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THE LIFE OF

more attentive perufal, they had got the better of their prejudices, and either acquired or affected a truer tafte. A few others ftood aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and refigned themselves to an abfolute defpair of ever feeing any thing new and original. These were fomewhat mortified to find their notions disturbed by the appearance of a poet, who seemed to owe nothing but to nature and his own genius. But, in a fhort time, the applause became unanimous; every one wondering how fo many pictures, and pictures fo familiar, fhould have moved them but faintly to what they felt in his defcriptions. His digreffions too, the overflowings of a tender benevolent heart, charmed the reader no lefs; leaving him in doubt, whether he fhould more admire the Poet, or love the Man.

From that time Mr. Thomfon's acquaintance was courted by all men of tafte; and feveral ladies of high rank and distinction became his declared patroneffes: the Countess of Hertford, Mifs Drelincourt, afterwards Viscountess Primrose, Mrs. Stanley, and others. But the chief happiness which his Winter procured him was, that it brought him acquainted with Dr. Rundle, afterwards Lord Bishop of Derry: who, upon converfing with Mr. Thomson, and finding in him qualities greater still, and of more value, than those of a poet, received him into his intimate confidence and friendship; promoted his character every where; introduced him to his great friend the Lord Chancellor Tal

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bot; and, fome years after, when the eldest fon of that nobleman was to make his tour of travelling, recommended Mr. Thomfon as a proper companion for him. His affection and gratitude to Dr. Rundle, and his indignation at the treatment that worthy prelate had met with, are finely expreffed in his poem to the memory of Lord Talbot. The true cause of that undeferved treatment has been fecreted from the Public, as well as the dark manœuvres that were employed: but Mr. Thomson, who had accefs to the beft information, places it to the account of

-Slanderous zeal, and politics infirm,

Jealous of worth.

Meanwhile, our poet's chief care had been, in return for the public favour, to finish the plan which their wifhes laid out for him; and the expectations which his Winter had raised, were fully fatisfied by the fucceffive publication of the other Seafons: of Summer, in the year 1727; of Spring, in the beginning of the following year; and of Autumn, in a quarto edition of his works, printed in 1730.

In that edition, the Seafons are placed in their natural order; and crowned with that inimitable Hymn, in which we view them in their beautiful fucceffion, as one whole, the immediate effect of infinite Power and Goodness. In imitation of the Hebrew Bard, all nature is called forth to do homage to the Creator, and the reader is left enraptured in filent adoration and praise.

Besides these, and his tragedy of Sophonisba, written and acted with applause, in the year 1729, Mr. Thomson had, in 1727, published his poem to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, then lately deceafed; containing a deserved encomium of that incomparable man, with an account of his chief difcoveries; fublimely poetical; and yet fo just, that an ingenious foreigner, the Count Algarotti, takes a line of it for the text of his philofophical dialogues, Il Neutonianifmo per le dame: this was in part owing to the affistance he had of his friend Mr. Gray, a gentleman well verfed in the Newtonian Philofophy, who, on that occafion, gave him a very exact, though general, abstract of its principles.

That fame year, the refentment of our merchants, for the interruption of their trade by the Spaniards in America, running very high, Mr. Thomfon zealously took part in it; and wrote his poem Britannia, to roufe the nation to revenge. And although this piece is the lefs read that its fubject was but accidental and temporary; the fpirited generous fentiments that enrich it, can never be out of feafon: they will at least remain a monument of that love of his country, that devotion to the Public, which he is ever inculcating as the perfection of virtue, and which none ever felt more pure, or more intense, than himself.

Our author's poetical ftudies were now to be interrupted, or rather improved, by his attendance on the Honourable Mr. Charles Talbot in his

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travels. A delightful task indeed! endowed as that young nobleman was by nature, and accomplished by the care and example of the beft of fathers, in whatever could adorn humanity: graceful of perfon, elegant in manners and addrefs, pious, humane, generous; with an exquifite tafte in all the finer arts.

With this amiable companion and friend, Mr. Thomson vifited most of the courts and capital cities of Europe; and returned with his views greatly enlarged; not of exterior nature only, and the works of art, but of human life and manners, of the constitution and policy of the several states, their connexions, and their religious inftitutions. How particular and judicious his obfervations were, we fee in his poem of Liberty, begun foon after his return to England. We fee, at the fame time, to what a high pitch his love of his country was raised, by the comparisons he had all along been making of our happy well-poised government with thofe of other nations. To infpire his fellow-fubjects with the like fentiments; and to fhew them by what means the precious freedom we enjoy may be preserved, and how it may be abused or loft; he employed two years of his life in compofing that noble work: upon which, conscious of the importance and dignity of the fubject, he valued himself more than upon all his other writings.

While Mr. Thomson was writing the First Part of Liberty, he received a fevere fhock, by the death of his noble friend and fellow-traveller: which was foon followed by another that was feverer

ftill, and of more general concern; the death of Lord Talbot himfelf; which Mr. Thomson fo pathetically and so justly laments in the poem dedicated to his memory. In him the nation faw itself deprived of an uncorrupted patriot, the faithful guardian of their rights, on whose wisdom and integrity they had founded their hopes of relief from many tedious vexations: and Mr. Thomson, befides his fhare in the general mourning, had to bear all the affliction which a heart like his could feel, for the person whom, of all mankind, he most revered and loved. At the fame time, he found himself, from an eafy competency, reduced to a ftate of precarious dependence, in which he passed the remainder of his life; excepting only the two laft years of it, during which he enjoyed the place of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, procured for him by the generous friendship of my Lord Lyttelton.

Immediately upon his return to England with Mr. Talbot, the Chancellor had made him his Secretary of Briefs; a place of little attendance, fuiting his retired indolent way of life, and equal to all his wants. This place fell with his patron; and although the noble Lord, who fucceeded to Lord Talbot in office, kept it vacant for fome time, probably till Mr. Thomson fhould apply for it, he was fo difpirited, and fo listless to every concern of that kind, that he never took one step in the affair: a neglect which his best friends greatly blamed in him.