson, in crowning his bust, and other fooleries, approaches so nearly to the ridiculous, that his motive did not prevent his being laughed at. The annual commemoration of the Poet's birth is in better taste; and proves the generous pride with which

66

Scotia, with exulting tear,

Proclaims that Thomson was her son."

Lord Lyttelton has justly said of Thomson's writings that they contain

"No line which dying he could wish to blot";

and, considering the taste of the age in which he lived, this praise is perhaps the highest which could be pronounced. With a slight alteration the same eulogy may be passed on his whole life;

for it was free from a single act which could create remorse. To his relations he was liberal and affectionate; to his friends faithful and devoted: viewing all mankind with beneficence and love, he performed with exemplary but unostentatious piety that first of Christian virtues, to teach the world to reverence the Creator in his works, and to learn from them veneration for his wisdom and confidence in his mercy.

ADDITIONAL NOTES TO THE MEMOIR OF

THOMSON.

BY MR. PETER CUNNINGHAM.

Page xxiii.

The letter referred to was first printed in the London Magazine for Nov. 1824, and thus introduced: "The following very interesting letter has been recovered from oblivion, or at least from neglect, by our friend Elia, and the public will no doubt thank him for the deed. It is without date or superscription, in the manuscript, which (as our contributor declares) was in so 'fragmentitious' a state as to perplex his transcribing faculties in the extreme."

Page xxxiv.

Thomson and Mallet were both educated at the University of Edinburgh. Thomson came up to town without any certain view. Mallet got him into a nobleman's family as a tutor. He did not like that affair, left it in about three quarters of a year, and came down to Mallet, at Twyford. There he wrote single winter pieces: they at last thought it might make a poem. It was at first refused by the printer, but received by another. Mallet wrote the Dedication to the Speaker. Dodington sent his services to Thomson by Dr. Young, and desired to see him: that was thought hint enough for another dedication to him; and this was his first introduction to that acquaintance. — Mallet, Spence by Singer, p. 327.

Page xliv.

"Mira" was a Mrs. Martha Sansom, daughter of a Major Fowke. She died in 1736, aged 46. She had another poetical name in print,— Mira was also Clio. (See The Athenæum, July 16, 1859, p. 78.)