"After this introduction, I say, 66 'Nor can I, 0 departing Summer! choose Sing your last temper'd days, and sunny calms, “Then terrible floods, and high winds, that usually happen about this time of the year, and have already happened here (I wish you have not felt them too dreadfully); the first produced the inclosed lines, the last are not completed. Mr. Riccaltoun's Poem on Winter, which I still have, first put the design into my head. In it are some masterly strokes that awakened me: being only a present amusement, it is ten to one but I drop it whenever another fancy comes across. "I believe it had been much more for your entertainment if in this letter I had cited other people instead of myself, but I must refer that until another time. If you have not seen it already, I have just now in my hands an original of Sir Alexander Brand's, the crazed Scots Knight with the Woeful Countenance, you would relish. I believe it might make Mass John catch hold of his knees, which I take in him to be a degree of mirth only inferior to falling back again with an elastic spring. It is very . . . . printed in the Evening Post, so perhaps you have seen these panegyrics of our declining bard; one on the Princess's birthday, the other on his Majesty's, in . . . cantos: they are written in the spirit of a complicated crazi ness. "I was in London lately a night, and in the old playhouse saw a comedy acted, called Love makes a Man, or the Fop's Fortune,' where I beheld Miller and Cibber shine to my insnite entertainment. In and about London this month of September near a hundred people have died by accident and suicide. There was one blacksmith, tired of the hammer, who hanged himself, and left written behind him this concise epitaph, 'I, Joe Pope, Lived without hope, And died by a rope,' or else some epigrammatic muse has belied him. "Mr. Muir has ample fund for politics in the present posture of affairs, as you will find by the public news. I should be glad to know that great minister's frame just now. Keep it to yourself. You may whisper it, too, in Mass John's ear: far otherwise is his late mysterious brother Mr. Tait employed, started a superannuated fortune, and just now upon the full scent. It is comical enough to see him from amongst the rubbish of his controversial divinity and politics, furbishing up his ancient rustic gallantry. “Yours sincerely, J. T. "Remember me to all friends, Mr. Rickle, Mass John, Brother John, &c." Thomson's earliest patron in London was Mr. Duncan Forbes of Culloden, afterwards Lord President of the Session; who is thus commemorated in "The Seasons": "Thee, Forbes, too, whom every worth attends, Having seen his poetry in Scotland, Mr. Forbes received him with kindness: recommended him to the Duke of Argyle, the Earl of Burlington, Sir Robert Walpole, Dr. Arbuthnot, Pope, and Gay. Among Mr. Forbes's other friends, to whom he introduced Thomson, was Mr. Aikman, a gentleman moving in high society. The friendship of Aikman was so much appreciated by Thomson, that he wrote some verses on his death, in June, 1731. He was, however, perhaps more indebted for attention and kindness to Mr. Mallet, his school fellow, than to any other person. Mallet was then private tutor in the family of the Duke of Montrose. Thomson is supposed to have been introduced by Mallet to many brother poets and wits of the day; and he was assisted by him in negotiating the publication of his first work. The poem of "Winter," which, reversing the natural order, proved the harbinger of " The Seasons," appeared in folio in March, 1726. As soon as the poem was published, Mallet brought it to the notice of Mr. Aaron Hill. After Hill had read the piece, he stated his opinion of it in a letter to Mallet, which threw its author into such a tumult of joy, as to bring forth the following extraordinary letter: TO AARON HILL, ESQ. 66 "April 5, 1726. •SIR. "HAVING seen a letter you wrote to my friend Mr. Mallet, on Saturday last, though I cannot boast the honour and happiness of your acquaintance, and ought with the utmost deference and veneration to approach so supreme a genius, yet my full heart is not to be repressed by formalities; and you must allow me the pleasure of pouring forth my best acknowledgments. "I will not affect a moderate joy at your approbation, your praise: it pleases, it delights, it ravishes me! Forgive me for the lowness of the truth, when I vow, I'd rather have it than the acclamations of thousands 'tis so sincere, so delicate, so distinguishing, so glowing, and what peculiarly marks and endears it, so beautifully generous. That great mind and transcendent humanity that appear in the testimony you have been pleased to give my first attempt, would have utterly confounded me, if I had not been prepared for such an entertainment, by your well-known character; which the voice of fame, and your own masterly writings, loudly proclaim. "It would both be disingenuous, and rudely unjust, in me, after what you have observed, to dissemble my satisfaction at several passages in the poem: this let me say, that your reflections have entered into the very soul of my purpose, and, even to myself, cast a light over the whole. “How rare, how happy, is it to find a judge whose discerning goodness overlooks the faults of what is well meant. at the same time that his fine enthusiastic taste improves the beauties. To you alone it belongs to write so inimitably, and to read so indulgently. If I wrote all that my admiration of your perfections, and my gratitude dictate, I should never have done; but, lest I tire you, I'll for the present rather put a violence on myself: only let me cherish one hope further — of being, some time or other, admitted into the most instructive and entertaining company in the world. I am, with the greatest devotion, Sir, your most obliged and most faithful, humble servant, "JAMES THOMSON." Mr. Hill's reply increased the poet's transports, and he thus acknowleged its receipt : "SIR. TO AARON HILL, ESQ. "April 18, 1726. "I RECEIVED yours with a soul awakened all to joy, gratitude, and ambition. There is such a noble excellence of mind, so much uncommon goodness, and ge nerosity of heart, in every thing you say, as at once charms and astonishes me. As you think, imagine, and write, with a diviner warmth, superior to the rest of mankind, so the very praises you bestow, bear the stamp of eminence, and reflect stronger on yourself. While I meditate your encouraging lines, for a while I forget the selfishness, degeneracy, and cruelty of men, and seem to be associated with better and more exalted beings. 66 The social love, of which you are so bright an example, though it be the distinguishing ornament of humanity, yet there are some ill-natured enough to degrade it into a modification of self-love, according to them, its original. Those gentlemen, I am afraid, |