THE Poet of the Seasons deserved to be born, if not in some scene of natural majesty or magnificence, at least in a spot of rural amenity, away from the dense turmoil of great cities. This boon was accorded him ; the place of his birth being Ednam near Kelso, and the date II September1 1700. His father was the minister of Ednam, a man distinguished for piety. James received his earliest teaching at Jedburgh Grammar-school. Here, and even at a prior date, he attracted, by his taste for poetry, the attention of a neighbouring minister, the Rev. Mr. Riccaltoun, who encouraged his boyish attempts. On leaving this school, he went to the University of Edinburgh, and in 1719 became a student of divinity there-not, probably, a particularly diligent student whether in this or in other branches of the scholastic course. His chief care seems still to have been given to the cultiva 1 In some accounts 1 find 7 September; but it is not correct. tion of his poetical talents. He used (so the story goes) on every New-year's day, to burn the verses of the previous twelvemonth, writing at the same time some lines to set forth the reasons—and doubtless of these there was no lack -that warranted the immolation. It was principally by the advice of friends that he had been swayed towards theological studies, with the prospect of afterwards entering the Scottish Church; his father having died in 1720, during the second session of Thomson's University attendance, deeply mourned by him, and his mother with her large family—there had been nine children of the union—having in consequence removed into Edinburgh. This mother, Beatrix Trotter, is described as a woman of no little elevation of character and mind. By birth she was allied to the Hume race, coheiress of a small estate; an enthusiastic devotee, imaginative, and altogether such a person as, according to the fitness of things, might well give birth to a poet. She lived to see her son a man of celebrity. A small but significant incident is said to have determined Thomson to abandon the ministerial career, and to trust to that of a man of letters, more especially in poetry. In his probation for the Scottish Church he was called on by Dr. Hamilton, the Professor of Divinity, to expound a portion of the 119th Psalm relative to the glory of God. This he did with so much richness and loftiness of language as to entail censure no less than praise. The audience were astonished, and Dr. Hamilton complimented his diction; but reproved it as not being generally intelligible, and so not befitting one whose office it would be to preach the gospel to the poor, and do practical work in an undis A |