up comes abroad in a fortnight. It will certainly travel as far as Barbadoes. You have an apartment in it, as a night pensioner, which you may remember I filled up for you during our delightful party at North Ham. Will ever these days return again? Don't you remember your eating the raw fish that was never caught? All our friends are pretty much in statu quo, except it be poor Mr Lyttelton. He has had the feverest trial an hu mane tender heart can have +: but the old phyfician Time will at last close his wounds, though there must always remain an inward smarting. Mitchel is in the house for Aberdeen-fhire, and has spoken modeftly well: I hope he will be in fomething else foon. None deferves better: true friendship and humanity dwell in his heart. fing his accounts. I fpoke to him about that affair. If he gives you any trouble about it, even that of dunning, I fhall think of it strangely; but I dare fay he is too friendly to do it. He values himself justly upon being friendly to his old friends, and you are among the oldeft. Symmer is at laft tired of quality, and is going to take a femi-country house at Hammerfmith. Gray is working hard at pas The Castle of Indolence is the finest poem of the kind in any language-worthy of the ripened tafte of Thomson, and of a polished age. O thou, whose genius, powerful yet refin'd Whofe bard-like virtues, and confummate skill To touch the finer springs that move the heart Join'd to whate'er the Graces could bestow, And all Apollo's animating fire, Gave thee with pleafing dignity to shine. + The death of his Lucy. At once the friend, the ornament, and joy Sir Andrew Mitchel of Thainftoun. Not a word of exaggeration. He was an excellent man. It is needlefs for me to attempt saying any thing about a man who was esteemed by Frederick the Great, and beloved by his acquaintance and relations. smith. I am forry that honeft fenfible Warrender (who is in town) seems to be stunted in church preferment. He ought to be a tall cedar in the houfe of the Lord. If he is not fo at laft, it will add more fuel to my in dignation, that burns already too intenfely, and throbs towards an eruption. Peter Murdoch is in town, tutor to Admiral Vernon's fon, and is in good hopes of another living in Suffolk, that country of tranquillity, where he will then burrow himself in a wife and be happy. Good-natured obliging Millar is as ufual. THOUGH the Doctor* increases in his business, he does not decrease in fpleen; but there is a certain kind of spleen, that is both humane and agreeable, like Jacques in the play. I fometimes have a touch of it.-But I muft break off this chat with you about our friends, which, were I to indulge it, would be endless-As for politics-we are I believe upon the brink of a peace. The French at prefent are vapouring in the fiege of Maestricht, at the * Doctor Armstrong.-Armftrong was a worthy man, a good phyfician, and perhaps one of the best scientific didactic poets in the world, as appears from his poem on the art of preserving Health Thomson has described his abfent moods in the Castle of Indolence, in the tenth stanza : "There, inly thrill'd, he wander'd all alone, "With him was fometimes join'd in filent walk, "(Profoundly filent, for they never spoke) "One shyer still, who quite detefted talk; "Oft ftung by spleen, at once away he broke, "To groves of pine, and broad o'ershadowing oak: When the good Doctor was with the British army in Flanders, as a furgeon or phyfician, he was taken prifoner one day, taking what he called a stroll beyond the lines. I cannot but remember with high pleasure that worthy character. He died September 30, 1779, much regretted by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. the fame time they are mortally fick in their marine, and through all the vitals of France. It is a pity we cannot continue the war a little longer, and put their agonifing trade quite to death. This fiege, I take it, they mean as their last flourish in the war.-May your health, which never failed you yet, ftill continue, till you have fcraped together enough to return home, and live in fome fnug corner, as happy as the Corycius Senex, in Virgil's fourth Georgic, whom I recommend both to you and myself as a perfect model of the trueft happy life. Believe me to be ever moft fincerely, and affectionately, Yours, &c. JAMES THOMSON. ANOTHER letter from Thomson to one of his fifters occurs about this period. Thomfon's Letter to his Sifter, Mrs Jean Thomfon, at Lanark. MY DEAR SISTER, Hagley, in Worcestershire, 4th October, 1747. I THOUGHT YOU had known me better than to interpret my filence into a decay of affection, especially as your behaviour has always been fuch as rather to increase than diminish it. Don't imagine, because I am a bad correfpondent, that I can ever prove an unkind friend and brother. I must do myself the juftice to tell you, that my affections are naturally very fixed and conftant; and if I had ever reafon of complaint againft you (of which, by the bye, I have not the leaft fhadow), I am confcious of fo many defects in myself, as dispose me to be not a little charitable and forgiving. IT Ir gives me the trucft heartfelt satisfaction to hear you have a good kind husband, and are in eafy contented circumstances: but were they otherwife, that would only awaken and heighten my tenderness towards you. As our good and tender-hearted parents did not live to receive any material teftimonies of that highest human gratitude I owed them (than which nothing could have given me more pleasure), the only return I can make them now, is by kindness to those they left behind them. Would to God poor Lizzy had lived longer, to be a farther witness of the truth of what I fay, and that I might have had the pleasure of seeing once more a fifter who fo truly deserved my esteem and love. But she is happy, while we muft 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 fafer shore, where to recollect the ftorms and difficulties of life will not perhaps be inconfiftent 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 the great foftener and engager of hearts, mutual hardship. That it was in my power to ease it a little, I account one of the moft exquifite pleasures of my life.-But enough of this melancholy, though not unpleasing strain. I ESTEEM you for your fenfible and difinterested advice to Mr Bell, as you will fee 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 circumftan ces Elizabeth, married to Mr Bell, mother of the prefent Dr Bell, rector of the parish of Coldstream, in Berwickshire. A ces have been hitherto 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) confiderably improved, I begin to think myself too far advanced in life for fuch youthful undertakings, not to mention fome other petty reasons that are apt to startle the delicacy of difficult old bachelors. I am, however, not a little fufpicious, that was I to pay a visit to Scotland (which I have fome thoughts of doing foon), I might poflibly be tempted to think of a thing not easily repaired if done amifs. I have always been of opinion, that none make better wives than the ladies of Scotland; and yet who more forfaken than they, while the gentlemen are continually running abroad all the world over? Some of them, it is true, are wife enough to return for a wife.-You fee 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 correfpondent, yet perhaps I may mend in that refpect. Remember me kindly to your husband*, and believe me to be Your most affectionate brother, (Addreffed) to Mrs Thomfon, in Lanark. g JAMES THOMSON. Mr Thomfon was rector of the grammar fchool at Lanark, and from him, or Mrs Thomfon, Mr Bofwell obtained a copy of the original of this letter, which original is now in the poffeffion of Mr James Craig, architect, Thomfon's youngeft fifter's fon, who is likewife poffelfed of copies of Thomson's juvenile poems, of his fnuff-box, and feal of arms, which hung at his watch, and of his original portrait painted by Hudfon, for Mr Millar, the bookfeller, which was prefented to him by Lady Grant, firft married to that worthy friend of the poet's, and was a daughter of Johnfon, the engraver to the Bank of Scotland. Lord Buchan prefented to Mr Craig the plafter of Paris caft of the buft of Thomson, which was intended to have been crowned on Ednam-Hill, and he gave a sketch for a monument to the memory of his uncle for that confpicuous fituation. |