truth, force, and elegance of thought, and expression; such animated, fine sense, and chastised fancy; so much dignity and condescension, sublimity and sweetness; in a word, such a variety of entertainment and instruction, as is beyond all admiration. Your smiles have all the encouraging power of humanity in them. What one says, is received with great taste and indulgence; and to listen to you, gives one a secret, and more ravishing pleasure, than to be author of the best things in other company. "There is downright inspiration in your society. It enlarges and exalts all the powers of the soul, chases every low thought, throws the passions into the most agreeable agitations, and gives the heart the most affecting sentiments-'Tis moral harmony! It gives me an additional pleasure to reflect how justly pleased, too, Mr. Savage was. 66 'Nothing is, to me, a stronger instance of the unimprovable nature of that unhappy creature of whom you speak so compassionately, notwithstanding of the barbarous provocation he has given you, than his remaining bleak, and withered, under the influences of your conversation-a certain sign of a field that the Lord has cursed. "There is none that renders human nature more amiable than you; and at the same time, none that renders the greatest part of it more contemptible: and to descend from your company, and mingle with the herd of mankind, is like Nebuchadnezzar's descending from a throne, to graze with the beasts of the field. "Now I feast on reflection-and am like a poor man, that has brought as much from a rich entertainment with him, as must sustain him for many days afterwards. What charms and amuses me, in a particular manner, is, the account you gave us of that little seraph, the young Urania! Her elegant turn of mind; her innocence, and goodness, in the choice of her subjects; her fancy, judgment, and ambition, above her years; and the beautiful struggle of the last (it is unfair to call it vanity), occasioned by the rude stupidity of the school boy, are most agreeably surprising. What you, obligingly, observed of good company's being Ariosto's fountain of thirst, is remarkably true of yours-I shall long impatiently for the farther refreshment of it; and am, with the most entire regard, Dear Sir, your most obliged, and most faithful, humble servant, "JAMES THOMSON." "Winter" was inscribed* to Sir Spencer Compton, Speaker of the House of Commons, afterwards Earl of Wilmington, but Thomson's motive for selecting him as his patron, is unknown. Dr. Johnson says the poem was unnoticed by Sir Spencer Compton until Aaron Hill roused his attention to it by some verses addressed to Thomson in the newspapers, which censured the great for their neglect of ingenious men. Of those verses some particulars occur in a letter from Thomson to Mr. Hill; but that letter is of most interest from its * Mr. Bolton Corney says the dedication was written by Mallet. [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 peices; 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 • gnerance.. Malet, Spence by Singer, p. 327 ] showing that he had left his situation in Lord Binning's family, and accepted the office of tutor to a young gentleman in an academy kept by Mr. Watts in Little Tower Street: TO AARON HILL, ESQ. "Dear Sir, "Oldman's Coffee House, May 24, 1726. "I HOPE that your uncommon goodness will forgive me, what I scarcely can forgive myself, my not having, hitherto, answered the last encouraging letter, and copy of verses, you honoured me with. The approbation which, out of the fulness of a beneficent heart, you are pleased to give me, I am fond and ambitious of, next to that of Heaven: it is my best reward for what I have done, and a noble incitement to go on. When you approve, my whole soul is awaked and charmed. Pleasing is your praise, but severe is your satire. It is particularly marked with exalted sentiment, and generous contempt. There is a force in it, that strikes through the heart; and a majesty not to be expressed. In a word, it is the unaffected resentment of a great mind. "It is impossible for me, in the compass of this letter, to say how much I admire every particular line; yet it is as impossible for me to restrain myself from dwelling on some. 'Smile at your vanish'd hope-convinced, too late, That greatness dwells not, always, with the great.'* "I feel the first line too sensibly; and the last finely insinuates the absurdity of vulgar and hereditary greatness. Your sinking of the Lord's unlasting name *These lines were altered to "Fruitless dependance oft has found too late That greatness rarely dwells among the great." in the depth of time, is pleasingly and nobly just: Sir John Falstaff sunk not with greater alacrity, in a literal sense, than they and all their fopperies do in a metaphorical. “I never read any thing more glorious, than the four following lines, 'Patrons are nature's nobles, not the state's; And wit's a title, no broad seal creates. Kings, from whose bounty wealth's chief currents flow,* Are poor in power, when they would souls bestow.' They are the most divine triumph of merit and virtue, that was ever writ. The best way of displaying all their beauties is to read them a thousand and a thousand times over. Your description of the courthaunting, wink-observing bard, is so natural, that, if I am not mistaken, it may be found a picture of some living originals. The last paragraph is very strongly and delicately wrought off; but so favourable to me, as obliges me to suppress all sentiments, save such as flow from gratitude; with which my heart is as full, as yours is with goodness and perfection. You have given me fame; and what have I to return you, but the acknowledgment of a grateful soul? "How powerfully was I charmed with the four acts of Elfrid, you were so condescendingly good as to read us! There is in them such a rich assemblage of all the excellencies of the best poetry, as is not anywhere to be found. I never met, before, with such a force, and dignity of passion. My heart trembles, yet, when I reflect. But I will not cramp my admiration into the small space this letter allows. "Mr. Mallet is now gone into the country, where he justly expects to be vastly entertained, and in *This line was changed to "E'en Kings from whose high source all honours flow." structed, by your correspondence. I have been somewhat melancholy since his departure, touched with these pensive emotions, parting with such a friend gives; 'Bounteous Creator of the tender heart! Is there no world, where friends shall never part? "I go, on Saturday next, to reside at Mr. Watts's Academy in Little Tower-street, in quality of tutor to a young gentleman there. Since you have been pleased to raise me, in some measure, to the new life of your favour, let me never fall from it, but frequently be allowed the honour of subscribing myself, dear Sir, your most obliged, and most devoted, humble servant, "JAMES THOMSON." The efforts of Mr. Hill aided, it is said, by those of the Reverend Robert Whatley, a gentleman of acknowledged taste, who commended the work wherever he visited, soon exhausted the edition.* Accompanied, apparently by Mallet, Thomson *To this edition Thomson added the letters "M. A." to his name, but his right to do so is very doubtful; and it was omitted on every other occasion. Warton says, "When Thomson published his Winter, in 1726, it lay a long time neglected, till Mr. Spence made honourable mention of it in his Essay on the Odyssey; which, becoming a popular book, made the Poem universally known. Thomson always acknowledged the use of this recommendation; and from this circumstance an intimacy commenced between the critic and the poet, which lasted till the lamented death of the latter, who was of a most amiable and benevolent temper. I have before me a letter of Mr. Spence to [Christopher] Pitt, earnestly begging him to subscribe to the quarto edition of Thomson's Seasons, and mentioning a design which Thomson had formed of writing a descriptive poem on Blenheim; a subject that would have shone in his hands." |