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 FROM THE 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 PR 3733.B36 
 
 James Thomson, 
 
 3 1924 013 202 597 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013202597 
 
JAMES 
 THOMSON 
 
FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES 
 
 The following Volumes are now ready: — 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson. 
 
 ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton. 
 
 HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask. 
 
 JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes. 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun. 
 
 THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie. 
 
 RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless. 
 
 SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson. 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN 
 Blaikie. 
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask. 
 
 TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By Oliphant Smeaton. 
 
 FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. Omond. 
 
 THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir George Douglas. 
 
 NORMAN MACLEOD. By John Wellwood. 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor Saintsbury. 
 
 KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By Louis A. Barb^. 
 
 ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. Grosart. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. By William Bayne. 
 
JAMES i 
 THOMSON 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM 
 PAYNE : 
 
 FAMOUS 
 •SCOTS- 
 •SERIES- 
 
 e=^ 
 
 c=9 
 
 PUBuiHED BY W 
 OLIPHANT ANDERSON 
 tr FERRIEREDINBVRGH 
 AND LONDON Ci- -vi. 
 
 0U\ . 
 
The designs and ornaments of this 
 volume are by Mr Joseph Brown, 
 and the printing from the press of 
 Messrs Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 One or two points of some fresh interest on the life and 
 work of Thomson, directly due to the revived attention 
 which at the present hour is bestowed upon this poet, 
 have come under my notice since this volume was in 
 type. 
 
 The first of these concerns the opinion of Mr Gosse on 
 the eighteenth century renaissance. In Mr Gosse's recently 
 published study on Modern English Literature he gives a 
 much more important and, as I think, a juster value to the 
 work of Thomson in relation to this movement than he 
 does in his essay on Gray, to which I refer in my intro- 
 ductory chapter. " It was Thomson," he says in his last 
 book, "who made the first resistance to the new classical 
 formula, and it is, in fact, Thomson who is the real pioneer 
 of the whole romantic movement, with its return to Nature 
 and simplicity." Further on he adds : — " His extraordinary 
 freshness, his new outlook into the whole world of imagina- 
 tive life, deserve a very different recognition from what is 
 commonly awarded to him." This verdict, coming from 
 a critic of the high qualifications of Mr Gosse, is a remark- 
 able bit of testimony in the wide approbation which has 
 of late years been pronounced upon the poet of The 
 Seasons. 
 
 Another matter of considerable moment just now with 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 respect to Thomson's work is the question as to whether 
 Pope collaborated with him in the final revision of The 
 Seasons. In Notes and Queries iox November 13, 1897, 
 Mr Tovey published a statement supplementary to his 
 discussion of Pope's copartnership with Thomson in the 
 recension of his chief poemj but I do not find that 
 he has adduced any new evidence in favour of Pope's 
 share in the task. The fact that Pope seems to have 
 altered a few lines in the MS. of Aaron Hill's Athelwold 
 lends no authority whatever to the credibility of his having 
 revised Thomson's poem. In brief, this problem still 
 remains exactly as it is left in the following pages. 
 
 Much obscurity surrounds Thomson's early career in 
 London J and, although I have sought to make clearer 
 this part of his life, there must always be a good deal of 
 conjecture in the case. The Rev. Dr Mair, Southdean, 
 a recognised authority on Thomson's biography, has 
 very kindly communicated with me on the difficulty, and, 
 while apparently inclining to the view that Thomson's 
 " design " in going to London was to take orders in the 
 Church of England, Dr Mair agrees with me that the 
 poet's second intention was to return to his original studies 
 in the Church of Scotland. 
 
 Edinburgh, /awwary 1898. 
 
JAMES A. MANSON, Esq. 
 
 WITH MUCH ESTEEM, AND IN PLEASANT REMEMBRANCE OF 
 
 SOME HOURS CONJOINTLY GIVEN TO THE POETS, THIS 
 
 VOLUME IS DEDICATED BV HIS OBLIGED FRIEND 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Introductory. Early Scottish Pobtry of Nature . 9 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Boyhood and Education. At Edinburgh University 25 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 In London. Publication of ' Winter ' . . 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Publication of 'Summer' and 'Spring.' First 
 
 Edition of 'The Seasons.' Minor Poems . . 59 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Drama of 'Sophonisba.' Continental Tour. Publi- 
 cation OF • Liberty." Other Dramas . . 74 
 
 / 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Revised Edition of ' The Seasons,' ' The Castle of 
 
 Indolence.' Death and Character . . 93 
 
 CHAPTER Vll 
 'The Seasons' ...... iii 
 
 ^ CHAPTER Vni 
 'The Castle OF Indolence' . . . .129 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Thomson's Dramas. ' Rule Britannia ' . . 144 
 
JAMES THOMSON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. EARLY SCOTTISH POETRY OF NATURE 
 
 ' If I were asked,' remarks Matthew Arnold in his Study 
 of Celtic Literature}^ if I were asked where English poetry 
 got these three things — itfe turn for style, its turn for melan- 
 choly, and its turn for natural magic, for catching and 
 rendering the charm of Nature in a wonderfully new and 
 vivid way, I should answer, with some doubt, that it 
 got much of its turn for style from a Celtic source ; with 
 less doubt, that it got much of its melancholy from a 
 Celtic source; with no doubt at all, that from a Celtic 
 source it got nearly all its natural magic/_;^ Arnold, with 
 his altogether exceptional insight into any matter what- 
 ever connected with poetry, supports his contention with 
 perfect convincingness. He would have encountered 
 a task not less hard had he set himself to solve the 
 problem why Scottish poetry supplies so much of what 
 he includes in his third division of the special debt of 
 English Literature to the Celtic genius. How does it 
 happen that Scottish poetry possesses a very great deal 
 that is first-rate on the theme of outward Nature, while 
 English poetry, at least until the time of Wordsworth, 
 
 9 
 
lo FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 furnishes so slight, if precious, a collection of verse of 
 this description? The predominant influence of the 
 Celtic element in Scotland will not be found sufllicient 
 to account for it. Ossian, the bard of Woody Morven 
 and Echoing Sora, had undoubtedly the deUcate magic 
 and aerial brightness in his treatment of Nature to which 
 Arnold refers. But this fact does not go far to explain 
 the prevalent and deep sympathy in the interpretation of 
 the outward world which so characterises the whole of 
 Scottish poetry, especially that of its early writers. 
 
 A certain paradoxical view of Leigh Hunt's might be 
 vainly grasped at by the unhistorical reader as offering 
 a clue to unravel the mystery. In inquiring for a 
 reason to determine why the Caledonian showed a 
 more widely-spread faculty of song than the Southron, 
 Hunt came to the conclusion that the Northerner was 
 driven by the utter antithesis of pleasure in his sur- 
 roundings to the enticing cultivation of the muse. His 
 love of outward Nature, therefore, if this view were to 
 be adopted, would logically result from untoward climatic 
 conditions. One link in the argument, however, would 
 be awanting. The Scot, if he has not the best of 
 climates, is, at all events, favoured with beautiful scenery, 
 an inspiration that of itself might aptly rouse him to 
 its praise in song. Any sort of serious acceptance of 
 Hunt's theory thus avails nothing. The question derives 
 further complication from the circumstance that most 
 of the early Scottish writers who delighted in depicting 
 landscape were not dwellers in the midst of the most 
 picturesque districts of their native land. Not the 
 Highlands, but the Lowlands, was the soil from which 
 
JAMES THOMSON ii 
 
 they sprang. Ossian himself meets telling rivalry from 
 several Lowland compatriots in point of natural descrip- 
 tion. Yet a solution of the difficulty, though not an 
 absolutely definite one, is possible. 
 
 The intense perception of the beauty of Nature evinced 
 by the early Scottish poets is admittedly Celtic in char- 
 acter. Especially does this manifest itself in the love of 
 colour. The descriptions of Gawin Douglas, says Mr 
 Stopford Brooke, blaze like an Oriental monarch. In 
 what manner are we to trace the existence of this Celtic 
 influence ? It seems to be fairly well settled by the con- 
 jecture that this delight in the outward world was a 
 legacy left by the Celtic blood among the English of the 
 Lowlands. The old kingdom of Strathclyde held both 
 Celt and Saxon within its borders, extending as it did 
 from Wales to the Clyde, and taking in part of the Low- 
 lands and the more western parts of Northern England. 
 The peculiar power of observing Nature, and delight in 
 describing her, probably crept in from Strathclyde, and 
 there was thus retained, in the Lowland mind, after the 
 Celtic inhabitants had lost their individuality or passed 
 away, this passion of man for the world of phenomena 
 beyond him. 
 
 English literature developed the like quality in Chaucer ; 
 but this was not so direct nor so dominant. In Eng- 
 lish poetry, too, the characteristic was lost for many 
 a day, until nobly revived by Spenser and Shakespeare, 
 and a few of the Elizabethan dramatists. During 
 the interval Scottish poetry was marked by a regular 
 sequence of writers, whose work displayed unfailing 
 enjoyment in the charm of Nature. In England, after 
 
ra FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Milton, and, it may be added, the authop of Britannia's 
 Pastorals, no fine poetical fruit of this kind made its 
 appearance. The field again became comparatively 
 sterile and bleak. The Restoration ushered into litera- 
 ture in the main the fancy for keeping exclusively to the 
 comedy of social affairs, and amusement enough and to 
 spare was thereafter to be obtained from the witty and 
 carefully-finished verse of Dryden, Congreve, and Pope. 
 
 A tendency to artificiality, and ultimately sheer petti- 
 ness of sentiment, became the almost direct consequence 
 of such writing. Life itself suffered under this narrowing 
 and particular view of looking at the world. A reaction 
 was bound to come, and it very shortly did so. Men 
 had to be taught to think somewhat more soberly, more 
 broadly and freshly. Two schools of literary instructors 
 undertook this revival, and reaped success. The one, 
 that of satire, was most notably represented by Swift and 
 Mandeville. The other, that of a deliberate and decided 
 return to the consideration of Nature, both in life and 
 art, had for its pioneer James Thomson. No explanation 
 of the romantic renaissance of the eighteenth century 
 bears adequate interpretation apart from him. Gray, in 
 his cloistered seclusion, felt the stir of the movement 
 inaugurated by Thomson, and was an almost unconscious 
 exponent of the new creed. Burns, Cowper, Wordsworth, 
 all doubtless would have had their say, quite independently 
 of the fresh influence breathed into EngUsh literature by 
 the author of The Seasons ; but he assuredly was the 
 protagonist in an achievement which would have been 
 sadly incomplete without him. 
 
 With perfect admission of the excellence of Thomson's 
 
JAMES THOMSON 13 
 
 contemporaries, who dealt with the poetry of external 
 Nature, it may be urged with fairness that his supremacy 
 in this respect has not always been recognised as it 
 ought. Vague speculation on the romantic revival of the 
 eighteenth century often contents itself with the opinion 
 that Gray or Cowper in England, and Rousseau, were 
 the responsible leaders in this direction. These names, 
 it may be conceded, bulk niore largely in a general esti- 
 mate than does the reputation of Thomson. Yet it must 
 be remembered that it was thirty years after Thomson's 
 best work appeared that Rousseau published his New 
 Heldise, probably induced thereto in some degree by the 
 example of Montesquieu, who imported into France the 
 prevailing English devotion to Nature. Nor does Gray 
 or Cowper, praiseworthy as is the thought of each in this 
 relation, command the first position in time as an ex- 
 pounder of the revival of Nature in literature. Mr Gosse 
 curiously overlooks this in his monograph on Gray in 
 English Men of Letters. More than once he refers to the 
 author of the Elegy, as if he, and he only, were the dis- 
 coverer of the modern world of delight in the picturesque. 
 Gray, it will be generally granted, felt the fascination of 
 Nature in a marked degree, and did much to forward the 
 poetical interest which culminated in Wordsworth. Still, 
 he was by no means the first of modern writers to do so. 
 
 When we consider that a work so important as Tfie 
 Seasons, embodying a poetical exposition of the facts 
 of the external world at once various and comprehen- 
 sive, had appeared nearly ten years before the date of 
 an early letter of Gray's, which Mr Gosse believes to 
 contain 'the first modern feeling of the picturesque,' 
 
14 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 the verdict of that usually excellent critic seems to 
 be open to the charge of prejudice or something equally 
 reprehensible. Again, it is true that during Gray's 
 Continental tour he gave undoubted evidence of his 
 sincere appreciation of the scenery of his travels, in 
 language both beautiful and eloquent, whereas Thomson, 
 in the same circumstances, was silent, or nearly so, dis- 
 playing, indeed, absence of a feeling of enthusiasm. But 
 the author of The Seasons all the same forestalled the rapt 
 admiration to which Gray gave utterance in his journey 
 through the impressive surroundings of the Grande 
 Chartreuse. The Alps certainly found a new inter- 
 preter, but the wildness and awe of Nature had already 
 been fitly celebrated, by Thomson. Here we get no 
 novelty of observation on the part of Gray, though it 
 is very finely expressed. ' I own,' Gray writes to West, 
 ' I have not, as yet, anywhere met with those grand 
 and simple works of art that are to amaze one, and 
 whose sight one is to be the better for ; but those of 
 Nature have astonished me beyond expression. In one 
 little journey up to the Grande Chartreuse I do not 
 remember to have gone ten paces without an exclamation 
 that there was no restraining; not a precipice, not a 
 torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and 
 poetry.' Finally, the delight which Gray experienced in 
 his visit to the Lake country was of the most genuine and 
 exalted kind, and he narrated what he saw in a style 
 that is classical in its keen and sterling power of presen- 
 tation. One cannot, however, subscribe to Mr Gosse's 
 dictum that he showed in his correspondence on the 
 subject that he had ' an eye for Nature which was then 
 
JAMES THOMSON 15 
 
 without a precedent in modern literature.' The defects 
 of Thomson, whatever they be, lie not in his power of 
 observation. 
 
 His most formidable competitor, in truth, in the 
 claim to leadership in the Nature renaissance of his 
 day is in downright justice none other than Allan 
 Ramsay, who, when Thomson was yet a tacit (or an 
 unheard) worshipper at the shrine of his life's adoration, 
 published The Gentle Shepherd, the first far-sounding 
 note of modern nature poetry. The tribute which Burns, 
 a competent critic, pays to Ramsay on this head, argues 
 with some power for the recognition of Ramsay as the 
 first writer in modern English literature whose literary 
 bias was at variance with that of the established order. 
 ' Thou paints auld nature to the nines 
 
 In thy sweet Caledonian lines ; 
 
 Nae gowden stream thro' myrtle twines 
 Where Philomel, 
 
 While nightly breezes sweep the vines, 
 Her griefs will tell ! ' 
 
 But Ramsay's view of Nature while true was also limited. 
 
 It was but the ' scanty plot of ground ' of the pastoral 
 
 poet. The distinction belongs of right to Thomson 
 
 of seeking to expound the phenomena of Nature with 
 
 absolute earnestness and in variety. His versatility alone 
 
 gives him the palm. He has no rival either in his 
 
 outlook or attainment Prior, Dyer, and Collins, all 
 
 writers of more or less note belonging to the same 
 
 period, were visibly in touch with the preceding literary 
 
 age. Even from any one of them cannot be altogether 
 
 dissociated the satirical allusion to the pastoral equipment 
 
 of such versifiers as Ambrose Philips and Lady Winchelsea, 
 
i6 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 as consisting in 'the crook, the pipe, and the kid.' 
 Collins, in his third eclogue, has the excruciating line — 
 
 ' Each bore a crook all rural in her hand.' 
 Looked at in the light of similar work, both before and 
 after, in comparison with that of Virgil or Wordsworth (if 
 not of such rare quality as the work of these masters), 
 the poetry of Thomson holds a place unique and trans- 
 cendent in the verse of his epoch. 
 
 The scopie of the present volume does not call for any 
 special speculative consideration of the expression of man's 
 sympathy with the outward world. Thomson's position 
 as an interpreter is, at any rate, clear enough. Criticism 
 has adequately settled the source and character of man's 
 passion for the external world. This interest has been 
 minutely analysed into various sections. The first is 
 that which arises from the mere state of agreeable sen- 
 sation. The second and third may be called utilitarian, 
 being the expression of man's pleasure in the rich pasture 
 or the fertile field. The fourth stage is that of pure 
 love of Nature for itself, the satisfaction of. the esthetic 
 faculty. This is the feeling in Homer and in all poetry 
 where the writers are face to face with the fresh, unalloyed 
 excitement of the natural world. The ballads reflect it 
 perfectly. The fifth view reaches a higher stage than 
 any of the former. This may be described as the Greek 
 feeling. It represents a yearning for something beyond 
 Nature, for a fusion of the visible with the Invisible. It 
 includes also the symbolical manner of Wordsworth. 
 Sensuous as any one of the conceptions of Nature, it goes 
 further than any in endeavouring to give voice or character 
 to Nature as being in some fashion of harmonious relation- 
 
JAMES THOMSON 17 
 
 ship with man. The Greeks best typify this class of 
 thinkers with their acute sensibility to the beauty and 
 mystery of Nature, and their complete identification of 
 her activities with human interest and emotion. Schiller 
 understood this above most when he described 
 
 ' The fair humanities of old religion, 
 The power, the beauty, and the majesty. 
 That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain. 
 Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring.' 
 
 Wordsworth signalises a more advanced stage of this 
 symboUcal view. Natural description to Wordsworth 
 amounted to little. The Excursion, nominally descrip- 
 tive, is only diversified by ' sunny spots of greenery,' 
 curiously few and far between ; the poem takes its rank 
 chiefly because of the searching natural metaphysic with 
 which it is permeated and infused from the first line to the 
 last. Nature to Wordsworth has its fascination as revealing 
 an Invisible Power, in whose Presence abides the ultimate 
 grandeur or beauty of man's reverence. Thomson's con- 
 ception of Nature is much more objective. He combines 
 the simplicity of observation seen in early poet and 
 balladist with that of the philosophical and contemplative 
 thinker. Believing Nature to be the expression, even the 
 embodiment of a Power beyond her, he does not, at the 
 sailie time, so to speak, energise his metaphysical idea as 
 Wordsworth did. With Thomson there is Nature and 
 there is God. He never becomes purely pantheistic. 
 The work of the two poets, therefore, radically at one, 
 proceeds under different conditions. Thomson approaches 
 Nature from the aesthetic side, Wordsworth from that of 
 philosophy. Both set forth in serious and impressive lan- 
 
 B 
 
i8 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 guage the fact of Nature as a grand revelation, as a vesture 
 of the Divine. With both beauty is truth, truth beauty. 
 Their accomplishment is alike noble, sincere, and gracious. 
 Of their work, if of any, it may assuredly be expected, 
 what was once declared regarding Nature poetry: 'It 
 redeems from decay the visitations of the Divinity in man.' 
 It is impossible to discuss the work of Thomson with- 
 out particular reference to the long list of Scottish writers 
 who preceded him in his especial vein. The similitude, 
 it is true, is one of hidden sympathy rather than of direct 
 obligation. Thomson's reading does not appear to have 
 been based in any degree upon previous writers of his 
 own nationality. Spenser, Milton, and Shakespeare were 
 favourite authors, and it is to these authorities that there 
 may be traced much of his hterary adherence. Even 
 more than by these was he probably swayed by the 
 splendid example of Virgil. The Georgics above all, 
 formed, it would seem, a select part of his early studies. 
 In the preface to the second edition of Winter, he fully 
 acknowledges the inspiration gained from the 'rural 
 Virgil,' who wrote ' so inimitably,' and he translates one 
 passage from the Georgics in evidence of his keen 
 appreciation of the work of the great Latin pastoral 
 writer. Comment and aptness of rendering as well 
 display unmistakable enthusiasm. 'Who can forbear,' 
 he says, 'joining with him in this declaration of his, 
 which has been the rapture of ages ? — 
 
 * Me may the Muses, my supreme delight ! 
 Whose priest I am, smit with immense desire, 
 Snatch to their care ; the starry tracts disclose. 
 The sun's distress, the labours of the moon : 
 
JAMES THOMSON 19 
 
 Whence the earth quakes ; and by what force the deeps 
 Heave at the rocks, then on themselves reflow : 
 Why winter-suns to plunge in ocean speed : 
 And what retards the lazy summer-night. 
 But, least I should these mystic truths attain, 
 If the cold current freezes round my heart, 
 The country me, the brooky vales may please 
 'Mid woods, and streams unknown.' 
 
 It is somewhat curious that the old ballad literature of 
 the Borders, wherein there ever glows a love of Nature 
 fresh and bright as the sunshine, seems to have had no 
 prominent place in the esteem of Thomson. Possibly he 
 read and enjoyed the native lore of his country-side, but 
 no evidence can be adduced to show that he did. Perhaps 
 temperament had something to do with it. A man's 
 studies take their due course, just as the wind bloweth 
 where it listeth. Hamilton of Bangour, a close contem- 
 porary of Thomson's, wrote in complete accord with the 
 old ballad spirit, catching up skilfully its romance and its 
 very tone. But Hamilton, we know, like his namesake 
 of Gilbertfield, carried himself 'bauld and gay,' while 
 Thomson was never in his life aught but the contem- 
 plative and observant student. 
 
 This will so far explain his apparent lack of familiarity 
 with the traditional literature of the Borders. His obvious 
 isolation from the rest of the great Scottish singers of the 
 world of Nature bears plainer explanation. It was prob- 
 ably unavoidable. The revival of early Scottish literature 
 dates from recent times. The old language was a species 
 of dead letter to the eighteenth century reader. Besides, 
 even were the volumes not literally sealed, they might 
 not always be accessible. The broad and sometimes 
 
20 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Rabelaisian sentiments of Dunbar and Lyndesay, at 
 all events, were likely to be outside the pale of the 
 scantily furnished library shelves of the minister of 
 Southdean. 
 
 The rich product prepared bytheforerunnersof Thomson, 
 the greatest name of Scottish, perhaps of British, writers 
 of descriptive poetry, may be briefly surveyed. The 
 consideration takes us back to the earliest romances, to 
 " Sir Tristrem " and the work of Thomas of Ercildoune, 
 with their clear landscapes, haunted by elfin dwellers. 
 Whether in fairyland or on the Eildon slopes, true 
 Thomas never loses the sight or memory of the soft 
 Border scenery. Vivid glimpses gleam out entrancingly 
 in his story. 
 
 ' And see not ye that bonnie road 
 That winds about the fernie brae ? 
 That is the road to fair Elfland, 
 Where thou and I this night maun gae. ' 
 
 The martial ardour of Barbour cannot reasonably 
 delay over anything of a subordinate character, and 
 Henry the Minstrel and his coadjutors were in like case. 
 But in the King's Quair we reach a true sense of the 
 attractiveness of garden and field, as well as full capacity 
 to describe them. Here was truly one 
 
 ' Wedded to this goodly universe 
 In love and holy passion," 
 
 who gazed with such wistfulness through his prison window 
 on May leaf and flower at Windsor. Sympathy of a per- 
 fectly Scottish strain his may not be; the influence of 
 Chaucer, indeed, is to be noted without dubiety in the 
 
JAMES THOMSON 21 
 
 work of James I. ; but original insight does not fail. His 
 poem, in fact, strikes the first throbbing chord of the 
 music of Scottish poetry of Nature, which in the years to 
 follow was to sound with such diverse and brilliant effects. 
 Henryson's pastoral gift was of the truest. His outlook 
 is wide and free, and the freshness of wood and hill 
 breathes in his verse. Robene and Makyne comes into the 
 midst of the reflective literature of his day, like a touch 
 of Spring. Professor Veitch acutely points out that to 
 Henryson is due the merit of having anticipated all 
 others in introducing with felicity into his verse graphic 
 traits from the scenery of his native land. His imagina- 
 tion dwelt within native limits, and rejoiced to glorify the 
 beauty and the richness of Nature at his own doors. With 
 Dunbar we reach the grand climacteric in the work of early 
 Scottish poets of Nature. A man of masculine, as well 
 as tender feeling, and a poet of great variety of power, 
 Shakespearian in breadth except in the almost inevitable 
 deficiency in expression of the passion of love, Dunbar 
 now receives general acknowledgment as one of the fore- 
 most of Scottish poets. Potent imagination in his case 
 lifts his descriptions beyond those of his forerunners or 
 immediate followers. He draws a broad, comprehensive, 
 and finished picture. His details are true, vivid, and 
 exact. His colouring is bold, even splendid. He reflects 
 the intense love of colour of the pre-Raphaelites in 
 painting, with something of their idealism, but none of 
 their rigidity of workmanship. Dunbar takes most con- 
 cern, as was generally the case with the early Scottish 
 poet, in the glories of Summer, and the luxuriance of his 
 delineations is here specially noticeable. The following 
 
2 a FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 description reveals an original and hitherto unapproached 
 mastery : — 
 
 Doun throu the ryce ^ a ryvir ran with stremys, 
 So lustily agayn thai lylcand ^ lemys " 
 
 That all the lake as lamp did leme * of licht, 
 Quhilk schadowit all about with twynkling glemis ; 
 That bewis ' bathit war in fecund bemys 
 
 Throu the reflex of Phebus visage brycht ; 
 
 On every side the hegeis raise on hicht, 
 The bank was grene, the bruke was full of bremys,' 
 
 The stanneris ' clere as stem in frosty nycht. 
 
 The cristall air, the sapher firmament. 
 The ruby skyes of the orient, 
 
 Kest beriall hemes on emerant bewis grene ; 
 The rosy garth depaynt and redolent, 
 With purpur, azure, gold, and goul ' is gent ' 
 
 Arayed was, by Dame Fflora the quene. 
 
 So nobily that joy was for to sene ; 
 The roch '" agayn the ryvir resplendent 
 
 As low '^ enlumynit all the levesschene.' 
 
 Gawin Douglas, in the prologues to his translation of 
 Virgil — transcripts which received the approbation of 
 Scott in Marmion in the sincere flattery of imitation — 
 well sustained the merit of the Scottish school of Nature 
 poetry. Douglas has, not unjustly, been charged with 
 indefiniteness and lack of selection in his materials. All 
 is made too much of equal importance ; and the writer 
 fails by indiscriminate prominence of details. A descrip- 
 tion of a natural scene by Douglas partakes in undue 
 measure of the manner of a catalogue. But his observa- 
 tion is sure and acute, and he revels in the colours, 
 
 ^ brushwood. 
 
 ^ grateful. 
 
 ^ rays. 
 
 ^ sparkle. 
 
 ^ boughs. 
 
 ' rapids. 
 
 ' pebbles. 
 
 "gules. 
 
 "fair. 
 
 " rock. 
 
 '1 flame. 
 
 
JAMES THOMSON 23 
 
 in the sounds and fragrances of Scottish landscape, with 
 unabated zest. His work is deficient alone in the artist's 
 susceptibility to form. 
 
 The work of one other Northern writer before the time 
 of Ramsay and Thomson is memorable. The picturesque- 
 ness of the ballads reappears in the resonant and musical 
 verse of Alexander Montgomery, author of The Cherrie 
 and the Slae and Hey now the Day Dawis. Mont- 
 gomery could transfer almost the very brightness and 
 aroma of the world of Nature into his pages. The 
 second of his poems just mentioned, the structure 
 of which he borrowed from an old popular song, 
 owes nothing to acquired art for its charm of fancy. 
 The lyric is as fresh and sparkling as a dewdrop. 
 In the presence of so much outshining and spirited 
 poetical production as Scottish poetry has to offer 
 from writers with whom Nature is so ardent a passion, 
 it is easier to apprehend with some fitness the fervent, 
 almost solemn, adjuration of Beattie : — 
 
 ' O how canst thou renounce the boundless store 
 Of charms which Nature to her votary yields ? 
 The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, 
 The pomp of groves and garniture of fields ; 
 All that the genial ray of morning yields. 
 And all that echoes to the song of even ; 
 All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, 
 And all the dread magnificence of heaven, 
 O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ? ' 
 
 The part which the author of The Seasons played in 
 bringing home the influence of boon Nature in its 
 aesthetic conception was a most signal one; one, 
 indeed, the most eminent and suggestive in any litera- 
 
24 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ture. This is avouched not only by the growing atten- 
 tion to his work in our own country, but by the renewed 
 interest which it has aroused of late years on the 
 Continent. When studies of the poet so scholarly and 
 luminous as those of Dr Schmeding, in Germany, and 
 Dr Morel, in France, have been produced by way of 
 elucidation of his art, we have strong corroboration of 
 the gathering increase of his fame. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION. AT EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY 
 
 James Thomson was born on 7th September 1700. No 
 record exists as to the exact date of the month, and it is 
 sometimes given as the nth. From the fact that he was 
 baptised on the 1 sth, it is premised with some probability 
 that the former date is the correct one. The poet was 
 the son of the Rev. Thomas Thomson, minister of Ednam, 
 in Roxburghshire. The name of his mother, who was 
 related to the titled family of Home, was Beatrix Trotter. 
 There were nine children, of whom James Thomson was 
 the fourth. Four of the family, Andrew, Alexander, 
 Isabel, and James were born at Ednam. The others, 
 John, Jane, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Mary, had for their 
 place of nativity the manse of Southdean, a parish lying 
 to the south of Ednam, in the same county, whither the 
 Rev. Mr Thomson went to minister on receipt of a call, 
 the poet being then an infant of two months. 
 
 Evidently Mr Thomson was popular as a preacher 
 and pastor, for other two charges, those of Castleton 
 and Morebattle, also in the neighbourhood, were within 
 his power to accept at this time. He could not well 
 have been allured by wealth of emolument to South- 
 dean, his stipend there being only a trifle better than 
 
26 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 that of Goldsmith's village pastor, namely, ;^6o a year. 
 In this parish he was to pass the next eighteen 
 years of his life, and here the poet's imagination was 
 to be nourished on village and rural scenes, with 
 which he was afterwards in part to inform his verse. 
 Authorities agree in ascribing the poet's best hereditary 
 gifts to his mother, who is said to have been a person of 
 uncommon natural endowment, 'possessed of rare social 
 and domestic virtues, with an imagination for vivacity and 
 warmth scarce inferior to that of her son, and which raised 
 her devotional exercises to a pitch bordering on enthu- 
 siasm.' But his father, too, had very high qualities. An 
 esteemed clergyman, the poet himself designates him 'a 
 good and tender-hearted parent.' 
 
 At Southdean young Thomson found a congenial soil 
 for his poetic upbringing. The parish lies on a pleasant 
 slope some eight miles north of the Cheviots, at the 
 Scottish extremity of Chevy Chase, retaining even to this 
 day a considerable amount of its former simplicity of 
 appearance and of its pastoral remoteness. It was the 
 ancient region of the Douglases, the Armstrongs, the 
 Scotts, and other renowned Border clans. In the village 
 of Southdean, on the spot, tradition says, which now 
 forms the site of the parish churchyard, the army of 
 the Scots met under Douglas, previous to the battle of 
 Otterbourne. But all warlike relics and interests had 
 long disappeared in Thomson's day. It is, indeed, 
 solely from its natural characteristics that the district 
 speaks of the poet. 
 
 In the case of a writer like Thomson a survey of 
 his early environs is of decided value. Most eminent 
 
JAMES THOMSON 27 
 
 writers about nature — Wordsworth, Tennyson, Richard 
 JefFeries are striking instances — illustrate their work 
 nearly as much from reminiscence as from actual obser- 
 vation in later life. This holds regarding Thomson. 
 The student of his poetry is happily situated in an 
 enquiry of the sort. The scenery of Southdean to-day 
 differs in no material respect from its condition in the 
 early part of last century. What Thomson saw and 
 remarked may yet be noted from the very standpoint 
 which the young poet occupied. The modern manse 
 is built where stood the old one. A little to the left 
 flows the ' silver Jed ' on its way to join the Tweed, whose 
 'pastoral banks,' Thomson relates, first echoed to his 
 Doric measures. Carter Fell and the Cheviot range 
 tell of his conceptions of mountain scenery. Near to his 
 home lies Swinnie Moor, a likely spot for the veritable 
 enactment of his tragical episode of the perishing shepherd. 
 Mr Logic Robertson, whose critical writings on Thomson 
 have done much of late years to raise the poet to his just 
 place as a British classic, points out in his Furth in Field 
 the wonderfully accurate reproductions made in The 
 Seasons from the surroundings at Southdean. He says : 
 'The parish of Southdean either itself furnishes, or is 
 the platform from which one may behold, the fugitive 
 originals of scores of Thomson's well-known scenes. 
 Sometimes he elaborates, not seldom he idealises, but 
 in numerous instances he has simply lifted the scene 
 from Southdean and laid it in his Seasons, with as much 
 apparent ease and completeness as one transfers a rare 
 flower or fern-leaf to his portfolio.' 
 
 A circumstance of very curious interest also bearing 
 
28 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 upon Thomson's early associations deserves to be added 
 here. A careful observer has put it on record that the 
 scenery round Mantua has in summer no inconsiderable 
 resemblance to that of Southdean. The close sympathy 
 which Thomson ever experienced with the ' Mantuan 
 swain ' takes a fresh suggestiveness from the existence of 
 this agreeable particular, and it may well be, as has been 
 thought, that 'the spirit which pervades the Georgics 
 and the kindred spirit which animates The Seasons 
 found their common bent, their inspiration and aspir- 
 ation, from early and close acquaintance with scenery 
 similar in beauty, variety, and the charm of pastoral 
 repose.' 
 
 About the year 1712, young Thomson went to school 
 at Jedburgh, the school being then held in the aisle 
 of the Parish Church. We hear little or nothing of the 
 poet's attainments or behaviour as a schoolboy. The 
 general drift of opinion tends to the conclusion that he 
 was not remarkably alert in his studies. One solitary 
 and not especially noteworthy anecdote survives, which 
 discloses, at least, an appreciation of humour in the young 
 poet. His efforts to compass the intricacies of the classical 
 grammarians drew from him the most unscriptural com- 
 ment : ' Confound the Tower of Babel ! If it had not 
 been for the Tower of Babel, there would be no languages 
 to learn.' Thomson's best education, no doubt, as it 
 has been with others of intellectual note — with Scott, 
 Macaulay, R. L. Stevenson — was got from his miscel- 
 laneous reading. He certainly was a great reader at 
 some period of his youth, as may be inferred from the 
 considerable body of learning in The Seasons. What 
 
JAMES THOMSON 29 
 
 other mastery in scholarship he acquired was due to 
 the Rev. Mr Riccaltoun, minister of Hobkirk, a parish 
 adjacent to Southdean. Riccaltoun, who, with a bias 
 to learning, had abandoned the profession of farming 
 for that of the Church, was a man of unusual culture. 
 Besides his short poem on Winter, regarding which 
 Thomson himself declared that he owed to it a direct 
 incitement to the composition of The Seasons, he pub- 
 lished during his ministry at Hobkirk several works on 
 theological subjects. For some reason they were issued 
 anonymously during his lifetime ; but a year or two after 
 his death they were republished by his son, fully inscribed. 
 They deal with exceedingly minute points of doctrine, the 
 only deduction of material value that may be drawn from 
 them being their obvious leaning to latitudinarian prin- 
 ciple. An item of some little moment gleaned from the 
 Gentleman's Magazine conveys the information that 
 Riccaltoun's poem on Winter had its special origin in 
 the writer's wish to commemorate an extraordinary fall 
 of snow on the hill of Ruberslaw, which fronts the village 
 of Hobkirk. 
 
 Riccaltoun helped Thomson in classics, and very likely 
 induced him to try his hand at verse. His generous 
 liking and support followed the poet to London. An 
 extract from the session records of Hobkirk chronicles 
 a gift of money to Thomson in January 1727, on the sug- 
 gestion, it is stated, of Mr Riccaltoun, who was ' his patron 
 and friend.' * Gradually Thomson began to be famed 
 for his precocity as a versifier. Sir William Bennet of 
 
 * The sum paid was ;^l, l6s. Scots. These facts have been 
 coui'teously stated to the writer by Mr Walter Deans, Hobkirk. 
 
30 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Chesters, distinguished in his day as a wit and poet, did 
 much to stimulate his taste for verse. He was also at 
 times a well-regarded guest of Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, 
 on whose estate two of Thomson's uncles were employed 
 as gardeners. All such kindly encouragement could not 
 fail to urge Thomson to the vigorous cultivation of his 
 poetical taste. Evidently, too, the judgment of his 
 generous advisers was not undiscriminating. Whatever 
 he accomplished by way of poetical composition was 
 evidently deemed a useful ' exercise and nothing more. 
 Every year, at any rate, acting on a wise decision, native 
 or otherwise, he consigned the effusions produced in the 
 interval to the flames, the holocaust itself being cele- 
 brated in a seasonable rhyme. 
 
 Mr Goodhugh, of Portman Square, London, received 
 from Lord George Graham a number of early poetical 
 efforts of Thomson's, a survival of some less drastic era 
 than that of which history informs us as above. Of 
 most of them it has to be said that they might have 
 followed their compeers without detriment to the repute 
 of the author. Thomson, before he reached maturity, 
 displayed no great promise as a poetical executant, the 
 contrast in this respect between Winter and even the 
 best of his previous productions being very marked. The 
 collection of these juvenile pieces, which is stated to have 
 been given by Thomson himself to Lord George Graham, 
 numbers twenty-five in all. Included in it are the more 
 ambitious pieces, Upon Happiness, and others composed 
 during his stay at Edinburgh University. The best of 
 the collection were afterwards printed by Sir Harris Nicolas 
 in his Aldine edition of Thomson's works. Their re- 
 
JAMES THOMSON 31 
 
 deeming feature is their genuine and elevated enthusiasm 
 for Nature. Lines on Marlefield and the rest reveal 
 nothing beyond ordinary poetic skill ; but Thomson was 
 observing, if he was not yet attaining to any great accom- 
 plishment, and better results were to follow. 
 
 Thomson was intended by his parents for the office 
 of a clergyman. With this profession in view he went 
 in 1 7 15 to study at Edinburgh University. According 
 to tradition he was not at first enamoured of the prospects 
 of study in the capital. He returned home very soon, 
 before, it is said, his father's groom, who had accompanied 
 him, both mounted on a single horse, to Edinburgh. 
 He averred as his reason that he was convinced he could 
 study with perfect satisfaction on the ' braes of Soudan ' 
 (the local term for Southdean). Other persuasion assured 
 him to the contrary, and he went back to pursue his 
 academic studies in due course. 
 
 Edinburgh, at the time when Thomson entered upon 
 residence within its bounds as a student, was doubtless 
 much stirred by civil and warlike matters. It was the year 
 of the first Jacobite rebellion, and the town must have 
 been perplexed in no slight measure over the military 
 designs of Mar and his Highland host. The fight at 
 Sheriifmuir was at hand, and speculation on the result 
 would be rife at the very date of the young student's 
 enrolment on the books of the University. On his 
 interest in the matter, the whole history of his corre- 
 spondence is silent. Nor even in the succeeding years 
 of his student life does he refer at any time to events, 
 fraught enough with excitement, which followed upon 
 the war. The commission instituted by the Government 
 
32 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 for the trial of ' certain traitors and of Popish recusants,' 
 in the Hst of which were not a few of the nobiUty, 
 comprising the Earls of Eglinton, Rosebery, Cassillis, 
 Moray, Galloway, and others, held its sessions for some 
 years continuously during the poet's University course. 
 The last we hear of the Commission is in 1720. More- 
 over, one member of the Commission was no less a 
 personage than Sir Richard Steele, who came crowned 
 with literary fame to deal out justice against the enemies 
 of his royal patron George I. The curiosity with which 
 a literary aspirant like Thomson would remark so dis- 
 tinguished an ornament of letters as Steele would naturally 
 be pronounced. That he had also much opportunity to 
 do so during the first year's session of the Commission 
 seems very possible. For Sir Richard Steele did not 
 on this occasion, we are told, attend the business of the 
 Commission, but gave his time to literary and other 
 work, and a project for bringing fish ' alive and in good 
 health to the metropolis.' 
 
 Another fact affords still better ground for the con- 
 jecture that Thomson may have seen Steele in Edinburgh. 
 Steele, in the last of his visits to Edinburgh in 1720, 
 was the guest of Mr Scott, the Professor of Greek in the 
 University, and thus could hardly fail to be a figure 
 familiar to the students. But no chronicle vouchsafes 
 an authoritative opinion on the subject. And neither 
 Commission nor its distinguished representative is noticed 
 in any of the surviving correspondence of Thomson's 
 University days. We may fancy that the world of action 
 less attracted him then than did that of learning and 
 its kindred associations ; here, in any case, we find that, 
 
JAMES THOMSON 33 
 
 although not prominent in Edinburgh literary circles, 
 he was not altogether uninterested or resers'ed. 
 
 The literary society of Edinburgh in the introductory 
 quarter of last century was already assuming something 
 of the Attic tone which it had wholly adopted in the time 
 of Burns. Scholarship, poetry, and art were each being 
 cultivated with assiduity and success. Learning, though 
 not of the best or finest quality, was well represented by 
 Dr Thomas Ruddiman ; Hepburn of Keith and Dr 
 Patrick Abercrombie were devotees of antiquarian re- 
 search. Scottish poetry, little more than a ' wandering 
 voice' since the death of Drummond of Hawthornden, 
 now entered upon a fresh and prosperous career in the 
 vivacious work of Allan Ramsay. The Broadside, which 
 had been a fugitive publication of the preceding century, 
 imprinted as the medium of famous poems like Robene 
 and Makyne, and The Thistle and the Rose, had 
 become modernised by the introduction of poems by 
 Ramsay himself and others. Each new issue of this 
 publication would be a literary attraction of itself in the 
 limited round of reading available in Edinburgh at that 
 date. Thomson, no doubt, shared in the general regard 
 for Ramsay and his work, though there is no evidence 
 that any sort of congenial affinity brought them together. 
 Mallet, in part of his college correspondence, makes it 
 plain that he had but a poor estimate of Ramsay, and 
 this may have been the academic feeling which, at all times, 
 tends to move but slowly in the wake of popular inclination. 
 Yet Mallet was admitted as a contributor to the Tea- 
 table Miscellany of 1724, though no mention occurs of 
 Thomson's name. The likelihood is that he was not 
 
 c 
 
34 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 confident enough about his own powers, and as a con- 
 sequence did not, in his University days, meet with the 
 literary recognition that was his due ; while the less easily 
 daunted and less scrupulous Mallet experienced no diffi- 
 culty whatever on this score. As far as all evidence goes, 
 Thomson carried his literary enthusiasm with him through- 
 out his University life ; but either from sentiment or 
 from compulsion (for his early poetical achievement 
 is very slender) he confined its exercise to academic 
 quarters. His correspondence of this date, to the extent 
 in which it remains, offers sufficient warrant for the belief 
 / that he gave slight attention to the civic affairs, literary 
 or otherwise, that were enacted round him; what atten- 
 tion at least he did give to the literary and kindred affairs 
 of the city was reflected from the peculiar and not un- 
 joyous bounds of his own student circle which brought 
 him most content. 
 
 A small group of students with literary ambitions, 
 common enough in a Scottish University at any time, 
 numbered Thomson as a representative member through- 
 out his stay in Edinburgh. The most distinguished of 
 the number, next to himself, was David Malloch (or 
 Mallet, as he styled himself in England), with whom he 
 was closely associated in poetical endeavour now and to 
 the end of his life. The others with whom he was 
 evidently most intimate were Patrick Murdoch, . John 
 Wilson, and John Cranston, all of whom became clergy- 
 men. , Murdoch reached the greatest fame. He did 
 valuable work in later life as biographer and editor of 
 Thomson, and was one of the poet's intimate friends who 
 were so happily drawn in his Castle of Indolence. '~''H.z.Vnag 
 
JAMES THOMSON 35 
 
 some prospect of advancement in the Church of England, 
 he took holy orders, and settled near London about twelve 
 years after the poet began his career in the Metropolis. 
 He gained in the quiet of his country parsonage no little 
 repute as a scholar. Of Wilson's later history nothing 
 authentic is known. He was appointed to the charge of 
 Maxton in Roxburghshire, and the chief reference made 
 to him by Thomson in his London correspondence 
 emphasises the good humour with which he dragged his 
 way ' through the thorny paths of systems and school 
 divinity.' Cranston, afterwards minister of Ancrum, is 
 lost sight of afterwards' in the greater intimacy between 
 Thomson and his brother, Dr Cranston, who was the 
 village doctor in Ancrum. The poet's friendly association 
 with these fellow-students at Edinburgh University did 
 not to all appearance lose in affectionate memory to the 
 last. It -was with Mallet, however, the ablest, if not the 
 most estimable, of the four, that the poet was placed on 
 terms of the nearest intellectual kinship. He joined with 
 Mallet in literary contributions, produced under the direc- 
 tion of two clubs founded at the University, with a view 
 to the promotion of intellectual accomplishments among 
 the students, and in general regarded him with the greatest 
 friendliness. Thomson's confidence in Mallet, whose busi- 
 ness methods were not always of a commendable nature, 
 can be understood only on the supposition that the un- 
 tiring self-seeker had some redeeming points in his 
 disposition after all. The son of poor parents, Mallet 
 had for a time the inevitable hard fight during his Uni- 
 versity career. One legendary story, indeed, tells how his 
 circumstances at one time were so mean, that he was com- 
 
36 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 pelled to act as janitor at Edinburgh High School in 
 order to eke out a living. This contingency seems most 
 unlikely even for the traditionary impecunious Scottish 
 student. A more plausible narrative states that he was 
 present at the High -School in the capacity of tutor or 
 assistant-master. That Mallet was by no means ill- 
 grounded in scholarship is readily inferred from his 
 securing an appointment at the close of his University 
 course as tutor to the sons of the Duke of Montrose. 
 What we know of his ambitious characteristics in later 
 years does not at all tend to confirm credence in the 
 story of his janitorship. 
 
 The University literary clubs apparently found in 
 Thomson a sympathetic, if not devoted, member. One 
 of his poems, that On the works and wonders of 
 Almighty Power, belonging to this period, inserted at 
 a late date by Aaron Hill in the Plain Dealer, is there 
 spoken of as the former production of a member of the 
 ' Grotesque Club ' at Edinburgh University. The editor 
 adds the pleasing assurance that the aim of this society 
 was 'a friendship that knows no strife, but that of a 
 generous emulation to excel in virtue, learning, and 
 poUteness.' Hill quotes the words of a frequenter of 
 the club. Unfortunately, there is good reason to believe 
 that Thomson was not greatly appreciated in their exem- 
 plary body. According to Ramsay of Ochtertyre he 
 was voted 'a dull fellow.' But the rival society, the 
 ' Athenian Club,' has handed down no such contemptu- 
 ous estimate, and we can therefore fairly imagine that here 
 the poet bore himself with more distinction. Under the 
 auspices of the ' Athenian Club ' appeared the Edinburgh 
 
JAMES THOMSON 37 
 
 Miscellany to which Thomson contributed three poems. 
 These were entitled On a Country Life, Upon Happi- 
 ness, and Verses on Receiving a Flower from his 
 Mistress. The only signature attached was ' T.,' but 
 the pieces named formed part of the collection of his 
 own juvenile poems, which the poet presented to Lord 
 George Graham. The first edition of this publication 
 is supposed by Mitford to have been issued in 1718- 
 Mallet, who was also a contributor, did not, if we are to 
 accept his own word for it, cherish very serious designs 
 in verse. 'Poetry,' he declares about this time, 'gives 
 me a sprightly turn of thinking and flocks the imagination 
 into beautiful images that capacitate one for writing and 
 talking agreeably.' This, in truth, crystallised an acute 
 comment on his own powers, though he was not then, 
 perhaps, fully conscious of his discernment. 
 
 An interesting and somewhat humorous letter to Dr 
 Cranston, of nth December 1720, bears testimony that 
 with all his engrossing zeal as a literary aspirant, Thom- 
 son felt the isolation frequently peculiar to the denizen 
 of a Scottish University; but he passes away from his 
 complaint in a light-hearted and manly fashion. The 
 letter concludes with some observations on a novelty in 
 scientific experiment which had come under his notice, a 
 species of interest maintained by him afterwards with more 
 than a superficial sympathy. / 
 
 In 1 7 18, the fourth year of Thomson's attendance at'^ 
 the University, there occurred the sudden death of his 
 father, attended, it was surmised at the time, by mysterious 
 circumstances. The narrative of these circumstances as 
 given by Mr Cranston, minister of Ancrum, partakes 
 
38 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 largely of a legendary character, and carries the reader 
 into the very midst of an atmosphere of old-world 
 superstition. Thomson's father in the closing scene of 
 his life acted a singular part in the movements of those 
 superstitious beliefs which so widely affected Scotland 
 even up to the beginning of the present century. He 
 died suddenly during a solemn service which he had 
 imposed upon himself, whereby he sought to exorcise a 
 ghostly visitant supposed to haunt a mansion-house 
 in his parish. The popular belief was that he was the 
 victim of diabolical machination ; and Cranston himself, 
 though he only professes to interpret the popular idea, 
 does not appear altogether convinced to the contrary. 
 A wave of this superstitious folly, in fact, passed over the 
 country during the year of Mr Thomson's tragical end. 
 At Kinross, Calder, and Thurso there were exhaustive 
 accounts of such startling manifestations. The dense 
 mental obliquity that existed on the subject can now 
 hardly be realised. We find, too, that in most of the 
 instances just mentioned, ministers, who might, at least, 
 have been supposed to have an intelligence superior to 
 it, were actively concerned as in affairs of the most serious 
 import. The Rev. Mr Wilkie of Calder, on a somewhat 
 similar plan to that adopted by Thomson's father, held 
 a religious service expressly to exorcise an evil spirit 
 believed to infest his district. And all that then took 
 place was rehearsed in sober faith by the minister of 
 Inveresk to his friend Wodrow.* 
 
 Cranston's narrative, of which the concluding sentences 
 are here given, reads like a statistical report. He says : 
 • See Chambers's ' Traditions of Edinburgh.' 
 
JAMES THOMSON 39 
 
 ' The sequel of the story I have heard, not at second-hand, 
 out from the hps of a person, and that of rank and 
 education above the vulgar. Mr Thomson, the father of 
 the poet, in a fatal hour was prevailed upon to attempt 
 laying the evil spirit. He appointed the diet of catechising 
 at Woolie (Wolflee), the scene of the ghost's exploits, and 
 beheld, when he had just begun to pray, a ball of fire 
 strike him upon the head. Overwhelmed with con- 
 sternation, he could not utter another word, or make a 
 second attempt to pray. He was carried home to his 
 house, where he languished under the oppression of 
 diabolical malignity, and at length expired.' 
 
 This must be admitted to be a strange story. Had 
 there been in those days a Society for Psychical Research 
 the incident would undoubtedly have afiforded a subject 
 for clamant investigation. Whatever may have been the 
 agency which proved fatal to the minister of Southdean, 
 its effect was one of dramatic impressiveness. No stroke 
 of apoplexy was ever involved in accompaniments so weird. 
 Some attribute the poet's superstitious bias to this episode, 
 but there is no proof of this. The awe of the supernatural 
 in this connection, which is to be found in his poems, 
 can be perfectly accepted as the outcome of artistic 
 necessities. 
 
 On entering the Divinity Hall in 17 19, Thomson did 
 so under a new aspect of home life. By this time he 
 had been joined in Edinburgh by his mother. Although 
 left as a widow without any considerable means, she 
 obtained the certainty of a regular income by the 
 mortgage of a small estate, that of Widehope, near 
 Southdean, belonging to her in her own right. On the 
 
40 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 strength of this she forthwith went to reside in Edin- 
 burgh. Thomson's career at the Divinity Hall was 
 apparently given up to the routine of study. He per- 
 formed the necessary exercises up to May 1724. It 
 was at the close of this year that the celebrated incident 
 happened which affords some tangible reason for the 
 abrupt change which he was about to make in his pro- 
 fession. Professor Hamilton, who occupied the Chair 
 of Divinity, gave Thomson, as a subject either for a 
 lecture or a sermon, a text from one of the Psalms. 
 The result was a very poetical and ornate treatment 
 of his theme. There have been ministers in the Church 
 of Scotland both before and after Thomson who have 
 not lacked poetical taste and have aptly utilised it 
 in their prelections ; others, too, it may be thought, 
 both before and after him would have profited by a 
 flavour of the same. But Mr Hamilton saw no merit 
 in this line of exposition. According to Dr Johnson, 
 he censured Thomson's dissertation as too 'flowery and 
 redundant,' and went the length of stamping one ex 
 pression as bordering on profanity. No doubt the 
 criticism, well-meant as it was, caused a rankling dis- 
 satisfaction in Thomson, and, along with his irrepressible 
 love for literature, had some cogent effect upon his 
 almost immediate renunciation of the ministry in the 
 Church of Scotland. 
 
 It is pretty certain that by this time Thomson, fairly 
 
 i' cognisant of his own capacity, felt that the Church was 
 
 not to be a congenial sphere. The chief motive for 
 
 his abandonment of the Church as a profession is not 
 
 dubious. He was not, it is true, despite the later 
 
JAMES THOMSON 41 
 
 difficulties of Lyttelton on the subject of Thomson's faith, 
 troubled by any sort of misgiving of a doctrinal kind; 
 his religious faith was, upon the whole, perfectly orthodox. 
 The lack of an elocutionary gift might have had some- 
 thing to do with it. Once during his reading of 
 Agamemnon at a rehearsal he incurred the laughter of 
 the actors by his faulty articulation; and on another 
 occasion Dodington rebuked him for his maltreatment 
 of one of his own poems that he was reading aloud. 
 But the great influence in his choice of a literary career 
 unmistakably arose from the feeling that there lay the 
 work which he felt himself best fitted to undertake. He 
 was doubtless buoyed up by a young man's hopefulness, 
 the hopefulness which carried Johnson to fame and 
 Chatterton to his death. We know that distrust of his 
 literary ambition fell upon him not long after his settle- 
 ment in London, and that he hesitated whether he 
 should not after all depart from his original intention. 
 Yet in Edinburgh his doubts were probably few. The 
 chance of patronage in London, which he expected to 
 have through Lady Grizel Baillie, a relative of his 
 mother, may have given an impetus to his design. 
 Furthermore, a copy of one of the best of his poetical 
 pieces by-and-by fell into the hands of an eminent 
 English lawyer — Mr Auditor Benson — whose encourag- 
 ing verdict would be sure to go far to settle the young 
 poet in his conviction. Mr Benson, after a perusal ot 
 Thomson's rendering of the 104th Psalm, a rendering 
 characterised by dignity of treatment as well as by 
 occasional real felicity of phrase, as of angels 
 
 'Active and blight, piercing and quick as flame,' 
 
42 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 or of the labourer who 
 
 ' Home with content in the cool eve returns,' 
 
 Uttered the pronouncement that if Thomson were in 
 London ' his merits could not fail to be rewarded.' 
 
 Added to these hopes there was the stimulus from the 
 prosperity of his friend Mallet, who had now passed a 
 year or two in London with considerable success, carrying 
 on the combined labours of tutor to the sons of the Duke 
 of Montrose and that of an energetic man of letters. 
 All these reasons fostered Thomson's resolution to try 
 his fortune as a writer. Accordingly he left Edinburgh 
 for London in the Spring of 1725. 
 
CHAPTER III' 
 
 IN LONDON. PUBLICATION OF ' WINTER ' 
 
 There is good reason to believe that Thomson reached 
 London in February 1725. In a letter to Dr Cranston, 
 dated 3rd April, he says that he was present at a perform- 
 ance of Southerne's play of Oroonoko at Drury Lane ; and, 
 as the only occasion on which that play was acted before 
 Easter was ist March, it amounts to something like a 
 certainty that he arrived in London on or before 28th 
 February. Thomson must then have left Edinburgh 
 before the close of his last session at the Divinity Hall, 
 setting aside any intention he may have had of going 
 forward for license as a probationer of the Church. His 
 true inclination lay, it may be fairly concluded, in quite 
 another direction; and it doubtless cost him slight 
 hesitation to enter upon the career which he preferred 
 to follow. 
 
 One of the earliest of the accounts we get of his life in 
 London is derived from his own letter to Dr Cranston 
 mentioned above. This throws much interesting light on 
 his first impressions of London, especially regarding the 
 drama of the day. An occasional visit paid to Drury 
 Lane brings out some careful and discerning criticism 
 on the part of the poet. Crude as his notions of dramatic 
 
44 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 representation must have been, entirely based as they 
 were on tentative performances by amateurs or strolling 
 English players in the Tennis Court at Holyrood, he 
 speaks with much shrewd appreciation of the London 
 actors of established repute. He was much struck with 
 Booth as a tragedian. Among the comedians Norris 
 pleased him most. Mrs Oldfield and Mrs Booth receive 
 his cordial praise. He is, however, less flattering to 
 Mrs Porter than her great reputation would seem to 
 warrant, and varies from his maturer judgment as to 
 her artistic capability. But the chief point of bio- 
 graphical note in this letter belongs to the introductory 
 passages. Here we discover that Thomson has not 
 felt that he has succeeded in his professional project 
 just as rapidly as he could have wished. The remarks 
 are these : ' I am almost out of humour at the letter I 
 wrote for to Mr Elliott, since it so curtailed yours to me; 
 I went and delivered it. He received me affably enough, 
 and promised me his assistance, though at the same time 
 he told me, which everyone tells me, that it will be 
 prodigiously difficult to succeed in the business you know 
 I design. However, come what will come, I shall make 
 an eifort, and leave the rest to Providence. There is, I 
 am persuaded, a necessary fixed chain of things, and I 
 hope my future, whatever it be, shall be linked to dili- 
 gence and honesty.' 
 
 The robust ring of this declaration, with its interesting 
 response to the faith in a directing ' divinity,' attests 
 the intrinsic grit of Thomson's character. Beyond 
 question he now experienced a position of much per- 
 plexity. To make his way to any purpose in literature, 
 
JAMES THOMSON 45 
 
 he required an anchorage. What haven was he to seek? 
 A good deal of speculation has been expended as to what 
 Thomson actually means by the ' business you know I 
 design.' There is in reality no enigma in the expres- 
 sion. He simply refers in the remark to his general 
 purpose in coming to London in quest of a name in 
 literature. What subordinate motive underlay this plan 
 cannot be guessed so exactly. Perhaps he contemplated, 
 through the help of his mother's relatives, the family of 
 Home, a post in the service of the Government. It was 
 the failure of some such prospect that now caused him con- 
 cern. And he feels himself driven back, as we see in the 
 same letter, upon his original profession as a clergyman. 
 
 Nichols, who supervised Murdoch's edition of the poet's 
 works in 1849, discusses the matter at some length, 
 and gives it as his opinion that Thomson now in- 
 tended entering the Church of England.* His argument 
 is far from carrying conviction. It is founded chiefly on 
 the consideration that Thomson's relatives on his father's 
 side were great favourites with the Elliots of Minto, and 
 that one of his cousins, having graduated at an English 
 University, became, by means of the patronage of this 
 family, rector of a parish in the North of England. This 
 clergyman it was to whom Thomson alludes an his letter 
 as having given him advice regarding his affairs. Mr 
 Elliot was then on a visit to London. It is, of course, 
 possible, though by no means certain, that the idea of 
 Thomson's taking holy orders was considered at this inter- 
 
 • The Poetical Works of James Thomson, with a Life of the 
 Author by the Rev. Patrick Murdoch, D.D., F.R.S., and notes by 
 Nichols. London : Tegg. 1849. 
 
46 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 view; but an indefinite conversation of the kind is a frail 
 buttress with which to prop so distinct a contention. The 
 text of the letter, indeed, apart from the implied possibility 
 of Thomson's return to the study of theology, in no degree 
 supports the argument of Nichols. The writer says: 
 ' Succeed or not, I firmly resolve to pursue divinity as the 
 only thing now I am fit for. Now if I cannot accomplish 
 the design in which I came up, I think I had best make 
 interest and pass my trials here, so that if I be obliged 
 soon to return to Scotland again, I may not return no 
 better than I came away; and to be deeply serious 
 with you, the more I see of the vanity and wickedness 
 of the world I am more inclined to that sacred office.' 
 The language sets forth with perfect lucidity that, in the 
 event of his inability to attain to literary success, it is the 
 writer's determination to resume his place in the ranks 
 of the Scottish Church; to deduce any other meaning 
 from it is to twist its natural construction. That Thomson 
 may on some occasion have hazarded the expression of 
 a desire to become a clergyman of the Church of England, 
 is not, in the circumstances, outside of reasonable con- 
 jecture; but it was, in the light of all the proof, no 
 deliberate resolution of his. His religious philosophy, 
 indeed, can hardly be conceived as adapting itself freely 
 to the strictly-defined theological system of the Church 
 of England. His attitude with respect to the creeds 
 was altogether, as with his friend Riccaltoun, in favour 
 of a broad theology ; and the toleration of this tendency 
 of opinion he would naturally recognise as existing more 
 strongly in Presbyterianism than in Episcopacy. The 
 theory of Nichols, it is true, is not of recent origin. As 
 
JAMES THOMSON 47 
 
 far back as the date of Johnson's life of the poet a report 
 went abroad to the same effect ; and Boswell was com- 
 missioned to obtain information for Johnson on the point 
 from one of the poet's sisters. Her answer carries with 
 it much conclusiveness. She assured the inquirer that 
 ' she never heard he had any intention of going into holy 
 orders.' The balance of credibility decisively inclines to 
 the absolute accuracy of this negative. 
 
 But Thomson secured a footing in London, and had 
 not to return to Scotland. In July he was appointed 
 tutor to Lord Binning's son, a child of five, and settled 
 at East Barnet. This work he obtained on the recom- 
 mendation of Lady Grizel Baillie, whose encouragement, 
 extended to Thomson while at College, Murdoch un- 
 graciously declares to have 'ended in nothing beneficial.' 
 The engagement, although it was a ' low task,' as Thom- 
 son himself remarked, yet gained him a livelihood. It 
 also brought him the attention and help of influential 
 friends. The society in which the poet now mingled 
 was adorned by not a few of the leaders in politics 
 and letters, and a young, ambitious man, with ability 
 on his side, was bound to have the best opportunities 
 for wide recognition. In the drawing-room of Lady Grizel 
 Baillie gathered such distinguished guests as her daughter, 
 Lady Mary Murray, an accomplished friend of Pope, Lord 
 President Forbes, the Duke of Argyle, the Earl of Bur- 
 lington, and Sir Robert Walpole. Dr Arbuthnot, Pope, 
 and Gay were also visitors. Most pleasant of all to 
 Thomson, perhaps, was his introduction to the Scottish 
 artist, William Aikman, whose friendship was most helpful 
 and lasting. With such important backing, it is not to be 
 
48 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 wondered at that Thomson ere long seriously set himself 
 to the task of poetical composition with the aim of taking 
 a place of mark on the roll of British poets. 
 
 In the meanwhile the home associations of the poet 
 had suffered a grievous blow in the death of his mother. 
 Her health, fragile since the terrible shock occasioned 
 by the death of her husband, became wholly enfeebled 
 simultaneously with her son's departure for London, and 
 she died on loth May. Thomson was deeply attached 
 to her, and this affection declares itself very touchingly 
 in the poetical tribute which was drawn from him by 
 the event. In delicate pathos, as well as in beauty of 
 expression, it holds unquestionable rank beside Cowper's 
 tender elegy, On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture. 
 
 ' Still, still is she my soul's divinest theme, 
 The waking vision and the wailing dream ! 
 Amid the ruddy sun's enlivening blaze 
 O'er my dark eyes her dewy image plays ; 
 And in the dread dominion of the night 
 Shines out again the sadly-pleasing sight. 
 Triumphant virtue all around her darts, 
 And more than volumes every look imparts ; 
 Looks soft, yet awful, melting, yet serene, 
 Where both the mother and the saint are seen.' 
 
 The whole poem is stamped with that elegiac quality 
 by which he was yet to distinguish himself. 
 
 At East Barnet Thomson plainly was still in considerable 
 doubt as to the actual means whereby he was to obtain a 
 quite satisfactory competency. In the same letter in which 
 he apprises Cranston of his appointment in Lord Binning's 
 family, he utters another resolve to 'consummate my 
 original study of divinity.' He goes on to say that 'the 
 
JAMES THOMSON 49 
 
 business of a tutor is only precarious and for the present.' 
 He speaks approvingly of the intention of Cranston's 
 brother, John, who had abandoned medical study for 
 that of divinity : ' If well- pursued, it is as honourable, 
 useful, and certain a method of living as one, in his or 
 my circumstances, could readily fall into.' He somewhat 
 deprecatingly alludes to his own ambitious departure from 
 Scodand, upbraiding himself as having 'contemptible 
 notions of things at home, and romantic ones of things 
 abroad ; perhaps I was too much affected that way, 
 but I hope in the issue it shall not be worse for me.' 
 Reference to Mr Riccaltoun, 'who deserves encourage- 
 ment as much as any preacher in Scotland,' and to 
 Sir William Bennet, and a desire for country news, 
 abundantly testify that the poet's affection clung closely 
 to the land of his nativity, and that he yet craved its 
 reviving memories to cheer him in the turmoil of the 
 struggle upon which he had so courageously, if not 
 recklessly, entered in London. 
 
 The London literary world at the beginning of the 
 reign of George II. was a brilliant one, and Burns hardly 
 meditated so great a feat when he hoped to captivate 
 Edinburgh with his rustic muse as did Thomson in his 
 progress from the Divinity class-room to a sphere of work 
 where Pope led the way. A glance at his contemporaries 
 brings his position into relief The great figures of the 
 'silver age' of Queen Anne had passed away; Dryden, 
 Addison, and Prior died within the new century. But 
 they left behind them a great tradition. Nor did some of 
 their successors yield to them in greatness. Pope, Swift, 
 and Gay flourished vigorously; and that wonderful 
 
 D 
 
so FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 trilogy, the Dunciad, Gulliver's Travels, and the Beggar's 
 Opera, was to be added to English literature at almost 
 the same date as The Seasons. Thomson sought, there- 
 fore, to excel where excellence was of the most undeniable 
 order, and the rapidity with which he won his way to a 
 foremost place among so illustrious a band of writers in 
 itself argues much for the inherent value of his work. Of 
 the young generation which was to assert its worth with 
 some considerable power beside the work of its distinguished 
 forerunner, nothing is yet heard. Richardson quietly fol- 
 lowed the industrious tenor of his business as a printer; 
 Johnson was a lad at Lichfield ; Fielding gladdened in 
 boisterous youth ; Gray was still at Eton. Yet the literary 
 wealth of the period which Thomson desired to enhance 
 with a fitting contribution was such as to thoroughly test 
 a high capacity to respond to it. 
 
 At the close of 1725 Thomson left his irksome duty 
 at East Barnet, and went to live in lodgings in Lancaster 
 Court, Strand. Here he deliberately pursued the work 
 of poetical composition. His love of rural subjects had 
 been strong from the first, and it is not improbable that 
 some passages of Winter were struck off before he crossed 
 the Scottish Border. Various literary sources have been 
 mentioned as contributing to guide the particular poetical 
 bent of Thomson. Warton, on the authority of Collins, 
 believed that Thomson ' took the first hint and idea ' of 
 writing his Seasons from the titles of Pope's four Pastorals 
 — Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. It has also been 
 thought that he consulted so recondite an ensample as the 
 Kalendarium Humance Vita of William Hope, published 
 in 1638. Mitford thought to trace certain passages of 
 
JAMES THOMSON 51 
 
 TTie Seasons to the Pradium Rusticum of Vaniere, a poem 
 written in Latin hexameters. But whatever indebtedness 
 the poet owed to occasional suggestions from those writers, 
 no original obligation was due to them. He states him- 
 self that the idea of Winter was suggested by a perusal 
 of Riccaltoun's poem on the same subject. ' In it,' 
 he says, 'are some masterly strokes that awakened me.' 
 Riccaltoun's poem was entitled A Winter's Day. First 
 pubhshed in Savage's Miscellany in 1726, it was reprinted 
 in the Gentleman^ s Magazine va. 1740. Mallet revised it 
 for re-issue, and with the daring unscrupulousness which 
 is not unreasonably associated with his character, included 
 it in his own volume of poems as an original composition. 
 Riccaltoun writes with a true feeling for Nature, though 
 correctness of delineation rather outdoes more vital charac- 
 teristics. He uses the heroic measure, which proves in 
 his hands a fairly melodious instrument. The impression- 
 ism of the piece is not infelicitous. It opens thus ; 
 
 ' Now, gloomy soul, look out ! now comes thy turn ! 
 
 With thee, behold all ravaged nature mourn ; 
 
 Hail the dim empire of thy darling night 
 
 That spreads slow-shadowing o'er the vanquished light. 
 
 Look out with joy ! the ruler of the day. 
 
 Faint as thy hopes, emits a glimmering ray ; 
 
 Already exiled to the utmost sky. 
 
 Hither oblique he turns his clouded eye. 
 
 Lo, from the limits of the wintry pole 
 
 Mountainous clouds in wide confusion roll ; 
 
 In dismal pomp now hovering in their way, 
 
 To a sick twilight they reduce the day. ' 
 
 Scottish as he was to the core, and replete as his recol- 
 lection was with the scenic pictures of his native place, 
 
52 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Thomson did not in Winter and the rest of The Seasons 
 limit the scope of his imagination to Scottish scenery. 
 English scenery, as well as that of his own country, stirs 
 him. His work gains in effect from this. It has, of 
 course, to be borne in mind that he produced all his 
 mature work with his eye upon English landscape, and that 
 this had its own attractiveness and claims. Along with 
 the country round Barnet, the actual survey of his con- 
 templation during the composition of Winter is supposed 
 to have been a reach of the Thames below Hammersmith, 
 where was situated the Dove Coffee House, a haunt of 
 Thomson's. A local historian announces this statement 
 as authoritative. But that the beauty of Northern scenes 
 prevailed with him may be judged from his own words. 
 He writes to Cranston from East Barnet, September 
 1725: 
 
 'AVhen the heavens wear a more gloomy aspect, the 
 winds whistle, and the waters spout, I see you in the 
 well-known cleugh beneath the solemn arch of tall, thick, 
 embowering trees, listening to the amusing lull of the 
 many steep, moss-grown cascades, while deep, divine 
 contemplation, the genius of the place, prompts each 
 swelling awful thought. I am sure you would not resign 
 your place in that scene at any easy rate. None ever 
 enjoyed it to the height you do, and you are worthy of 
 it. There I walk in spirit, and disport in its beloved 
 gloom. This country I am in is not very entertaining ; 
 no variety but that of woods, and these we have in 
 abundance; but where is the living stream? the airy 
 mountain? or the hanging rock? with twenty other 
 things that elegantly please the lover of Nature. Nature 
 
JAMES THOMSON 53 
 
 delights me in every form. I am just now painting 
 her in her most lugubrious dress for my own amusement, 
 describing Winter as it presents itself.' 
 
 These sidelights on the poet's literary method are 
 not unimportant as serving to illustrate precisely his 
 imaginative nearness to what he portrayed. 
 
 Winter was published in March 1726. After con- 
 siderable search for a publisher, it was bought by Millan 
 for the sum of three guineas, a price which he is said 
 for a time to have rather grudged. Its reception was 
 not unfavourable, though the regular critics were reserved 
 rather than cordial in their estimate. One of the number, 
 Mitchell by name, the reviewer in the British Journal, 
 incurred the vigorous wrath of Thomson by the carping 
 nature of his criticism. Mitchell was blind in one eye, 
 and is bitterly retorted on in a letter from the poet to 
 Mallet as a ' planet-blasted fool.' The popularity of the 
 poem was, however, much aided by the insight and 
 generous appreciation of one or two outstanding men 
 of culture. Mr Whately, afterwards Prebendary of York, 
 is named as having lauded it freely to his friends, while 
 Spence, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, passed a grace- 
 ful and effective eulogium upon it in the course of an 
 essay on Pope's translation of the Odyssey. Mallet, who 
 was sincerely charmed with the poem, perhaps gave its 
 fame the best impetus of all by bringing it under the 
 notice of Aaron Hill, who at the outset of Thomson's 
 career takes a rather important place in its events. 
 
 A considerable literary dictator in his day, the name of 
 Aaron Hill is now one of the obscurest in the annals 
 of eighteenth century authorship. From his social posi- 
 
54 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 tion he was well qualified to act as an intermediary 
 between the struggling litterateur and the powerful patron. 
 Possessed of an income of ;^2ooo a year, entailed upon 
 him, it was said, illegally, he devoted himself to literary 
 undertakings on his own account, and had in other ways 
 acquired authority as an accomplished man about town. 
 Besides efforts in historical and poetical authorship, he 
 wrote several plays, one of his operas having the honour 
 of a musical setting by Handel. Nor were his energies 
 restricted to literature. He proposed a scheme for im- 
 proving the wool-trade. He floated another, which was 
 a scandalous failure, for extracting oil from beech-mast. 
 He signally approved his literary bent by enthusiasm 
 over the novels of Richardson and by crossing swords 
 with Pope, in which encounter he fared not so ill. And 
 though he has a place in the Dunciad, what is said 
 regarding him is more complimentary than otherwise. 
 He comports himself well among the divers : — 
 
 ' He bears no token of the sable streams, 
 And mounts far off amongst the swans of Thames.' 
 
 ' Although absurd and a bore of the first water,' says 
 Mr Leslie Stephen, 'he was apparently a kindly and 
 liberal man, and abandoned the profits of his plays, such 
 at they were, to the actors.' Hill was, at this period, 
 at the height of his bustling activity, and Thomson 
 was distinctly impressed by him. Hill praised Winter, 
 and Thomson's letters of thanks constitute adulation of 
 an extreme character. In one instance he avows 
 his conviction that he ' ought with the utmost deference 
 and veneration to approach so supreme a genius.' Hill's 
 
JAMES THOMSON 55 
 
 applause, he says, he prefers to the 'acclamations of 
 thousands.' The redoubtable Richard Savage, who was 
 a common friend of Mallet and Hill, ludicrously figures 
 in one letter as ' bleak and withered ' under the over- 
 powering eloquence of Hill's conversation. Yet much 
 must not be made of Thomson's invertebrate action in 
 this matter : he merely followed the fashion of the times. 
 His gratitude to Hill, at any rate, was sincere, and as 
 the sequel demonstrated, was not misplaced. 
 
 The fight for fame, however, was only begun. A fresh 
 obstacle occurred in the coldness with which the patron 
 to whom Winter was dedicated, treated his client. The 
 patron selected, probably on the suggestion of Mallet, 
 who composed the address, was Sir Spencer Compton, 
 Speaker of the House of Commons. Compton, a man 
 of small ability and weak character, had been pitchforked 
 into the dignity of Speaker in spite of his own feeble 
 protests. He pleaded, but without avail, that he was 
 deficient in memory and power of judgment, and had no 
 skill to guide debate ; he satisfied the King and the 
 Walpole party, and that was enough. 
 
 Compton's indifference to the dedication of Winter 
 was not allowed to pass unchallenged. Energetic steps 
 were taken by Hill and Mallet on behalf of their friend. 
 If Compton did not care to exert himself regarding the 
 new poet, amends must be made for his neglect. The 
 means of recrimination adopted by Thomson's friends 
 was skilfully devised. Each wrote a set of verses in 
 which patronage was scathingly satirised, direct reference 
 to the case of Thomson being introduced by the 
 use of his name in the superscription. These verses 
 
56 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 were published in the newspapers. Both strongly urged 
 the poet to act independently. One passage of Mallet's 
 poem runs : 
 
 ' Cast each low thought of interest far behind ; 
 Neglected into noble scorn, away 
 From that low path, where vulgar poets stray. 
 Inglorious herd ! profuse of venal lays, 
 And by the pride despis'd, they stoop to praise I 
 Then careless of the statesman's smile or frown, 
 Tread that straight way that leads to fair renown.' 
 
 The hint was immediately taken by the Speaker. Mallet 
 and Thomson were asked to call upon him, and though 
 they were received coldly, he excused his discourtesy with 
 respect to the dedication as a misunderstanding, and pre- 
 sented Thomson with twenty guineas. The money was 
 accepted with the best possible grace, though the poet at 
 heart could not justly have the most grateful emotion 
 towards his lethargic admirer. But here the affair did 
 not end. 
 
 The difficulty with Sir Spencer Compton was the 
 source of a considerable dilemma to Thomson. He 
 contemplated a new edition of Winter, and Mallet and 
 Hill, notwithstanding the enforced friendliness of the 
 Speaker, wished their verses to occupy a place in the 
 volume, which, indeed, it was originally intended they 
 should do. Thomson, although the verses were much to 
 his own mind — 'that best satire I ever read,' he calls 
 them — requested that they should now be withheld. 
 Hill was inclined to yield to the poet's entreaty, but 
 Mallet stoutly refused to give way. The result was that 
 the verses did appear in the book, although those of 
 Hill, at least, were subjected to some alteration. 
 
JAMES THOMSON 57 
 
 The new edition of Winter was published in the 
 summer of 1726. It is remarkable as including a 
 fairly elaborate preface by Thomson, on the study and 
 pursuit of poetry. His prose style may be charged 
 with not a few defects ; but the preface exhibits vigorous 
 thought, insight, and unfeigned appreciation of the line 
 of poetical art in which he was so splendidly to assert 
 his capacity. With excusable feeling he deplores the 
 unfortunate condition of literature as suffering from the 
 unconcern of dull and unaccomplished patrons. For 
 once Johnson and he agree, and Thomson to some 
 extent anticipates Johnson's letter to Chesterfield, which 
 Carlyle calls ' that far-famed blast of doom, proclaiming 
 that patronage should be no more.' Patronage, in effect, 
 worked out its own hoUowness, and the increase of public 
 support to literature, seen in some measure in Thomson's 
 life-time, rang the last knell of a pernicious system. 
 Thomson hoped for 'some long-wished, illustrious man 
 of equal power and beneficence' to 'rise in the wintry 
 world of letters,' but the realisation of his ideal 
 was far to seek. A striking passage further on in the 
 preface appeals very pointedly for a higher conception 
 of their art on the part of writers of verse, and forcibly 
 strikes the keynote of his own position. He argues 
 for the selection of 'great and serious subjects' in poetry. 
 ' To be able,' he says, ' to write on a dry, barren theme 
 is looked upon by some as the sign of a happy, fruit- 
 ful genius — fruitful indeed ! — like one of the pendent 
 gardens of Cheapside, watered every morning by the 
 hand of the Alderman himself. And what are we 
 commonly entertained with on these occasions, save 
 
S8 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 forced, unaffecting fancies, little glittering prettinesses, 
 mixed terms of wit and expression, which are as 
 widely different from poetry as buffoonery is from the 
 perfection of human thinking? A genius fired with 
 the charms of truth and nature is turned to a 
 sublimer pitch, and scorns to associate with such 
 subjects.' 
 
 The second edition of Winter met with a good re- 
 ception, and the literary position of Thomson became 
 fairly well assured. New and valuable introductions 
 resulted, in the enlarged circle of friends there being now 
 such distinguished personages as the Countess of Hert- 
 ford, and Dr Rundle, afterwards Bishop of Derry. The 
 Countess of Hertford, herself something of a poet, 
 and with a genuine taste for literature, was yet to 
 receive the dedication of Spring, while Rundle's ac- 
 quaintance brought with it the friendship of a mind of 
 rare culture. The hopefulness of his outlook encouraged 
 Thomson to devote himself completely to literature. At 
 the end of the year he resigned a tutorship which he had 
 held with a Mr Watts, at an academy in Tower Street, 
 where his pupil was, it has been supposed, Lord George 
 Graham, and actively set about the preparation of 
 Summer. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PUBLICATION OF ' SUMMER ' AND ' SPRING.' FIRST 
 EDITION OF ' THE SEASONS.' MINOR POEMS 
 
 Thomson had begun work on Summer immediately on 
 the promise of the success of Winter. To both Mallet 
 and Hill he spoke of introductory passages of the new 
 poem before the close of 1726 , and that it was ready for 
 the press in the following year shows that he had not 
 worked slowly at perhaps one of the most exacting of his 
 compositions. Full of literary designs, he also advertised 
 an Essay on descriptive Poetry, which, however, never saw 
 the light ; and he sent out Proposals for Printing by Sub- 
 scription, The Four Seasons, with a Hymn on their Suc- 
 cession. Patronage, notwithstanding the profound dislike 
 with which he reasonably regarded it, he could not yet 
 afford to ignore; and he now chose as sponsors of his 
 new works Sir Robert Walpole and Mr Bubb Dodington, 
 subsequently Lord Melcombe. To Walpole was inscribed 
 the poem on Newton, while Dodington was honoured 
 with the dedication of Summer. It does not appear 
 that Walpole took any notice of Thomson's address : 
 very likely he disregarded it, for this dedication was in 
 all future editions withdrawn. 
 
 The suggestion of the dedication to Dodington 
 came from Lord Binning, on whom it was the original 
 wish of the poet to confer the compliment. But 
 
6o FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Binning judiciously imagined that Dodington would 
 prove a much more useful patron than himself, and 
 promptly pointed out this fact to Thomson. Dod- 
 ington, who descends to history as the 'last of the 
 patrons,' approved himself altogether grateful for the 
 distinction which was thus bestowed upon him. He 
 treated the poet with frank consideration; he received 
 him on terms of friendly intimacy at his house at East- 
 bury, and ever exerted himself generously on his behalf. 
 Dodington at the date of the publication of Summer held 
 the post of Lord of the Treasury. A noted place-hunter, 
 he was not popular, and his ousting from Court favour 
 some years later by Chesterfield and Lyttelton caused not 
 a little public satisfaction. Thomson's ready acquiescence 
 in Lord Binning's proposal was, no doubt, chiefly due to 
 the fact that Dodington more than any other contem- 
 porary of political eminence was recognised as having a 
 declared taste for literary pursuits. This taste, avowed 
 rather than genuine, combined with a pompous de- 
 meanour, gave shape to Foote's caricature of him in Sir 
 Thomas Lofty. Perhaps the resistless insincerity of the 
 appeal made in the dedication had a corresponding effect 
 upon the strain in which the address is conveyed; the 
 language surpasses, at any rate, all Thomson's other efforts 
 in the line of exaggerated encomium. In Dodington 
 he declares 'the virtues, the graces, and the muses 
 join their influence.' He alone is the ' British Macsenas.' 
 Thomson states that he considers himself privileged 
 in being introduced to the regard of Dodington ' through 
 the recommendation of an art in which you are a 
 master.' This fulsomeness would be a painful matter 
 
JAMES THOMSON 6i 
 
 to contemplate were it not remembered that Thomson 
 simply acted upon an accepted method of his day. 
 Gorgeous mendacity of the kind passed as a matter of 
 course. 
 
 The publication of Britannia, composed about this 
 time, was, for a good reason, delayed. Inspired by the 
 negotiations with Spain over British colonisation in the 
 West Indies, it was reserved till an opportune moment 
 for giving it to the public. This came with the final 
 overthrow of the objections raised by the Spanish 
 Government, and the work was issued in January 1729. 
 The strong attack it embodied on the Walpole Ministry 
 caused Thomson to hesitate over publicly stamping it 
 with the authority of his authorship, and it was printed 
 in a sort of clandestine fashion. It was published 
 anonymously; the date of writing was misrepresented 
 as 1 7 19; and Thomson's usual publisher did not give 
 the volume the imprint of his name, the publisher being 
 T. Warner, of Paternoster Row. 
 
 The poem on Sir Isaac Newton places Thomson in 
 a notable light. The piece is one of high merit, marked 
 by passages of true poetical insight and metrical power, 
 and quite maintains the level of excellence displayed in 
 Winter. The work of the distinguished scientist found 
 in Thomson an appreciative and not incompetent critic, 
 devoted as he had been in no slight measure to the study 
 of the pursuits in which Newton exercised his genius. 
 Nor did he, in view of his memorial poem, content 
 himself with the fairly intelligent knowledge he himself 
 possessed of the subject; he collaborated on the accuracy 
 of certain details with a friend, Mr John Gray, a man of 
 
62 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 recognised scientific acquirements, then of the Royal 
 Society, and afterwards Lord Rector of Marischal Col- 
 lege, Aberdeen. The poem forms one of the best of 
 Thomson's minor pieces, and, indeed, takes a place of 
 distinction in poetical achievement. 
 
 For all Wordsworth's exultant prophecy on the harmony 
 of Poetry and Science, it cannot be said that any very 
 assuring illustration of the circumstance has happened 
 before his date or since. The Botanical Garden of 
 Erasmus Darwin looms almost tragically alone, Uke the 
 forlorn desert image of Shelley's famous sonnet, as a 
 warning, if not a menace, to all travellers in this demesne. 
 Our own century, which might have been fairly expected 
 to produce something of moment in this relation, is 
 curiously unfruitful in result. Imagination is evidently 
 slow to celebrate the glories of scientific attainment. 
 Yet an exception in the matter must be made in favour of 
 Thomson's brief poem to the memory of Newton. It 
 (Contains a decidedly successful interpretation of the 
 Iphilosophy of the great scientist. The following passage, 
 dealing with the Newtonian theory of colours, has all 
 the art of apt poetical treatment ; — 
 
 ' Nor could the darting beam of speed immense 
 Escape his swift pursuit and meaning eye. 
 Even light itself, which everything displays, 
 Shone undiscovered, till his brighter mind 
 Untwisted all the shining robe of day ; 
 And from the whitening undistinguished blaze 
 Collecting every ray into his kind, 
 To the charmed eye educed the gorgeous train 
 Of parent colours. First the flaming red 
 Sprang vivid forth ; the tawny orange next, 
 
JAMES THOMSON 63 
 
 And next delicious yellow ; by whose side 
 Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing green. 
 Then the pure blue, that swells autumnal skies, 
 Ethereal played ; and then of sadder hue 
 Emerged the deepened indigo, as when 
 The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost, 
 While the last gloamings of refracted light 
 Died in the fainting violet away. 
 These, when the clouds distil the rosy shower, 
 Shine out distinct adown the watery bow ; 
 While o'er our heads the dewy vision bends 
 Delightful, melting in the fields beneath. 
 Myriads of mingling dyes from these result, 
 And myriads still remain ; infinite source 
 Of beauty ever flushing, ever new.' 
 
 During the composition of Summer Thomson had the 
 continued advice and critical encouragement of Mallet, 
 who while residing at Twyford, the seat of the Duke of 
 Montrose, was also engaged upon his own descriptive 
 poem of The Excursion. The interchange of opinion 
 between the two writers is interesting. The letters of 
 Thomson are invariably kindly rather than critical. 
 Mallet's Excursion is a thin and unimaginative perform- 
 ance, but is viewed by Thomson as remarkable alike for 
 surpassing power of thought and of expression. One of 
 these letters, written during the autumn of 1726, contains 
 sentiments for which excessive admiration is hardly a 
 term. 'Trust me, my friend,' he says, 'I could run 
 with you the race of glory, if heaven would permit; 
 true, I am inferior, but through your assistance might 
 hold out.' Again he jubilantly remarks : ' This is poetry, 
 this is arousing fancy — enthusiasm — rapturous terror. 
 Can't you get another epithet for Night? Evening in 
 
64 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 her brown mantle wrapt. I am not afraid of your 
 finding out as good a one 
 
 ' " Sung by the ascending demon of the hour." 
 
 You leave me as Cervantes does his readers. ... I 
 can, mark me, bear it no longer, but must have next 
 post the whole of your Excursion over this earth. I 
 say it again, must have it — so fail not.' 
 
 The reception of Summer by the public, if not 
 exceedingly cordial, was yet of such a kind as to con- 
 fidently impel the poet to the production of the rest 
 of his contemplated work on the Seasons. That not 
 a few defects and omissions, the result often of the 
 high rate of pressure at which it was produced, presented 
 themselves to him is clear from the numerous alterations 
 which the work was to undergo. The original edition 
 consisted of only 1205 lines; the revised edition, that of 
 1744, was enlarged by 600 additional lines. The poem 
 looked finally almost like a new production. Changes 
 of every description were efiected upon it. Many of 
 these were verbal or bearing upon the artistic form of 
 the verse. Various passages were expanded, while not 
 a little old matter was cut out. The benefit that thus 
 accrued was chiefly of a superficial kind, but it was 
 needful enough. Greater clearness of expression was 
 obtained ; the tumidity and indefiniteness of style 
 that was too promptly at the command of Thomson, 
 even in the careful moments of his earlier poetical 
 compositions, was so far intensified by the speed at 
 which he wrote Summer. The objection of Johnson 
 that the process of revision to which Thomson subjected 
 
JAMES THOMSON 65 
 
 The Seasons robbed the poetry of something of its ' race ' 
 is inconsequent; Thomson's verse was of the kind to 
 profit by such patient correction. 
 
 Procrastination does not seem to have been a foible 
 of Thomson in those days. He now set to work on 
 Spring, and next year the third of his elaborate pictures 
 of The Seasons came from the publisher. The volume 
 was dedicated to the accomplished Countess of Hertford 
 in an address of fairly judicious eulogy. The poet's 
 reason for this step probably arose from the fact that 
 in the summer of 1727 he had been the guest of Lord 
 Hertford at Marlborough House, in Wiltshire. Here, 
 according to Stephen Duck, the Wiltshire poet, there was 
 carried out the composition of a considerable part 
 of Spring. Johnson, who misses no opportunity of a 
 savage growl at Thomson, whom he clearly disliked, 
 relates an uncorroborated story about Thomson's failure 
 in courtesy to the accomplished Countess on this visit. 
 'It was her practice,' he says, 'to invite every summer 
 some poet into the country to hear her verses and assist 
 her studies. This honour was one summer conferred on 
 Thomson, who took more delight in carousing with Lord 
 Hertford and his friends than assisting her ladyship's 
 poetical operations, and therefore never received another 
 summons.' This implies a virtual breach between the 
 poet and the patron of Spring, a view which the existence 
 of the dedication alone hardly supports. The supposi- 
 tion is further negatived by the Countess of Hertford's 
 continued interest in Thomson's work. Twenty years 
 after the publication of Spring she held out to one of her 
 correspondents 'much entertainment in The Castle of 
 
 E 
 
66 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Indolence^ and expressed herself delighted with ' the many 
 pretty paintings in it.' 
 
 For Spring Thomson, chose a new pubhsher, Millan's 
 financial position at the time being unsatisfactory. The 
 publisher who undertook the publication of Spring was 
 Andrew Millar, a Scotsman, who, in 1729, began business 
 in the Strand, and, after a time, entered into occupa- 
 tion of an established bookselling business in the same 
 street, at the sign of ' The Shakespeare's Head,' which he 
 rechristened ' Buchanan's Head.' He very soon became 
 prosperous as a publisher, mostly through his care in 
 availing himself of capable advisers as to the purchase 
 of copyright. He it was who brought out Johnson's dic- 
 tionary, and, though lexicographer and publisher did not 
 part quite amicably over the publication, Johnson highly 
 esteemed his employer. Millar, he said, raised the price 
 of Uterature. Millar also had the credit of markedly 
 recognising the genius of Fielding, for whose Tom 
 Jams he paid a handsome price. His regard for 
 Thomson he gave practical effect to by generous 
 treatment of his work throughout the whole extent of 
 the poet's later authorship. He regretted his death 
 with the deepest grief, and the monument erected to 
 Thomson's memory in Westminster Abbey was defrayed 
 by a sumptuous edition of the poet's works, with regard 
 to which Millar abandoned his publishing rights for the 
 purpose. 
 
 A longer lapse than occurred between the issue of 
 the two previous Seasons took place in the case of the 
 publication of Autumn. The poet worked hard at this 
 poem during the year 1729, but it was not till June 1730 
 
JAMES THOMSON 67 
 
 that it was produced. His wish was to include the poem 
 in a complete edition of The Seasons, a design which he 
 had contemplated as far back as 1727. Delay was 
 principally caused by the different method on which 
 he resolved to publish — that by subscription. This 
 process of literary advancement, through the fault of 
 some irresponsible authors, had now come under con- 
 siderable suspicion. Thomson's plan in consequence 
 did not fare happily. The subscriptions dropped in 
 slowly and in no great abundance, even the reputation 
 which he had won as a new and successful poet having 
 insufficient weight against the prejudice which it was 
 necessary to overcome. 
 
 The pause in the publication of JTie Seasons was 
 however, broken by the appearance of Britannia at the 
 beginning of 1729. The work soon achieved popularity, 
 perhaps more on account of its sentiment than by its 
 literary merits, though these are not trivial. The occasion 
 of the poem, as before said, was a dispute between 
 Great Britain and Spain with reference to British authority! 
 in the West Indies. Spanish troops, after some pre- 
 liminary recrimination between the two governments, 
 took possession of Gibraltar, and British ships were 
 fired upon. Attempts at conciliation by Great Britain 
 were made to little purpose. Spanish frigates plundered 
 our merchantmen, and did everything possible to hamper 
 our foreign commerce. When Parliament assembled in 
 1729, deliberations at once ensued as to the best course 
 to be taken to check the active hostility of Spain. At 
 this opportune time Britannia was published. Patriotic 
 to a degree, it had a great vogue. Preceded by a 
 
68 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 quotation from the ^neid, it consists of a warlike 
 soliloquy uttered by the personified figure of Great 
 Britain. Without rising at any moment to a lofty 
 strain of poetical feeling, the poem is marked by un- 
 doubted vigour of sentiment ; less ornate in expression 
 than The Seasons, and less crude in this respect than 
 Liberty, it moves with a certain ringing eloquence that 
 not unsuccessfully does duty for poetry. The following 
 passage, fairly typical of the bulk of the poem, deals 
 with the overthrow of the Armada: — 
 
 ' But soon regardless of the cumbrous pomp. 
 My dauntless Britons came, a gloomy few, 
 With tempests black, the goodly scene deformed. 
 And laid their glory waste. The bolts of fate 
 Resistless thundered through their yielding sides ; 
 Fierce o'er their beauty blazed the lurid flame 
 And seized in horrid grasp, or shattered wide. 
 Amid the mighty waters, deep they sunk. 
 Then too from every promontory chill. 
 Rank fen, and cavern, where the wild wave works, 
 I swept confederate winds, and swelled a storm. 
 Round the glad isle, snatched by the vengeful blast, 
 The scattered remnants drove ; on the blind shelve. 
 And pointed rock, that marks the indented shore. 
 Relentless dashed, where loud the northern main 
 Howls through the fractured Caledonian isles.' 
 
 To the year 1729 belongs another of Thomson's 
 shorter poems, that entitled A Poem to the Memory of Mr 
 Congreve. Some uncertainty prevails regarding its authen- 
 ticity, the belief that it is the work of Thomson having 
 been expressed for the first time as late as 1843. The 
 poem was brought to light afresh by the Rev. H. F. 
 Gary, translator of Dante j and Mr Peter Gunningham, 
 
JAMES THOMSON 69 
 
 a trustworthy student of poetry, edited it for the Percy 
 Society. A note to the first edition of the poem 
 mentions that the author, who was personally unac- 
 quainted with Congreve, was aware of the imperfect 
 portrayal of the personal character of the great 
 dramatist ; but he justifies his effort from the absence 
 of any similar tribute. Internal evidence pretty de- 
 finitely points to the fact of Thomson's authorship. Not 
 so redundant and rhetorical as was his wonted style, re- 
 sembling in this particular his previous monody on 
 Newton, the poem has much incisive thought and grace- 
 fulness of diction. (Now and then we have tokens of 
 the epigrammatic critical gift which distinguishes parts of 
 both The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence, but which 
 curiously fell so seldom from the writer's pen when he 
 essayed prose, j A few lines in proof may be cited : 
 
 ' Lamented shade 1 in him the comic muse, 
 Parent of gay instruction, lost her loved, 
 Her last remaining hope. . . . Nature was his. 
 Bold, sprightly, various ; and superior art, 
 Curious to choose each better grace, unseen 
 Of vulgar eyes ; with delicacy free. 
 Though laboured happy, and though strong refined. 
 Judgment, severely cool, o'erlooked his toil. 
 And patient finished all ; each fair design 
 With freedom regular, correctly great, 
 A master's skilful daring.' 
 
 One or two factors of the evidence would seem to be 
 opposed to the probability of Thomson's authorship ; but 
 the testimony as a whole is in his favour. Various persons 
 mentioned, and the manner of their introduction, scarce 
 appear as quite within the range of his intercourse. 
 
70 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Halifax, Godolphin, and the Duchess of Marlborough 
 were all figures remote from his acquaintance. Then it 
 were an utter impossibility that the ' Cenus ' of the poem 
 could have been Aaron Hill, as has been supposed by 
 some writers. This difficulty, however, is readily removed 
 by the admissible conjecture that by ' Cenus ' may have 
 been intended CoUey Cibber. To him the reference is 
 sufficiently applicable. 
 
 The autumn of this year saw a new and charming 
 influence enter into the bookish routine of Thomson's 
 existence. He declared himself to be in love. Scepticism 
 on the genuineness of any sincere love passion on the 
 part of Thomson, encouraged principally by an inept 
 summary of his personal character by Savage, has long 
 been exploded ; but a certain obscurity involves the love 
 story of the poet. It is not certain that the lady who 
 now appears in his history was the Miss Young, belonging 
 to a Dumfriesshire family, of the profound attachment of his 
 later life. The first mention of the name of ' Amanda ' 
 is made in a poetical address of Thomson's which was 
 printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1736. The 
 considerable interval of years between the present love 
 affair and the date of this poetical tribute to Miss Young 
 certainly leaves ample room for the possibility of a pre- 
 vious attachment; but we know, at all events, that 
 Robertson, who married the sister of Miss Young, was 
 on terms of friendly intimacy with Thomson as early as 
 1726. The present interest may therefore have sprung 
 out of some friendship estabhshed at that time. Who- 
 ever the lady of this period may have been, it is clear 
 that Thomson was much charmed by her. The allusion 
 
JAMES THOMSON 71 
 
 regarding her occupies considerable space in a letter of 
 date September 1729, addressed to Mallet, then at 
 Twyford. Thomson writes : ' To turn my eyes a softer 
 way, I am really touched with a fair neighbour of yours — 
 you know who. Absence sighs it to me. What is my 
 heart made of? A soft system of love -nerves, too 
 sensible for my quiet; capable of being very happy, or 
 very unhappy ; I am afraid the last will prevail. Lay 
 your hand upon a kindred heart, and despise me not. 
 I know not what it is, but she dwells upon my thought, 
 in a mingled sentiment which is the sweetest, the most 
 intimately pleasing the soul can receive, and which I 
 would wish never to want toward some dear object or 
 other. To have always some secret, darling idea, to 
 which one can still have recourse amidst the noise 
 and nonsense of the world, and which never fails to 
 touch us in the most exquisite manner, is an Art of 
 Happiness that Fortune cannot deprive us of. This may 
 be called romantic, but whatever the cause is, the effect is 
 really felt. Pray, when you write, tell me when you saw 
 her, and with the pure eye of a friend ; and when you see 
 her again, whisper that I am her most humble servant.' 
 
 There can be no mistake about the candid avowal and 
 the requisite sentimentality of these remarks. It is true 
 that after a good many years were past Thomson pointed 
 out in a letter to Lyttelton that ' to say one cannot love 
 twice is utterly unphilosophical, and, give me leave to say, 
 contrary to my own experience.' On his own statement, 
 therefore, the inference may be drawn that another than 
 Miss Young had also effectually inspired his devotion. It 
 seems unlikely. Thomson's nature did not enshrine the 
 
72 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 restless, passionate heart of the quickly responsive emotion- 
 alist, represented so prominently by Burns and Byron. His 
 deeply-stirred affection was likely to be enduring as well 
 as overmastering. Another of his remarks to Lyttelton to 
 some extent indicates this : ' To strike one's fancy is the 
 same in love that charity is in religion. Though a woman 
 had the form, and spoke with the tongue of angels ; though 
 all divine gifts and graces were hers yet without striking the 
 fancy she does nothing.' The sincerity of affection with 
 which Thomson regarded Miss Young lends force to the 
 view that he had no serious second affair of the heart. 
 That he was finally debarred from marrying her, his friend 
 Robertson states, greatly affected him, and made him, 
 Robertson believed, indifferent to life. The snatches of 
 verse which he addressed to Miss Young throughout a 
 number of years reveal the rare strength and single- 
 mindedness of his attachment. These find clear declara- 
 tion in a letter which he wrote to her from Hagley. Here 
 he remarks: 'The mind is its own place, the genuine 
 source of its own happiness ; and, amidst all my raptures 
 with regard to the country, I would rather live in the 
 most London corner of London with you than in the 
 finest country retirement, and that, too, enlivened by the 
 best society, without you.' More than mere formal grace 
 also characterises the lines of which she is the subject in 
 Spring : — 
 
 ' And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song ! 
 Friend of the graces, loveliness itself ! 
 Come with those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet, 
 Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the sovil — 
 Where with the light of thoughtful reason mixed 
 Shines lively fancy, and the feeling heart' 
 
JAMES THOMSON 73 
 
 Why at length Miss Young elected to marry Admiral 
 Campbell is not at all apparent. She evidently had con- 
 templated the prospect of a marriage with Thomson, but 
 was dissuaded from the step by her mother, who is 
 reported to have treated the proposed union in a very 
 contemptuous manner. ' What ! would you marry Thom- 
 son ? ' are the words ascribed to her. ' He will make 
 ballads, and you will sing them.' But such an objection 
 could not have been raised at the time of Thomson's later 
 intimacy with the Youngs, when his income from Govern- 
 ment offices and from the sale of his works must have 
 been far from contemptible. No record to solve the 
 question remains, save that which imprinted itself with 
 some pathos on the poet's life. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 DRAMA OF ' SOPHONISBA.' CONTINENTAL TOUR. 
 PUBLICATION OF 'LIBERTY.' OTHER DRAMAS 
 
 With much love for the stage, and rightly considering 
 also that in the production of dramatic work there might 
 be a remunerative scope for his powers, Thomson broke 
 ground in 1730 with Sophonisba, a play produced at 
 Drury Lane on 2 8th February of that year. The rehearsal 
 drew a large and fashionable audience, including, among 
 other notabilities. Queen Caroline. The reception of the 
 play, if not of great warmth, was not discouraging; it 
 ran for ten nights, then a fair series of representations. 
 The poet, who was present on the first night, attracted 
 attention by his unappeasable excitement, and by volubly 
 repeating passages along with the players. The perform- 
 ance of the piece had the advantage of two actors of 
 first-rate ability — Wilks and Mrs Oldfield. Wilks, though 
 now past his best days as an actor, must have acquitted 
 himself well upon this occasion, for Thomson added a 
 sentence of thanks to him and to Mrs Oldfield in his 
 preface to the printed copy of the play. Mrs Oldfield, 
 who herself expressed liking for the part of Sophonisba, 
 excelled in the representation. According to Chetwood, 
 in fact, in his History of the Stage, she threw herself into 
 the interpretation with a zeal that fatally taxed her 
 74 
 
JAMES THOMSON 75 
 
 strength. His words are these : ' The part of Sophonisba, a 
 tragedy (by Mr Thomson, famed for many excellent poems), 
 was reputed the cause of her death, for in her execution 
 she went beyond wonder to astonishment ! From that 
 time her decay came slowly on.' Thomson's expression of 
 thanks enables a fair idea to be drawn as to the brilliancy 
 of her representation of the heroine. ' Mrs Oldfield,' he 
 said, ' in the character of Sophonisba has excelled what, 
 even in the fondness of an author, I could either wish or 
 imagine. The grace, dignity, and happy variety of her 
 action have been universally applauded, and are truly 
 admirable.' 
 
 Johnson, with his usual sneer at Thomson, declares 
 Sophonisba to have been an utter failure, and attributes 
 as one cause of this the occurrence of a very weak line, a 
 parody of which (produced, it has also been presumed, 
 upon the spot) ' for a while was echoed through the town.' 
 The story has now become one of the mock pearls of 
 history. The line in question : 
 
 ' O Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O I ' 
 
 is certainly bathetic enough, and was ultimately changed 
 into 
 
 ' O Sophonisba, I am wholly thine I ' 
 
 a much happier verse; but the parody took some little 
 time to mature. The burlesque verse : 
 
 ' O Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O 1 ' 
 
 was coined by an anonymous writer in a pamphlet 
 entitled A Criticism on the New Sophonisba. This was 
 the supposed work of Benjamin Martyr, or of a friend of 
 
16 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 his. The critic's pique had the greater gall from the 
 unfortunate reception which his own play of Timoleon 
 had undergone. The pamphlet is of some serious value 
 as containing a good deal of proof in favour of the stage 
 success of the tragedy. The writer sarcastically observes : 
 'The tragedy has been recommended to the world by 
 a crowded patronage. . . . 'Tis true the thing seemed to 
 please some persons ; there was a numerous party in the 
 house. Scotchmen, with tuneful hands and merry feet, 
 attested it to be the true Barn of wit.' The testimony 
 of Dr Rundle also points to the success of the first 
 representation of the play. In one of his letters he 
 writes : ' I send you Sqphonisba, which 1 think a reason- 
 able entertainment, becoming virtue herself to behold with 
 tears of approbation. . . . The story is a bad one, and 
 its being true is the only justification of it. The writing 
 is incomparable, though the pleasure it affords is not of 
 that popular kind which can draw crowded audiences. 
 . . . When it was acted, however, the sentiments of 
 virtue and honour were universally felt with pleasure; 
 and the audience was hurried, by the divine enthusiasm 
 of nature, to honour by the praise of their hands those 
 moral beauties which they cannot forbear loving.' 
 
 In the preface to the published edition of the play, 
 Thomson briefly dwells upon the supposed faults of the 
 piece, excusing these only, and in the slightest fashion, 
 by reason that the work was a first attempt ; he quotes 
 Racine as his authority on the correctness of the unities ; 
 and speaks in detail of the care devoted to the elaboration 
 of the character of Sophonisba. The printed play was 
 inscribed to the Queen as one who 'commands the 
 
JAMES THOMSON 77 
 
 hearts of a people more powerful at sea than Carthage, 
 more flourishing in commerce than those first merchants, 
 more secure against conquest, and under a monarchy 
 more free than a commonwealth itself.' 
 
 It is in reference to the stage production of Sophonisba 
 that we have any clear allusion to the collaboration of 
 Pope with Thomson. Pope, it is supposed, wrote the first 
 part of the prologue. Mallet completing the piece. The 
 incident, if authentic, bespeaks a very cordial friendship 
 between the two writers, for Pope had vented his great 
 disinclination to any composition of the sort. In a letter 
 addressed, in 1722, to Fenton, who had asked him to 
 write a prologue, he sharply declined, adding : ' I have 
 actually refused doing it for the Duke of Buckingham's 
 play.' Again, in a letter to Hill, in 1731, when touch- 
 ing upon such requests, he says : ' Every poetical friend I 
 have has my bond I never would, and my leave to take 
 the same refusal ill if ever I wrote one for another ; and 
 this very winter Mr Thomson and Mr Mallet excuse 
 me, whose tragedies are to appear this season or next.' 
 Johnson, who speaks of the collaboration in question, 
 quotes Savage as his authority; but Johnson had a 
 strangely implicit confidence in that madly-shooting star 
 of the Georgian literary firmament, and the statement 
 may be accepted with reserve. The prologue, however, 
 is an excellent one. 
 
 The enforced delay in the publication of The Seasons 
 was brought to an end about midsummer 1730, when it 
 appeared. Autumn, the new instalment, having its ap- 
 propriate place. The Hymn was now also first printed. 
 The volume was dedicated to the Right Hon. Arthur 
 
78 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons. The 
 address was inscribed in fourteen lines of verse begin- 
 ning at line 9 of the poem, and all the previous prose 
 dedications now also gave way to poetical substitutes. 
 Onslow well merited the compliment. A man of fine 
 personal dignity, of proverbial integrity, and with a real 
 taste for literary pursuits, Onslow filled the Speaker's 
 chair with extraordinary approval for thirty years, entering 
 upon his appointment in 1727. The edition of 1730 
 differs so much from that of 1744 that much biblio- 
 graphical interest attaches to the subject. How vast was 
 the labour of the poet in the matter of revision is seen in 
 the almost insurmountable difficulty that has attended all 
 efforts at collation of the various readings. Dr Bell, 
 nephew of the poet, made the attempt with sanguine 
 expectations ; but he never finished his task. Only 
 an approach to a full statement of the variations was 
 reached in an edition of TAe Seasons, published by Sibbald 
 in 1789. Mr Peter Cunningham inserted a despairing 
 footnote on the subject in his Aldine edition of Thomson's 
 works. He called the proposed task 'an intention which 
 no one can carry out. Wordsworth tried it — Mr Dyce 
 tried it — I have tried it.' The feat, however, has not 
 been found insuperable, the two latest editors of the poet, 
 Mr Logic Robertson and Mr Tovey, having each carried 
 out a full collation of Thomson's MS. corrections of his 
 great poem. 
 
 The notices that have been preserved of the business 
 transactions accompanying the publication of the first 
 complete edition of Tke Seasons set forth not a little 
 curious information. Three hundred and eighty-six sub- 
 
JAMES THOMSON 79 
 
 scribers in all applied for copies, some, however, taking as 
 many as ten copies ; the whole number of volumes thus 
 paid for being four hundred and fifty-four. Thomson him- 
 self received subscriptions at the Smyrna Coffee House ; 
 the publishers (Millar had by this time taken Strahan and 
 Millan into partnership) accepted orders at the Golden 
 Ball, Cornhill, at the Blue Anchor, Pall Mall, and at their 
 own place of business at ' Buchanan's Head.' Edinburgh 
 subscriptions were under the care of Allan Ramsay. 
 Among the subscribers were nearly all Thomson's friends, 
 titled and literary. Dodington headed the list with twenty 
 copies; the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, John Conduitt, 
 a nephew of Newton, took ten ; Duncan Forbes of Cul- 
 loden, five ; Pope, three ; while in the list of those who 
 were subscribers for one copy each are the names of 
 Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, Young, Allan 
 Ramsay, and Hamilton of Bangour. 
 
 In 1730 Thomson experienced a respite from Uterary 
 employment. On the recommendation of Dr Rundle, he 
 was appointed travelling tutor to the eldest son of Sir 
 Charles Talbot, the Solicitor-General. Thomson accom- 
 panied his pupil through France and Italy, spending the 
 customary two years in Continental travel. To judge from 
 Thomson's correspondence, addressed to Dodington dur- 
 ing the tour, he found, unlike Addison, some years before, 
 and unlike Gray, about nine years later, no great enter- 
 tainment in his travels. The criticism passed by Thomson 
 on men and scenes is brief and rather morose ; and he 
 came back from the Continent apparently glad that the 
 sojourn was ended. The travellers set out at the close of 
 the year 1730. They stopped first at Paris, intending 
 
So FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 there to spend the winter; they remained, however, till 
 the following autumn. The fragmentary account of 
 Thomson's tour is exceedingly disappointing. Most of his 
 letters to Dodington are marked by petulant fault-finding 
 with his surroundings, and by invidious contrasts made 
 between Great Britain and France. This goes so far 
 that it sometimes must be thought to overrule his better 
 judgment. It is only on this understanding that there can 
 be accepted the startling conclusions of certain of his state- 
 ments, as that, for instance, on ancient statuary at Rome. 
 ' How little of these,' he says, ' suffices ! How unessential 
 are they to life.' This, and kindred reflections during 
 the journey, in a degree justify the severe censure of Mr 
 Tovey, when he declares that if Thomson were judged 
 solely by these letters, we should say that he gushed about 
 Nature, as so many people do, ' rather like an epicure 
 than a man of refined observation.' The explanation seems 
 to be that the poet was beyond question insular — not 
 in a derogatory sense — that his British prejudice, in short, 
 prevented him from seeing any of the excellences of other 
 • countries ; he travelled, observed, and wrote always with 
 an eye upon the superiority of his own country. Young 
 Talbot, we learn from a remark of Dr Rundle's, shared 
 his prejudice. 
 
 One episode of Thomson's visit to Paris that may be fairly 
 ^supposed to have been agreeable would be his visit; to 
 Voltaire, a meeting that, there is little doubt, really took 
 place. M. Morel ingeniously supposes that the authors 
 did meet at this time, inasmuch as Thomson refers to the 
 hitherto unpublished preface of Voltaire's Brutus, and 
 Voltaire subsequently made allusion to a proposed drama, 
 
JAMES THOMSON 8i 
 
 entitled Socrates, which Thomson had now some intention 
 of writing. Both literary items argue the likehhood of this 
 meeting. Voltaire had a sincere regard for Thomson's 
 genius, his estimate on some points being exceptionally 
 high, and an interview with the distinguished Frenchman, 
 also renewing as it did a friendship begun in England, 
 could not fail to afford much unmixed pleasure to Thom- 
 son.* But of French society in general, that ' rose-coloured 
 Parisian Arcadia' of Gray's amused observation, he has 
 nothing to say, and very likely acted no part in it. We 
 know at least that he was not favourably impressed by the 
 French capital in other important respects. On the in- 
 dustrial and constitutional aspects of France under Louis 
 XV. he passes a most adverse judgment, and here his 
 opinion was based upon a capable discernment. He 
 writes to Dodington, 'I have seen little of Paris yet — 
 some streets and playhouses — though, had I seen all that 
 is to be seen, you know it too well to need a much better 
 account than I can give. You must, however, give me 
 leave to observe that amidst all that external and showy 
 magnificence which the French affect, one misses that 
 solid magnificence of trade and sincere plenty which not 
 only appears to be, but is, substantially, in a kingdom 
 where industry and hberty mutually support each other. 
 That kingdom I suppose I need not mention, as it is, and 
 ever will be, sufficiently known from the character. I 
 shall return no worse Englishman than I came away.' A 
 premonition, however slight, may be read in these words 
 of Thomson of the huge convulsion in social economy 
 
 * Voltaire quoted Thomson to Boswell. See 'James Boswell,' 
 by W. Keith Leask. ' Famous Scots Series.' 
 
 F 
 
§2 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 that, fifty years later, was to shake France to its political 
 foundation. 
 
 A divergence from the route at Lyons to Avignon 
 and Vaucluse constitutes a second apparent exception 
 to the general dearth of pleasurable excitement which 
 Thomson felt on his journey ; in the country of Petrarch 
 he was much moved, and carried with him to England a 
 lively recollection. But at Rome the spirit of ennui 
 returned in force, assuming, in truth, a rude and nearly 
 inexplicable cynicism. He discusses the art collections 
 at Rome, with an astounding lack of approbation, and 
 confesses that in his present circumstances he despairs of 
 all attempt at poetical work. He says : ' Now I mention 
 poetry, should you inquire after my muse, all that I can 
 answer is, that I believe she did not cross the channel 
 with me. I know not whether your gardener at Eastbury 
 heard anything of her among the woods there j she has 
 not thought fit to visit me while I have been in this once 
 poetic land, nor do I feel the least presage that she will.' 
 
 It can only be concluded that the amount of attention 
 which the poet bestowed upon the people and institutions 
 under his notice in these travels, while it did not draw 
 fostering inspiration from their own charm or effectiveness, 
 served to distract his observation into a not wholly con- 
 genial channel. The idea at the root of Liberty oppressed 
 him from Paris to Rome, and from Rome back to London. 
 And, after all, the sum and substance of his foreign 
 experience produced no worthy result. The poem proved 
 that constitutional freedom was a theme on which his 
 imagination could not range freely, though it could do so 
 intensely, as in Rule Britannia. A rationalised social 
 
JAMES THOMSON 83 
 
 philosophy was not the kind of work for which he was 
 fitted, though he himself did not yet, if he ever did, 
 perceive this ; but it was decisively demonstrated by the 
 common verdict pronounced upon his one deliberate 
 philosophical poem. 
 
 Thomson and his pupil returned to England about 
 Christmas, 1732. He at once entered energetically upon 
 the preparation of Liberty. The surmise is that he did 
 so at Ashdown Park, where he may have continued for 
 a time in his post as tutor to young Talbot. His engage- 
 ments at this time also included help in the organisation 
 of a theatrical benefit for Dennis, the critic, who was in 
 weak health. Liberty did not flow readily from the pen 
 of Thomson, the composition extending over three years. 
 Young Talbot died before Thomson had proceeded far 
 with his poem, and in the first part of Liberty were 
 comprised some memorial lines on the poet's former 
 pupil. This inserted part, which was issued under the 
 title Aruient and Modern Italy Compared, appeared in 
 December 1734; the second and third parts, respectively 
 devoted to Greece and Rome, were published in the 
 following year. The announcement of the early stages 
 of the publication was made to his friend Cranston in 
 a strain of some confidence. The work was dedicated 
 to Frederick, Prince of Wales. The public . received it 
 coldly from the beginning. Hill, with his indomitable gift 
 of florid flattery, did his best, both in public and private, 
 to arouse enthusiasm, but to no purpose. ' I look upon 
 this work,' he wrote to Thomson, ' as the last stretched 
 blaze of our expiring genius.' But the public sternly 
 asserted that they would have none of it ; and the book, 
 
84 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 of which an edition of three thousand copies had been 
 struck off, was practically thrown upon the publisher's 
 hands. Thomson, although greatly disappointed by the 
 unpopularity of the poem, wished to requite the pubUshers 
 for the loss. ' I think,' he remarks, in a letter to Hill, 
 ' of annulling the bargain I made with my bookseller, who 
 would be a considerable loser by the paper, printing, and 
 publication of Liberty.^ To the last, however, he believed 
 in the merits of the poem. 
 
 The opinion of every succeeding age of readers has 
 reversed the judgment of Thomson on what he considered 
 to be his 'noblest work.' No other conclusion is possible. 
 In Liberty he attempted a task that both in material and 
 scope was not adapted to his powers. That imaginative 
 strength which endows The Seasons throughout, in spite of 
 whatever minor defects it may possess, with real poetic 
 glamour, seems scarce to enter into this didactic effusion. 
 Its cold reflections on civil and political conditions, ancient 
 and modern, are stated eloquently enough ; and the poem 
 is aptly leavened with an immense deal of learning ; but 
 if the poet felt and thought keenly on the theme, he did 
 not succeed in communicating the fervour within him to 
 his verse. In point of form also, the poem falls much 
 below the level of The Seasons. The recital of events is 
 too little selected ; incident after incident, repellent in utter 
 flatness of presentation, is driven and hurried along with 
 stilted and unattractive force. All too seldom does there 
 come in a compensating passage of beauty. The blank 
 verse does not lack a touch of the melodious movement 
 which was ever at the command of Thomson ; but this, 
 too, sounds thin beside his accustomed utterance. The 
 
JAMES THOMSON 85 
 
 failure of the poem is lieightened by the arrangement 
 which puts the whole narrative on the lips of an 
 ' Awakened Muse.' The poem loses in distinctness by 
 the pompous attitude thus assumed, and a strain is 
 placed upon the reader in the endeavour to gauge the 
 significance underlying the use of this artifice. Alto- 
 gether, the poem is a work so unvitalised and jejune 
 that the fame of Thomson owes hardly anything to its 
 studied and magniloquent pages. 
 
 In the dedication to the Prince of Wales it is stated 
 that 'the work is an attempt to trace Liberty from the 
 first ages down to her excellent establishment in Great 
 Britain.' It is with Great Britain as his subject that the 
 writer attains to any degree of success in the course 
 of his exposition. A few passages in the division of the 
 poem dealing with ' Greece ' also strike a fuller note than 
 that of mere eloquence of enunciation ; but the divisions 
 devoted to Rome and Italy are simply a diligent and 
 accurate chronicle. The description of the arrival in 
 England of the first Saxon invaders may be particularised 
 as one of the happiest delineations : — 
 
 ' From the bleak coast that hears 
 The German Ocean roar, deep-blooming, strong 
 And yellow-haired, the blue-eyed Saxon came. 
 He came implored, but came with other aim 
 Than to protect. For conquest and defence 
 Suffices the same arm. With the fierce race 
 Poured in a fresh invigorating stream, 
 Blood, where unquelled a mighty spirit glowed. 
 Rash war, and perilous battle their delight ; 
 And immature, and red with glorious wounds, 
 Unpeaceful death their choice ; deriving thence 
 A right to feast, and drain immortal bowls, 
 In Odin's hall ; whose blazing roof resounds 
 
86 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 The genial uproar of those shades, who fall 
 In desperate fight, or by some brave attempt ; 
 And though more polished times the martial creed 
 Disown, yet still the fearless habit lives.' 
 
 If not a literary success, Liberty was followed by an 
 exceptional stroke of financial fortune to Thomson. In 
 1^7351 Talbot, now Lord Chancellor, appointed him 
 j Secretary of Briefs, a sinecure post from which he derived 
 a fair income. Unhappily, the pleasure attendant upon 
 this event was marred by the death of his brother. John 
 Thomson had come to London to act as amanuensis 
 to the poet, but was attacked by consumption, and went 
 back to Scotland to die. The acquisition of the 
 Secretaryship of Briefs led Thomson to consider the 
 advisability of a settled residence; the locality he chose 
 was Richmond, where he established himself in May, 
 1736. Preference was probably given to this suburb 
 from the proximity of Pope's residence at Twickenham, 
 and of Kew, where lived the Prince of Wales, then posing 
 as a friend of men of letters, and Thomson's own patron 
 in Liberty. Work very soon busily engaged Thomson 
 at Richmond, for his drama of Agamemnon, of which he 
 speaks as being occupied with during the early part of 
 his stay, was ready for representation in January, 1737. 
 An agreeable incident of the poet's life at this time is 
 presented in his zealous energy on behalf of his two 
 unmarried sisters, who were beginning business as milliners 
 (at that date a somewhat fashionable profession) in 
 Edinburgh. To his friends Ross and Gavin Hamilton 
 he writes requesting their assistance in small advances 
 of money to his sisters, promising repayment immediately 
 on the production of his new drama. To Ross he 
 
JAMES THOMSON 87 
 
 writes; — 'It was kind in you not to draw rashly upon 
 me, which at present had put me into danger; but 
 very soon, that is to say about two months hence, I 
 shall have a golden buckler, and you may draw 
 boldly.' 
 
 The death of Lord Chancellor Talbot in the spring ^ 
 of 1737 was a severe blow to Thomson, both from the 
 personal and the worldly side. Talbot was sincerely 
 lamented by the poet. The event drew from him another 
 of his striking memorial poems. The personal character 
 of the late statesman receives discriminating notice, and in 
 the same effective manner is described his esteemed work 
 as a public official. This poetical tribute fails in some 
 degree by a tendency to over-elaboration ; but it is none 
 the less a noble poem, at once impressive in thought, 
 conception, and finish. On the death of his patron 
 Thomson perforce withdrew from his secretaryship, and 
 made no request to have it renewed. Lord Hardwicke, 
 successor to Talbot, with equal reticence offered no 
 show of desire to continue him in office, and the ap- 
 pointment went to another claimant. A curious story of 
 the poet's financial embarrassment is supposed to belong 
 to this date. It relates how, imprisoned for debt, 
 he was visited by Quin, who frankly relieved him from 
 his difficulties by a payment of ;^ioo, as a return for the 
 pleasure he had derived from the perusal of the poet's 
 works. 
 
 The performance of Agamemnon, unduly delayed, 
 took place in April, 1738. Its reception was not un- 
 favourable; it ran for ten nights, Thomson receiving 
 benefits on three occasions. According to an advertise- 
 
88 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ment in the London Daily Post it was performed ' with 
 great applause.' Quin took the part of Agamemnon ; the 
 parts of Clytemnestra and Cassandra were depfited to 
 Mrs Porter and Mrs Cibber respectively; CoUey Gibber 
 played Mehsander. Pope favoured the first representation 
 with his presence, and was cordially received. In book 
 form, dedicated to the Princess of Wales, the popularity 
 of the play was also considerable; Murdoch states that 
 Thomson drew a large sum as the result of its publica- 
 tion. Nor did the financial benefits of the play end 
 here. After the representation the Prince of Wales 
 conferred a pension of ;^ioo a year upon the poet; 
 while his friends Mallet and Gilbert West received 
 Government offices. Agamemnon had turned out a 
 ' golden buckler ' indeed. 
 
 A new drama followed close upon Agamemnon. This 
 time Thomson chose his subject from English history; 
 the drama was entitled Edward and Eleonora, and treated 
 of the romantic incident in the crusade of Edward I. 
 in the Holy Land. According to a statement in one of 
 Pope's letters, this drama was ready in February 1739. 
 Thomson's former experience of Drury Lane having been 
 so unsatisfactory, he decided to ofifer his new play for 
 production at Covent Garden. An unexpected and dis- 
 appointing event, however, happened. The friction long 
 existing between the King and the Prince of Wales was 
 now at its height, and Thomson's friendship with the 
 Prince was made the pretext of discovering censurable, if 
 not treasonable, passages in the play. A 'Stage Act,' 
 recently passed, directed that all plays reflecting in any 
 degree upon the Government should be prohibited; 
 
JAMES THOMSON 89 
 
 the public censor decided that Edward and Eleonora 
 came under this ban. It was, therefore, never pro- 
 duced on the stage. What influenced the censor was 
 the zeal shown throughout the work for the character 
 of the earlier Prince of Wales as compared with that of 
 his father. Passages to this effect, though far from ob- 
 trusive, were not uncommon in the play. The following 
 is of average note : — 
 
 ' To you my Prince this task of right belongs. 
 Has not the royal heir a juster claim 
 To share his father's inmost heart and counsels 
 Than aliens to his interest, those who make 
 A property, a market of his honour ? ' 
 
 Dramatic censorship was rampant about this time. A 
 playwright named Brooke had suffered the penalty of 
 suppression of a play sometime before the prohibition 
 of Edward and Eleonora; and there was speedily 
 doomed another in the Arminius of Thomson's friend 
 Paterson. Ludicrously enough, Thomson was the un- 
 witting cause of Paterson's misadventure. Paterson 
 acted as amanuensis in the preparation of Edward and 
 Eleonora. When the official reader of plays espied 
 the handwriting in which the treasonable sentiments of 
 Edward and Eleonora had been penned, he desired 
 no further proof of the unsuitability of this second drama 
 for public representation. Its claims were disposed of at 
 once. Unread, and almost unseen, the drama by Paterson 
 was forthwith authoritatively condemned. Some amends 
 for the rejection of Edward and Eleonora on the stage 
 was hoped to be secured by the published edition ; but 
 such a sensation as might have been expected to be 
 
90 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 aroused over the difficulties that had looked so menacini 
 to the censor, was not excited. No greater attention thai 
 was common to the bulk of published plays was bestowec 
 upon the supposed disloyal pages ol Edward and Ekonora 
 A laboured witticism on the part of one of the ministeria 
 writers is recorded in connection with the affair. The poe 
 is herein stated to have ' taken a Liberty which was no 
 agreeable to Britannia in any Season.' 
 
 These difficulties with the authorities experienced by thi 
 poet himself and other dramatic writers, obviously led hin 
 to very serious thought on the matter, and, finally, t( 
 direct recalcitrant action. This he exercised in a spiritec 
 preface to an edition of Milton's Areopagitica, publishec 
 in (j^jSiJ) The good seed of this reforming zeal fell oi 
 a fertile soil. For some time Thomson had held th( 
 business conditions of the theatre in no great estimation 
 and a year or two before his own luckless ventures h( 
 had diligently discussed with Hill the propriety of en 
 deavouring to institute a Tragic Academy, apparently oi 
 the model of the French Academy of Science and Letters 
 ' Was there ever an equal absurdity heard of,' he write; 
 on one occasion to Hill, ' among a civilised people, tha 
 such an important public diversion, the school whicl 
 forms the manners of the age, should be made the pro 
 perty of private persons?' In another letter he reviews th( 
 subject, evidently under the stress pf considerable feeling 
 Conjoined with his wish for an improved state of th( 
 business relationships of the theatre is a desire for ameli 
 oration on the question of book copyrights. The follow 
 ing passage represents the gist of his opinion on these 
 points as to which his conviction was so firmly grounded 
 
JAMES THOMSON 91 
 
 ' In lieu of all patrons that have been, are, or will be, 
 in England, I wish we had one good act of Parliament 
 for securing to authors the property of their own works ; 
 and that the stage were put upon the footing of common 
 sense and humanity. And can it be that those who im- 
 press paper with what constitutes the best and everlasting 
 riches of all civilized nations, should have less property 
 in the paper, so enriched, than those who deal in the 
 rags which make that paper? Can it be that the great, 
 the delightful school of manners should be abandoned to 
 common sale, and become the property of any one who 
 can purchase it, to be perhaps the school of folly and 
 corruption ? A simony this, in virtue ; which, if not so 
 wicked, yet is as pernicious as that in religion. What 
 would Athenians have said to this ? what laughter, what 
 contempt, what indignation would it have raised among 
 them ! ' 
 
 The idea of the Tragic Academy came to nothing ; 
 but Thomson was appointed, in 1736, one of the com- 
 mittee of managers of a Society for the Encouragement 
 of Learning, composed of certain noblemen and men of 
 letters. He was, therefore, both officially and by personal 
 endowment well-qualified to defend the rights of the author. 
 
 It was on the suggestion of the Prince of Wales that 
 Thomson, having the partnership of Mallet, composed 
 the Masque of Alfred. Desirous of some work of the 
 kind by which to celebrate the anniversary of the ac- 
 cession of George I. and also the birthday of the 
 Prince's daughter, Augusta, the poet's royal patron 
 naturally turned to him. The masque was duly per- 
 formed on ist August 1740, at Clieveden on the 
 
92 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Thames, before the Prince of Wales and a large 
 assemblage of the aristocracy. So much discussion has 
 been stirred over the most famous part of the play, 
 the song of Rule Britannia, that extended treatment 
 of both drama and song is deferred to another chapter. 
 Quin again took a leading part in the performance. 
 The popularity of the drama, which for some years 
 was more than moderate, was much aided by its 
 musical setting. This was the production of Dr Arne, 
 who had, there is good reason to believe, some help 
 from Handel. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 REVISED EDITION OF 'THE SEASONS,' 'THE CASTLE OF 
 INDOLENCE.' DEATH AND CHARACTER. 
 
 A VISIT to Lyttelton's country seat at Hagley, in 
 Worcestershire, in the autumn of 1743, was the first 
 of a series of such visits paid annually by Thomson. 
 The poet seems to have "held Lyttelton in much esteem, 
 and the fact, that the earnest and doctrinally disposed 
 man of affairs wrote his pamphlet on the Conversion 
 and Apostkship of St Paul principally with the object of 
 bringing Thomson to his own way of thinking, more than 
 augurs that this regard was mutual. Their acquaintance 
 had begun considerably before this date, though in what 
 year is uncertain. The introduction came through Pope. 
 Lyttelton had now won a foremost place as a politician, 
 and continued to prove himself 'an intelligent and reliable 
 member of his party, till his elevation to the House of 
 Lords in 1756. He is described as a pleasant, absent- 
 minded man of unimpeachable integrity and benevolent 
 character, with strong religious persuasions and respect- 
 able talents. His interest in Thomson was of the truest, 
 and these sojourns with his refined host amidst the beauti- 
 
 93 
 
94 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ful scenery of Worcestershire must have been delectable 
 features in the poet's yearly round. 
 
 Lyttelton's invitation was given and acknowledged 
 during the summer of the year 1743. How much the 
 poet appreciated the prospect of this country holiday 
 is thoroughly expressed in his letter of acceptance. ' I 
 have the pleasure,' he writes, 'of yours some posts ago, 
 and have delayed answering it hitherto that I might be 
 able to determine when I could have the happiness of 
 waiting upon you. Hagley is the place in England I 
 most desire to see ; I imagine it to be greatly delightful 
 in itself, and I know it to be so to the highest degree 
 by the company it is animated with. Some reasons 
 prevent my waiting upon you immediately, but if you 
 will be so good as let me know how long you design 
 to stay in the country, nothing shall hinder me from 
 passing three weeks or a month with you before you 
 leave it. As this will fall in autumn, I shall like it the 
 better, for I think that season of the year the most 
 pleasing and the most poetical. The spirits are not 
 then dissipated with the gaiety of Spring and the glaring 
 light of Summer, but composed into a serious and 
 tempered joy. The year is perfect. In the meantime 
 I will go on with correcting The Seasons and hope to 
 carry down more than one of them with me. The Muses 
 whom you obligingly say I shall bring along with me 
 I shall find with you — the Muses of the great simple 
 country, not the little fine-lady Muses of Richmond Hill.' 
 
 The guess may be confidently ventured upon that 
 Spring was one of The Seasons to which the poet makes 
 reference in the foregoing letter. In Spring, at any 
 
JAMES THOMSON 95 
 
 rate, his friend's charming surroundings were extolled in 
 a passage of some length adhibited to that poem in 
 the enlarged edition of 1744. The lovely valley is 
 there named the 'British Tempe,' and in his title the 
 poet hardly over-passed the truth. Hugh Miller in his 
 First Impressions of England discloses an enthusiasm 
 on the subject not inferior to that of Thomson. 'The 
 entire prospect ' he calls ' one of the finest in England, 
 and eminently characteristic of English scenery.' Thom- 
 son's chief work as an interpreter of external Nature was 
 now ended ; but it may be fairly supposed that various 
 suggestions upon his later poetical tasks were derived 
 from these hours of quiescent retreat at Hagley. 
 
 This visit to Hagley has a heightened interest from the 
 circumstance that now Thomson wrote to Miss Young a 
 lengthened letter in terms of much endearment, and 
 conveying an explicit proposal of marriage. This is the 
 only occasion on which Thomson apparently gave serious 
 consideration to such a step, but there can be no hesita- 
 tion in regarding these words of his as presenting this 
 meaning. 'Let me now,' so runs the concluding para- 
 graph, 'my dearest Miss Young, bespeak your goodness. 
 I shall soon, I am afraid, have occasion for all your 
 friendship ; and I would fain flatter myself that you will 
 generously in my absence speak of me more than you 
 ever owned to me. If I am so hai^y as to have your 
 heart, I know you have spirit to maintain your choice; 
 and it shall be the most earnest study and purpose of my 
 life not only to justify but to do you credit by it. Believe 
 me, though happy here as the most beautiful scenes of 
 Nature, elegant society and friendship can make me, I 
 
96 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 languish to see you, and to draw everything that is good 
 and amiable from your lovely eyes.' Unfortunately for 
 Thomson's peace of mind no progress whatever was made 
 in the course he thus describes. The next we hear of 
 Miss Young is upon the event of her marriage with 
 Admiral Campbell. Lyttelton a year or two after this 
 date tried to turn the poet's thoughts to the subject of 
 a union with a lady who is not named ; but he was put 
 off with the excuse that his friendly counsel was then 
 addressed to an unsympathetic ear. The poet was 
 truly in the position of having loved and lost, and 
 to the last it may be conceived his heart was in this, 
 iri^ed, to him its own bitterness. 
 
 ; The stroke of good fortune which befell Thomson in 
 1744 was, however, to throw a fresh ray of cheerfulness 
 across his life. On the recommendation of Lyttelton 
 he was appointed to the sinecure office of Sur-sfeyor-in- 
 General of the Leeward Islands. The duties incumbent 
 upon him he could perform by deputy, and at the same 
 time draw an income of ;^3oo sl year. The post of 
 deputy he entrusted to his friend Paterson. With such 
 a valuable resource to reckon upon, he could, develop 
 the capacities of his genius to the utmost ; and this 
 he prepared to do. In his quiet retreat at Richmond 
 he struck off one drama after another ; more than all, he 
 worked out and perfected the most finished and beautiful 
 of his compositions, T^e Castle of Indolence. Graced, 
 too, by congenial spirits — Pope, Collins, Lyttelton, 
 Hammond, Mallet, Quin, and Armstrong were all regular 
 visitors — ^this period of Thomson's life must have been 
 threaded with much brightness. Armstrong, a young 
 
JAMES THOMSON 97 
 
 doctor from the Scottish Border, who had taken to 
 literature, and produced one excellent poem in Thom- 
 son's manner, entitled the Art of Health, would be an 
 irresistibly welcome associate. Lord Buchan gleaned 
 some reminiscences of the poet's social surroundings 
 at this date j and the narrative is of import. This in- 
 formation was obtained from Taylor, the barber at 
 Richmond during Thomson's stay. Taylor informed the 
 inquirer that Thomson wrote much in his garden, esconced 
 in an arbour. One of his most frequent visitors was 
 Pope. The ' little wasp of Twickenham ' Taylor considered 
 to be a marvellously fine talker. ' I have heard him and 
 Quin and Paterson talk together so that I could have 
 listened to them for ever.' No mention is made of 
 the poet's indolence, of which the familiar anecdotes on 
 the subject perhaps comprise considerable exaggeration. 
 Placid and good-natured in disposition Thomson un- 
 doubtedly always was ; sluggish and prone to unconven- 
 tional habits in later years he must have been, or his 
 friends would not have twitted him so excessively on the 
 matter ; but a writer who could put to his credit so much 
 admirable and polished poetical work in a somewhat brief 
 career, could not, on the face of it, have been a trifler 
 once upon a day. The storied peach which he so leisurely 
 plucked from his garden-tree at Richmond has enjoyed a 
 celebrity much exceeding its due; in addition, a man 
 who did his writing chiefly at midnight could not with 
 any sort of fairness be expected to be astir at dawn. 
 Thomson has surely borne undeserved reproach, if not 
 libel, on the score of general inertia. 
 
 To add to the attractions of Richmond, Thomson 
 O 
 
98 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 had here as neighbours the family of Youngs, including 
 'Amanda.' The sister of 'Amanda,' who was married 
 to Mr Robertson, a friend of Thomson's, also resided 
 in the district. Robertson, who says that the poet was 
 desperately in love with Miss Young, describes her as not 
 a striking beauty but of gentle manners and refined taste, 
 such a woman, indeed, as was most likely to attract 
 Thomson. It may have been at this time that not a few 
 of those graceful little snatches of song which form not 
 the least agreeable part of his poetic accomplishment, 
 were composed. The following, though idealised, might 
 well have been written during one of those later periods 
 of occasional unrest, when the poet's fancy was charged 
 with a weight of pensiveness regarding the tender, but 
 ill-starred, relation with Miss Young : — 
 
 Tell me thou soul of her I love, 
 Ah ! tell me, whither art thou fled ; 
 
 To what delightful world above, 
 Appointed for the happy dead ? 
 
 Or dost thou, free, at pleasure roam, 
 And sometimes share thy lover's woe ; 
 
 Where void of thee, his cheerless home 
 Can now, alas ! no comfort know ? 
 
 O, if thou hoverest round my walk. 
 While under every well-known tree, 
 
 I to thy fancied shadow talk. 
 And every tear is full of thee : 
 
 Should then the weary eye of grief, 
 
 Beside some sympathetic stream. 
 In slumber find a short relief, 
 
 Oh, visit thou my soothing dream ! 
 
JAMES THOMSON 99 
 
 The preparation of a complete and much-amended edition 
 of The Seasons resulted in its publication in 1744. In 
 each of the books large additions were made and numer- 
 ous corrections inserted. The most decided change was 
 made upon Summer, which was enhanced by no less an 
 amount than six hundred lines ; eighty-seven lines were 
 added to Autumn, one hundred and six to Spring, and 
 two hundred and eighty-two to Winter. Mr Logie Robert- 
 son has gone carefully into these variations in his edition 
 of The Seasons for the Clarendon Press, and brings out 
 with practical exactitude the passages wherein the poet 
 sought to make improvements. A disputed point of much 
 bibliographical importance has arisen with reference to the 
 preparation of this edition. The difficulty is, as to whether 
 or not Thomson had a collaborator in this work, and if he 
 had, whether that collaborator was Pope. The origin of 
 this difficulty dates from a remark made by the Rev. 
 John Mitford in his edition of Gray's works, published in 
 1814. Mitford, basing his assertion upon a volume of 
 The Seasons which he had become possessed of, contain- 
 ing the MS. corrections of the edition of 1744 in two 
 different hands, authoritatively declared that the second 
 writer was Pope. Mr Churton Collins, in an able and 
 convincing article on Mr Tovey's edition of Thomson's 
 works {Saturday Review, 31st July, 1897), vigorously 
 attacks this contention of Mitford's. The sole evidence 
 of the slightest value that Mitford produced upon the 
 theory which he advanced was derived from a letter of 
 Pope's to Hill in which he says, 'I am just taken up 
 [November 1732] by Mr Thomson in the perusal of a 
 new poem he has brought me.' This reference is to 
 
I OP FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Liberty. That certainly supplies no positive proof what- 
 ever of the correctness of his view. To add to its very 
 trifling cogency, there remains, however, the marked 
 variation between the two instances of calligraphy in 
 the MS. corrections. Mitford maintained that his two 
 friends, Ellis and Combe of the British Museum, believed 
 the hand of the second corrector to be that of Pope; 
 but, on the other hand, the British Museum authorities 
 of to-day are equally confident that the handwriting 
 is not Pope's. Further, as Mr Churton Collins 
 acutely points out, the external evidence to be deduced 
 from contemporary opinion in Thomson's day, is quite 
 opposed to the belief that Pope shared in the labour of 
 Thomson's revision of his work. ' If Pope assisted 
 Thomson to the extent indicated in these corrections, 
 such an incident, considering the fame of The Seasons, 
 must have been known to some at least of the innumer- 
 able editors, biographers, and anecdotists, between 1742 
 and 1 8 14. It could hardly have escaped being recorded 
 by Murdoch, Mallet, or Warburton, by Savage or Spence, 
 by Theophilus Cibber or Johnson. It is incredible that 
 such an interesting secret would have been kept either 
 by Thomson himself or Pope.' An additional weighty 
 factor of external evidence against this copartnership with 
 Pope is to be found in the non-existence of any recognised 
 work by Pope in blank verse. The internal evidence 
 does not disagree with the probability of Thomson's own 
 authorship of the second series of emendations. The line 
 
 ' Through the black night that sits immense around,' 
 
 which Mr Churton Collins quotes as altered from — 
 
 ' Through the black night that bids the waves arise,' 
 
JAMES THOMSON loi 
 
 is altogether in the vein of Thomson's more precise 
 manner. The ultimate item of proof on which reliance 
 has to be placed in order to fix the actual authorship 
 of Thomson's, is that of the handwriting. The issue does 
 not here assume any magnitude of doubt. If the hand- 
 writing be neither that of Pope nor of Thomson, then 
 it can only be reasonably explained as that of an 
 amanuensis, the final credit of the emendations being 
 thus left to the poet himself. 
 
 The revised edition of The Seasons was published by 
 Millar in June 1744. Next month he followed it up 
 by an edition of Thomson's complete works, while by- 
 and-by separate issues of Agamemnon and Edward and 
 Eleonora were published. Meanwhile, Thomson was 
 far from slacking his energies. A new tragedy, Tancred 
 and Sigismunda, was produced at Drury Lane in 1745. 
 The published copy was again dedicated to the Prince 
 of Wales. This drama attained the highest popularity 
 among all Thomson's works of the kind. Garrick took 
 the leading part in the representation. ' The town,' we 
 are told, ' flocked to the performances.' Its esteem was 
 such that it was translated into French and was brought 
 out on the French stage some years after the death of 
 the author. 
 
 Fortune had now bestowed, at least, its treasures of 
 fame and sufficient wealth upon Thomson, and those 
 years at Richmond were doubtless years of comparative 
 happiness. Surrounded by the society of cultured and 
 true-hearted friends, and devoting his leisured moments 
 to the production of ripe verse, he approximated in no 
 distant degree to the ideal he beheld in Virgil's Corycius 
 
I02 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 senex, or that of his own glowing picture of the truly 
 happy mortal in Autumn. Pope was still a chief figure 
 among his visitors. Robertson states that Pope frequently 
 called upon Thomson, while Thomson was unfailingly 
 admitted to Pope, whether he had company or not. 
 Collins, whose beautiful ode alone sheds an immortal frag- 
 rance over the friendship, came often ; Lyttelton brought 
 his eager theological investigations and formal and amiable 
 ways; Murdoch, Mallet, Armstrong and Quin, composed 
 the fittest of company. Visits to Hagley fully diversified 
 the routine of life at Richmond. Adjoining Hagley, 
 moreover, was Leasowes, the home of Shenstone, who 
 there directed the clever but superficial powers of his 
 intellect to the composition of dainty verse and to the 
 adornment of Nature. In the autumn of 1 747 Thomson 
 was the guest of Shenstone, who commemorated the 
 occasion by a tablet placed in ' Virgil's Grove,' inscribed 
 'Celeberrimo Poetae Jacobo Thomson.' Letters of this 
 date to Lyttelton and to his sister, Mrs Thomson, be- 
 token a steady burning of the flame of his characteristic 
 optimism, although in the brief space of another year it 
 was to be diminished not a little in its lustre. 
 
 The year 1748 saw the production of The Castle of 
 Indolence. Upon this he had been engaged at irregular 
 intervals during the long period of fifteen years. It was 
 published in May 1748. In a letter to Paterson, dated 
 April of that year, he announced the coming publication, 
 reminding him of an original touch suggested by Paterson 
 at a gathering at North Haw, and assuring him that 
 he still held 'an apartment in it as a night pensioner.' 
 This gathering at North Haw, it is supposed, produced 
 
JAMES THOMSON 103 
 
 the badinage by his friends upon Thomson's indolence, to 
 which he replied by throwing oflf some satirical pictures 
 of themselves, delineating them as in no better case, the 
 whole forming the nucleus of his exquisite poem. 
 
 But Thomson now met with a serious, though not 
 disastrous reverse. As the result of a quarrel between the 
 Prince of Wales and Lyttelton, the pension of ;^ioo a year 
 was withdrawn from Thomson as the nominee of Lyttel- 
 ton. Mallet and West were simultaneously deprived of 
 their appointments. Some hope was for a time held out 
 that the interdict would in all the cases be removed ; but 
 no such event happened. Perhaps this stroke of ill-luck, 
 combined with that vital calamity which his friend Robert- 
 son said Thomson certainly felt in the loss of Miss Young, 
 explains better than a dispute with Garrick, the pathe- 
 tic tenor of his remarks to Paterson : ' Let us have 
 a little more patience, Paterson ; nay, let us be cheerful ; 
 at last, all will be well, at least, all will be over — here I 
 mean : God forbid it should be so hereafter ! But as 
 sure as there is a God, that will not be so.' A play on 
 the subject of Coriolanus was now ready, and it was 
 regarding a controversy between Garrick and Quin as to 
 who should have the principal part, that the poet was, in 
 the first instance, constrained to use these words. The 
 author was not destined to see the production of his 
 drama. 
 
 A few months after the publication of The Castle of 
 Indolence Thomson was suddenly seized with his last 
 illness. The cause was a chill, brought on during a 
 journey on the Thames between Hammersmith and Kew. 
 Having walked from London to Hammersmith, Thomson, 
 
to4 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 in an imprudently heated state, got on board the boat, with 
 the result that next day he was seized with a fever. The 
 crisis was passed, however, and he was again able to be 
 out of doors. But he over-tried his strength ; a relapse 
 set in, and, despite the carefully directed skill of Arm- 
 strong, soon proved fatal. Thomson died 27th August 
 1 748, within a few days of his forty-ninth year. His death 
 excited the deepest sorrow in the circle tff his friends. 
 Armstrong, Murdoch, Lyttelton, Forbes of Culloden, and 
 Millar, his publisher, have all left the strongest testimony 
 of the ardour of their affection, and the profound sense of 
 their loss. Shenstone was greatly touched, asserting that 
 though slightly acquainted with Thomson, he felt as if he 
 had ' known him and loved him a number of years.' 
 When some months later, Quin, dressed in a suit of 
 mourning, spoke the prologue to Coriolanus, the grief 
 that choked his utterance was not feigned. The greatest 
 pain Thomson ever gave to his fellow-creatures — so it was 
 written on a votive tablet erected to his memory in his 
 own garden — was that of his death. 
 
 Thomson was buried in Richmond Church, under a plain 
 slab, but more than one monument has since been raised 
 to his memory. The most notable is that in Westminster 
 Abbey, which was unveiled on loth May 1762. This is 
 placed between the monuments of Shakespeare and Rowe. 
 In 1792 Lord Buchan placed a small brass tablet in 
 Richmond Church, with a quotation from Winter. A 
 memorial was also erected on Ferney Hill, near 
 Ednam, in 1820. Only a short notice on the tomb- 
 stone of the poet's father for long traced his memory at 
 Southdean, but within recent years a stained glass window 
 
JAMES THOMSON 105 
 
 was dedicated to him in the parish church, built in succes- 
 sion to the pile in which he was wont to worship.* 
 
 The best portrait of Thomson is the head by his friend 
 William Aikman. This was possessed by Lyttelton, and 
 is said to have been emphatically and favourably described 
 by Pitt as ' beastly like.' This is now hung in the Scottish 
 National Portrait Gallery. Another portrait, painted by 
 Slaughter, is preserved at Dryburgh Abbey. A third, the 
 work of Paton, representing Thomson at the age of forty- 
 six, was presented by Miss Bell, the poet's grand-niece, to 
 the National Portrait Gallery. Thomson was above the 
 middle size, and stoutly built ; in his last years, inclining 
 to heaviness. As in the case of Burns and other con- 
 templative men of note, his features were much less 
 expressive in repose than when animated. In his youth 
 he was considered handsome. 
 
 Lyttelton and Mr Mitchell (afterwards British Ambas- 
 sador at the Court of Frederick the Great) administered 
 Thomson's effects on behalf of his sister Mary, who 
 married William Craig, a merchant of Edinburgh. Mr 
 Beresford Chancellor, in his interesting and exhaustive 
 Life of James Thomson, quotes an extract from the 
 registry of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, bearing 
 upon this administration. Mr Chancellor adds various 
 details of note as to the transactions about the poet's 
 
 * Regarding this window Dr Mair writes : — The subject designed 
 on the window, suggested by an artist of eminence in Edinburgh, is 
 appropriate for its memorial purpose. In the centre-piece is seated a 
 youthful harper, with the rapt, ethereal expression of the poet in his 
 countenance, and in the midst of woodland and river scene, which 
 suggests the beautiful in rural life, while at the foot of the window is 
 a portrait of Thomson taken from the portrait at Abbotsford. 
 
io6 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 afTairs following upon his death. The sale of the cottage 
 took place on 15th May 1749. The catalogue of this 
 sale, which has been preserved, shows that the house was 
 well furnished with engravings and designs, the result 
 of Thomson's visit to Italy ; among them were (singularly 
 enough) works of Audran, Le Bas, L6picid, and copies of 
 some of the most famous sculptures attributed to Castelli. 
 The library, consisting of about five hundred volumes, was 
 made up, for the most part, of English and foreign classics. 
 A copy of Shakespeare, Raleigh's History of the World and 
 Harrington's Oceana, were bought by Forbes of CuUoden. 
 His friend Ross purchased the cottage, which, after some 
 enlargement by Ross, has now been further added to, and 
 is used as the Royal Richmond Hospital. 
 
 Thomson's personal character appears to have been 
 such as attracted the liking of all who met him. He was 
 agreeable, sympathetic, and generous alike in opinion and 
 in act. Satisfactory proof is also produced that, apart 
 from a certain gaucherie he was, in an age of excessive 
 formality, in receipt of complete toleration in respect 
 of good-breeding. Shenstone, it is true, did not greatly 
 care for his manners, but Shenstone was a literary and 
 probably social martinet Yet such matters do not, 
 when all is said, supremely concern a biographer of a 
 man of genius like Thomson. A more serious affair 
 is it that an attempt should be made to throw a blot 
 on the poet's personal worth. His recent editor, Mr 
 Tovey, discusses at some length an indictment of the 
 sort by John Taylor, author of Records of My Life, who 
 alleges that he had heard on some evident authority that 
 Thomson was guilty of a ' calculating callousness ' in a 
 
JAMES THOMSON 107 
 
 secret love affair of his youtL Mr Tovey, who mingles 
 praise and blame with unusual freedom in his estimate, 
 accrediting Thomson with 'vulgarity,' 'effusiveness as a 
 boon companion,' and one or two more undesirable 
 errors, is not, however, prepared to accept this mysterious 
 tribute to the poet's inherent baseness. True, he dis- 
 misses it with the fine recklessness which convicts by 
 faint praise. 'Admirers of Thomson,' he says, 'will 
 reject this tale as a mere lie, though it is a lie with 
 many circumstances.' Impartial criticism will not endorse 
 this grudging concession. Thomson's fame can never 
 be blurred by such a wavering slander. A writer who 
 could put so much bright, wholesome, and spiritual 
 thinking into his poetry has inevitably drawn there for 
 himself a character with dominant traits of the best and 
 finest ; and, upon the whole, there is no significant reason 
 to conclude that he was materially untrue to the ideal 
 which he thus upheld. Men like Lyttelton and Rundle, 
 moral purists not only in sentiment but in practice, 
 delighted in him. And if a man's letters to his friends 
 are not cunningly devised pieces of deception, then 
 Thomson must be deemed to have been possessed of 
 uncommon goodness of heart. One of his first letters 
 from London to Cranston, obviously composed at a 
 white-heat of feeling, bears every sign of unaffected 
 sweetness of disposition; while it may be said that the 
 letters to his sisters, to Miss Young and to Paterson, 
 all of which display unquestionable marks of sincerity, 
 place him in an excellent light. Faults he certainly had j 
 but to seriously pause, deliberate, and argue over these 
 faults, as far as actual investigation brings them, is to 
 
Io8 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 run the art of literary biography to a perilous brink; 
 the fame of Shelley, though his case cannot be admitted 
 to be a parallel one, has not suffered so much by the 
 fretful ' chatter about Harriet ' as has the sense of historical 
 perspective in his hostile critics. 
 
 But this matter simply revives an old story. Following 
 some ten years after the publication of Johnson's Lives of 
 the Poets, and in the same year as Boswell published the 
 ' Life ' of the great literary dictator himself, there was set 
 on foot by Lord Buchan a series of celebrations of the 
 memory of Thomson, which did not a little to honour his 
 name, and to bring home to the people of Scotland, at 
 least, some living notion of the greatness of the poet of 
 Nature who numbered himself one of them. Lord Buchan 
 was doubtless directly moved to his design by the not 
 'too cordial criticism of the author of The Seasons which 
 was offered by Johnson, and also by the covert slight 
 on his character which was passed by Boswell in his 
 famous biography. Boswell there said that it was 
 Johnson's intention to introduce censure upon Thomson 
 in the notice devoted to him, on the ground that his 
 practice as a moralist did not correspond to the ideal 
 which he commended in his published works. The invete- 
 rate cavilling jealousy which Johnson both in conversation 
 and writing manifested towards his older literary con- 
 temporary cannot be said to be very intelligible. That 
 the subject of his wrath was a Scotsman would be, 
 as a matter of course, a primary cause of offence of a 
 formidable kind; that he was a successful Scotsman, 
 it may be hazarded, produced the maximum of intolerable 
 error. When the grievous struggle for reputation which 
 
JAMES THOMSON 109 
 
 Johnson endured is contrasted with the comparatively 
 smooth and easy access to fame which signalised the 
 career of Thomson, a certain light is shed on the source 
 of Johnson's animadversion. 
 
 Lord Buchan's answer to this criticism partook of the 
 nature of a national vindication, and the incident of his 
 inaugural celebration is one of much interest. Additional 
 note is given to it by the hearty sanction it received 
 from Bums. The cultured founder of these gatherings, 
 which took place at Ednam, the poet's birthplace, made 
 his attitude on the matter exceedingly plam by his 
 judgment upon the author of the Lives of the Poets, 
 whom he characterized as an 'overbearing pedant and 
 bully, whose reputation was proof of the decline of 
 British taste and learning.' Lord Buchan went on to 
 say in his opening oration that in the very simplest view 
 of Thomson's delineation of Nature, there was much to 
 infer as to their sweetening effect upon human nature. 
 ' In his poems, those who are able to taste and relish that 
 divine art which raises the man of clay from the soil on 
 which he vegetates to the heaven of sentiment . . . will 
 delight in seeing the beautiful features of Nature pre- 
 sented to the eyes as spectators and not readers, and 
 after these delightful impressions are over, they will find 
 themselves happier and better than they were before.' 
 Burns could not attend this meeting. But he sent a 
 message of explanation, and along with it a memorial 
 ode. The letter has a sentence or two which tell how 
 deeply the great lyrical poet of the country felt the im- 
 portance of the tribute that was being paid to its great 
 descriptive poet. ' Language,' he says, ' sinks under the 
 
xio FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ardour of my feelings when I would thank your Lord- 
 ship for the honour you have done me in inviting me 
 to make one at the coronation of the bust of Thomson. 
 In my first enthusiasm, on reading the card you did me 
 the honour to write me, I overlooked every obstacle, and 
 determined to go ; but I fear it will not be in my power. 
 A week or two's absence in the very middle of my harvest 
 is what I much doubt I dare not venture on. Your Lord- 
 ship hints at an ode for the occasion ; but who could 
 write after Collins? I read over his verses to the memory 
 of Thomson, and despaired.' Burns, however, did write 
 his verses in the mood of Collins ; they are here given 
 as a graceful, and, so to speak, more than national eulogy 
 of the poet of The Seasons. 
 
 ' While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood, 
 Unfolds her tender mantle green. 
 Or pranks the sod in frolic mood, 
 Or tunes Eolian strains between ; 
 
 While Summer with a matron grace 
 Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade. 
 
 Yet oft delighted, stops to trace 
 The progress of the spiky blade ; 
 
 While Autumn, benefactor kind, 
 
 By Tweed erects his aged head, 
 And sees with self-approving mind. 
 
 Each creature on his bounty fed ; 
 
 While maniac Winter rages o'er 
 
 The hills whence classic Yarrow flows. 
 
 Rousing the turbid torrent's roar. 
 Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows, 
 
 So long, sweet Poet of the year I 
 Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won ; 
 
 While Scotia, with exulting tear. 
 
 Proclaims that Thomson was her son.' 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 'THE SEASONS' 
 
 Thomson, when he wrote The Seasons, was remarkable 
 as the founder of a new literary era. This was less felt 
 when he composed his great work than it is to-day, 
 strongly supported as his deliberate study of Nature 
 has been by such writers of our own century as 
 Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley. Two reasons may 
 be offered as suggesting a due explanation of this 
 change in opinion. First, the habit of introspectiveness 
 which does not find full satisfaction in a man's own 
 mental attitude, was not so marked a characteristic of 
 men of the eighteenth century as it is of those of to-day. 
 Such gloomy subjective writers as Sdnancour and Amiel 
 would have been impossible participators in the virile 
 speculation of last century. Again, it is now more 
 vividly understood than in the century preceding, that 
 man forms only an infinitesimal unit, if a potent one, 
 in the vast universe in which he is placed. It is, therefore, 
 more fully reaUsed now thap it ever was before, that he 
 suffices not to himself, and that there exists ih Nature a 
 sphere alike congenial and beneficent, to which his haply 
 jaded consciousness may turn for refreshing renewal. 
 The modern love of Nature in its beauty and in its 
 
113 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 invigorating purpose reaches much beyond any previous 
 idea of its qualities alike in variety and range. This 
 intensity of regard came notably into English literature, 
 and it might be safely concluded, into all European 
 literature through Thomson. It was no new thing to 
 touch, it might be, with deft and subtle allusiveness on the 
 jcharm and sweetness of Nature ; but he it was who first 
 emphasized beyond all modern writers the ' living activities 
 ;and operant magic of the earth.' After him philosophy and 
 art alike found a new field in which to work. Nature 
 in the poetry of Thomson was pointed to as a fresh and 
 /abiding source of wonder, of attractiveness, of solace. 
 He was the veritable discoverer of a new world of aesthetic 
 and spiritual perceptions. 
 
 Wordsworth, forgetful of the more mature growth of 
 the feeling for Nature in his own day, and also of the 
 different artistic conditions in which the poetry of Nature 
 was written, passed an exaggerated condemnation on the 
 state of thought as the subject in the eighteenth century, 
 and on the character of the poetical work of the kind 
 produced by the contemporaries of Thomson. This criti- 
 cism was made in one of his prefaces to The Excursion. 
 Professor Wilson in one of his Blackwood essays brought 
 Wordsworth promptly to book for this mistaken idea. 
 Wilson puts his case with the rare brilliance, wit, and 
 critical faculty which he so truly possessed, the authority 
 of his statement being further strengthened by the poetical 
 affinity which he shared with both Wordsworth and 
 Thomson. The 'blind wonderment' of the reading 
 puWic of Thomson's day, Wilson affirms warmly to 
 be beside the mark ; contemporary admiration for the 
 
JAMES THOMSON 113 
 
 work of Thomson, if not so expansive as in Wordsworth's 
 day (or, as Wordsworth hoped it was) was candidly and 
 thoroughly appreciative. The critic of Wordsworth was 
 in the right. Precisely the same criticism as Wordsworth 
 here offered, would have applied in the case of Rousseau; 
 the artificial society of his day, however, had nothing 
 but cordial approval for the graphic and powerful de- 
 lineations of Nature in the New Heloise. The delightful 
 descriptions of rural life round Montmorency, caused 
 singular and reciprocated pleasure to the readers of the 
 French sentimentalist. The severity of Wordsworth's 
 judgment distinctly called for such refutation. He re- 
 duced Thomson's popularity to a wholly specious one, 
 ascribing much of it to his ' false ornaments ' and ' senti- 
 mental commonplaces.' Professor Wilson proceeded in 
 his review to give weight to the fact that the merit of 
 Thomson lay not in the positive novelty of his work, 
 but in its sincerity and variety. The author of The 
 Seasons, he said, outdid his contemporaries in noting 
 Nature more truly and on a wider scale; and this, no 
 slight commendation, may be readily granted as the 
 criterion of his rank as a poet. 
 
 The plan of The Seasons is exceedingly uniform. 
 Autumn, the last to be composed, differs in no important 
 point of form from Winter, the original of the series. 
 The plan adopted was that of the natural development 
 of each of the year's divisions. Considerable objection 
 has sometimes been taken as to the introduction of the 
 didactic passages which appear in all. These, it is true, 
 embody the poet's philosophy of Nature, but are by 
 no means of the best illustrations of his art. But apart 
 
 H 
 
114 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 from their philosophical bearing .they have in their place 
 a distinct literary utility, creating as they do an appro- 
 priate sequence of pauses in the general narrative. The 
 same may be said on behalf of his idyllic stories. None 
 of them, with the exception of that on Lavinia, can count 
 for more than a necessary variation in the treatment 
 of the subject at large. Without these endeavours at 
 diversity, the purely descriptive discourse would have 
 incurred undoubted risk of monotony; and, howsoever 
 serious their faults, the discretion that originated their 
 introduction was a sound one. The usage, in short, is 
 not more than an ordinary necessity of any continued 
 literary composition. Any teller of a story who wishes 
 his narrative to be engrossing must do the same. The 
 most obvious instance occurs in that of the writer of 
 tragic drama, wherein departure from a regular line of 
 development is enforced by the clearest mandate. The 
 true literary artist must accommodate himself to the 
 needs of his reader or auditor. 
 
 Hazlitt called Thomson 'the best of our descriptive 
 poets,' and the title, in its exact sense, will not with 
 justice be denied him. His claim springs first from the 
 completeness of his devotion to the treatment of external 
 nature ; no British poet rivals him in absolute absorp- 
 tion in this subject. No work in the range of British 
 literature approaches The Seasons in dealing with Nature 
 in a manner so apt and strenuous. Again, he excels 
 in the expansiveness of his power in transcribing from 
 Nature; his imagination ranges afar, while it depicts 
 with precision;, he can treat broad and striking areas 
 with force as well as picturesqueness. A third eminent 
 
JAMES THOMSON 115 
 
 characteristic is the freshness with which he invests his 
 portrayal. In this he is second to none of the most 
 original of his Scottish precursors. 
 
 In all essentials of his art he compares favourably 
 with Wordsworth and Cowper, his greatest rivals in 
 poetical description. Wordsworth, it is true, concerned 
 himself with the imaginative statement of a natural 
 theodicy rather than with the special interpretation of 
 Nature; Cowper, also, was not an avowedly descriptive 
 poet. But the works of both are shot through with 
 passages of natural description of the finest texture. 
 Alike in actual extent and consistency of his study of 
 Nature, Thomson is superior to both. Moreover, in 
 the inherent descriptive qualities that signalise the work 
 of all, Thomson claims corresponding if not greater praise. 
 His reach and vividness counterbalance Wordsworth's 
 intensity, Cowper's pleasing and sedulous exactness of 
 detail. No passage of The Seasons equals in dazzling 
 grandeur the cloud scene and other too rare passages of 
 The Excursion; but there are not a few as naturally 
 clear and striking. Cowper's Morning Walk, it must 
 be allowed, exhausts with wonderful nearness of review 
 almost every object of note that enters into his landscape j 
 yet Thomson succeeds with a few bold and vigorous 
 strokes in setting forth a similar scene with an effect quite 
 as just. As far as the 'unbought grace' of poetry is 
 considered, Thomson brooks no assertion of surpassing 
 quality on the side of either Wordsworth or Cowper. 
 The stumbling-block to his equal authority of claim 
 consists in his_crudity of style. Bombastic, cumbrous, 
 vapid, all these epithets forcibly apply to the language 
 
ii6 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 of not a few passages, lines, and phrases of The Seasons ; 
 here Thomson, in all other respects to be praised, must 
 be assigned an inferior position ; in this artistic part of his 
 work he greatly fails beside the studied, and yet satisfying 
 ease of Wordsworth, and the polished grace of Cowper. 
 
 Most conspicuous of the gifts of the poet of The 
 Seasons is his pictorial power. The Seasons has a wealth 
 of clearly-limned and finished pictures. They stand out 
 as truthfully and effectively as if drawn upon canvas. 
 Concerned in the main with still life, there are -included 
 also figure pieces of the deftest workmanship. Thomson 
 is not only the Claude of British poetry, he may also 
 with fairness be called the Teniers or the Wilkie. Back- 
 Wound, colour, and careful technique distinguish his trans- 
 cripts derived from the world of external nature; spirit, 
 ■verisimilitude, humour, his efforts in figure pieces. This 
 class of picture scenes is met with least frequently in 
 Winter, due perhaps to the less advanced power of the 
 author's art. In Winter the poet is above all the 
 raconteur. His effects there as elsewhere are skilfully 
 managed ; but the artistic result is less firm, less delicate. 
 Only one or two of these delightful vignettes decorate 
 the pages of Winter. We have the Snowstorm in the 
 one class of pictorial representations ; the Hall Sports in 
 the other. They certainly challenge comparison with 
 the best of the poet's similar achievements. But Winter, 
 altogether, does not cohere so truly as do its companion 
 studies. Description, episode, moraUsing, are intermixed 
 in a way that disappears in the rest of the Seasons. 
 When once, however, Thomson found the measure of 
 his power, he carried out his design without hesita- 
 
JAMES THOMSON 117 
 
 tion or flaw. To place beside the solitary Winter 
 sketch from still life, there are in Spring the well-defined 
 transcripts of Meadow and Forest, the Sunset, the Dawn, 
 the Valley, and the Garden. Here, however, no figure 
 pieces find a place. Summer has a large number of 
 descriptive feats in both classes of work. Unsatisfactory 
 to the author in its first draft, the scrupulous revision 
 bestowed upon this book justifies itself fully in this par- 
 ticular line of description. A beautiful picture of Dawn 
 holds the leading place; then in close array comes a 
 varied series of well-felt landscapes and rustic scenes. 
 First is that of Haymaking, followed closely by one of 
 Sheep-shearing, and others — the Pasturing Horse, the 
 Waterfall, the Hill, the Desert Storm, the Thunderstorm, 
 and the Shepherd's Courtship. Autumn, too, contains 
 not a few of these brightly defined drawings. Chief 
 among them are the Fall of the Leaf, the Hunted Stag, 
 the Revelling Fox-hunters, (one of the most successful of 
 all, though Lyttelton in his edition excised it, from a 
 fancied idea of its coarseness), the Orchard, Moonlight, 
 and the Village Dance. Two examples of Thomson's 
 rare power of presentation in this respect are subjoined ; 
 that of ' Moonlight ' from Autumn being an outstanding 
 example of his gifl as a painter of still life. 
 
 ' Meanwhile the moon, 
 Full-orbed and breaking through the scattered clouds 
 Shows her broad image in the crimsoned East. 
 Turned to the sun direct her spotted disk. 
 Where mountains rise, umbrageous vales descend 
 And caverns deep, as optic tube descries, 
 A smaller earth, gives all his blaze again, 
 Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day. 
 
ii8 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop, 
 Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime. 
 Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild 
 O'er the skied mountain to the shadowy vale. 
 While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam, 
 The whole air whitens with a boundless tide 
 Of silver radiance, breaking round the world.' 
 
 ' Haymaking ' in Summer forms a rustic picture of 
 the fullest exactness and verve. After introducing as 
 leading figures 
 
 ' The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil 
 Healthful and strong ; full as the summer rose 
 Blown by prevailing suns, the ruddy maid,' 
 
 the picture is charmingly developed thus : — 
 
 ' Even stooping age is here ; and infant hands 
 Trail the long rake, or with the fragrant load 
 O'ercharged, amid the kind oppression roll. 
 Wide flies the tedded grain ; all in a row 
 Advancing broad, or wheeling round the field. 
 They spread the breathing harvest to the sun 
 That throws refreshful round a rural smell : 
 Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground, 
 And drive the dusky wave along the mead, 
 The russet hay-cock rises thick behind 
 In order gay ; while, heard from dale to dale. 
 Waking the breeze, resounds the blended voice 
 Of happy labour, love, and social glee.' 
 
 The style in The Seasons with the undeniable pomposity 
 that grievously culminates at times in such phraseology 
 as 'plumy people,' 'opponent bank,' and 'afflictive 
 noon,' exhibits no inconsiderable number of felicitous 
 lines. There is displayed none of the pre-eminence of 
 expression shown by the great masters in poetical art, no 
 line that impinges on the memory by the very mellifluous 
 
JAMES THOMSON 119 
 
 beauty of its accent. Never does it reach the haunting 
 resonance of 
 
 or, 
 or. 
 
 ' Perilous seas in faery lands forlorn,' 
 
 ' Tall oaks branch-charmed by the earnest stars,' 
 
 ' With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace.' 
 
 Yet Thomson, as well as Keats and Wordsworth, 
 owned the same gift of melody, not only in lines, but in 
 passages. Had it not been that the verbose diction of 
 his day held him so closely in its grasp, and irrevocably 
 impelled him to the employment of its jarring chords, 
 there might have been little to complain of in his work in 
 this respect. Some of his verses sustain with unmistak- 
 able force the plea on behalf of his real power of 
 expressiveness. Take, for instance, 
 
 ' The thunder holds his black tremendous throne,' 
 or, 
 
 ' And Mecca saddens at the long delay,' 
 or, 
 
 ' Sighs the sad genius of the coming storm.' 
 
 These, and other lines, are touched with the finest 
 illuminating art, and could have been written only by a 
 poet whose judgment in regard to diction was, at its best, 
 of unusual discernment. 
 
 The originality of Thomson's genius declared itself as 
 markedly in the literary method by which he chose to 
 express himself as in the choice of material to which he 
 dedicated his poetical insight. The heroic couplet, so 
 overwhelmingly fashionable in his day, had no attraction 
 
I20 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 for him. In Autumn he speaks with undisguised admiration 
 of John Philips as the second 
 
 ' Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfettered verse 
 With British freedom, sing the British song.' 
 
 He evidently felt that the somewhat metallic form in 
 which Dryden and Pope enshrined their reflections, was 
 equally open to criticism with their conception of the 
 sphere of poetical thought. The success of his attempt at 
 a new style of verse says much for his artistic penetration. 
 For it was undoubtedly from his appreciation of Milton 
 that he boldly essayed this revolution in the art of verse. 
 The conviction dated from an early period. In more 
 than one of his juvenile productions this idea of the 
 superiority of blank verse influenced him. The pity is 
 that his genius was not strong enough to go further, and 
 to assert itself against the accepted rotund and unnatural 
 diction with which he laboured, and which, indeed, was 
 but a kind of meaningless echo of Miltonic language. 
 Keats, with a finer intuition, but also, it must be re- 
 membered, with fuller literary advantages, faced the same 
 problem, and solved it. In one of his letters, he speaks 
 of the difficulties that beset him in seeking to conjure 
 with the harmonies of the 'organ-voice of England.' 
 Keats wrote : — 
 
 ' The Paradise Lost, though so fine in itself, is a corrup- 
 tion of our language. It should be left as it is — unique, 
 a curiosity, a beautiful and grand curiosity — the most 
 remarkable of the world j a Northern dialect accommo- 
 dating itself to Greek and Latin inversions and intonations. 
 The purest English, I think — or what ought to be purest 
 
JAMES THOMSON 121 
 
 — is Chatterton's. The language had existed long enough 
 to be entirely uncorrupted of Chaucer's Gallicisms, and 
 still the old words are used. I prefer the native music 
 of it to Milton's cut by feet. I have but lately stood on 
 my guard against Milton. Life to him would be death 
 to me. Miltonic verse cannot be written, but is the 
 verse of art. I wish to devote myself to another verse 
 alone.' 
 
 Not only was Thomson unable to perceive that for him 
 Miltonic verse was an impossible vehicle ; he attempted 
 to adapt it as far as in him lay. Alike in rhythm and 
 in language he modelled his chief work upon it. Not 
 a perfect success — this was in the nature of the case 
 impossible — it was yet far removed from failure. The 
 blank verse of Thomson moves with spirit and a fair 
 amount of musicalness, and often with a certain graceful 
 dignity. But the rich notes of Milton's verse were due 
 both to the nobility of his theme and the unrivalled 
 insight which he had into the rhythmical capability of 
 the language used, and his extraordinary gift of melodious 
 composition. Thomson fell altogether short in the two 
 last qualities. Especially was his ear dull in the matter 
 of verbal cadences. The general movement in the music 
 of a passage he could perfectly understand and practise ; 
 but the subordinate touches proper to the elaboration of the 
 whole escaped him. But success as well as defect must 
 be acknowledged in the character of his verse. The 
 merit of expansiveness that belongs to him in rendering 
 landscape applies under different conditions to his rhyth- 
 mical skill. He is deficient, in short, in the production 
 of harmony. His blank verse is informed only with 
 
122 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 melody ; but it is melody that, if sometimes overweighted, 
 is, as a rule, clear, buoyant, and tuneful. 
 
 The general embodiment of opinion throughout The 
 Seasons comprehends subjects of a varied character. 
 Though it was not the primary object of the poet to set 
 forth opinion in the work, he had well-marked views on 
 social and political matters, and on religion, which he was 
 able to introduce with perfect aptness into his pages. So 
 clearly-defined, indeed, is his religious philosophy of 
 Nature that consideration of this is of distinctive moment. 
 But, apart from the religious attitude of Thomson, other 
 topics of importance, seriously handled, arrest attention. 
 Following closely upon his frank and ardent love of the 
 external world comes his insistence on a tender regard 
 for the lower creation, in which he was so worthily 
 succeeded by Cowper, Burns, and Blake, and which in 
 the nineteenth century has assumed the terms of a pretty 
 definite creed. He misses no opportunity of dwelling 
 upon this subject to a practical purpose, and his picture 
 for instance, of the hunted stag in Autumn might be 
 found to profoundly appeal to one with a sense of feeling 
 unusually blunted. It has been pertinently said that 
 Burns's 'Wounded Hare ' will live in men's memories when 
 hares are no longer shot for sport. Thomson's feeling 
 with respect to the humane treatment of the lower animals 
 was evidently as deep as that of Burns; and, although 
 he gave no expression to his conclusions in lines so 
 memorable, his whole-hearted humanity appears to have 
 had in this respect, as in others, a strong community with 
 his great Scottish successor. 
 
 The patriotism of Thomson shines with no fickle light 
 
JAMES THOMSON 123 
 
 throughout The Seasons. As he showed, not only in 
 Liberty and Rule Britannia, but in his general attitude 
 in practical affairs, his convictions upon political matters 
 were settled and pronounced. The conjecture that he 
 went originally to London under the hope of obtaining 
 some part in the service of the Government has much 
 to assist it from the actual drift of Thomson's political 
 ideas. He associated himself in London with the literary 
 party of the day opposed to Walpole j and his indepen- 
 dent bearing in relation to the unfortunate position in 
 which he was placed at Lord Chancellor Talbot's death 
 is a plain declaration to his reliance upon his convictions. 
 He was, it is also clear, a Scot first, and then a loyal 
 adherent of the British constitution. On more than one 
 occasion he recalls the perfervid spirit and robust strain 
 of his fellow-countrymen. One of the most compact 
 and effective passages in Th£ Seasons conveys an enthusi- 
 astic account of Scotland. He was fully cognisant, at 
 the same time, of the many sterling qualities of the 
 Anglo-Saxon and the Celt in other quarters of the king- 
 dom. In a few lines of The Prospect he characterises each 
 of the nations with much keenness of appreciation. 
 
 ' She rears to freedom an undaunted race 
 Compatriot zealous, hospitable kind. 
 Hers the warm Cambrian : hers the lofty Scot, 
 To hardship tamed, active in arts and arms. 
 Fired with a restless, an impatient flame, 
 That leads him raptured where ambition calls ; 
 And English merit hers, where meet combined, 
 Whate'er high fancy, sound judicious thought. 
 An ample, generous heart, undrooping soul. 
 And firm tenacious valour can bestow.' 
 
124 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 This enlightened feeling of patriotism prevails throughout 
 The Seasons. A united and prosperous Britain forms 
 ever the poet's warmest political aspiration. In one 
 phase of his constitutional opinions he maintained a 
 certain individuality of outlook; like Burns, who, how- 
 ever, did not approve himself the unswerving constitu- 
 tionalist we know Thomson to have been, he was at 
 heart something of a democrat. As truly as did Burns, 
 he realised the mighty safeguard of the 'wall of fire' 
 that was set round a country by a hardy and contented 
 peasantry. A man of the people, Burns's earnest advocacy 
 of popular right admits of no manner of difficulty; the 
 position of Thomson was somewhat different. True, he 
 was born in a sufficiently humble rank of life ; but during 
 most of his career he mingled only in a society of culture, 
 refinement, and, it might be, exclusiveness. Notwith- 
 standing the circumstances in which he thus was placed, 
 he preserved from first to last a true and deeply rooted 
 esteem for the ' rustic ' and other sons of toil. The 
 sheep-shearing scene in Summer is followed by a number 
 of reflective lines in which the poet urges the vital depen- 
 dence of British greatness upon the industrial activities 
 of the common people : — 
 
 ' Hence Britannia sees 
 Her solid grandeur rise ; hence she commands 
 The exalted stores of every brighter clime ; 
 The treasures of the sun without his rage ; 
 Hence, fervent all, with culture, toil, and arts, 
 Wide glows her land ; her dreadful thunder hence 
 Rides o'er the waves sublime, and now, even now, 
 Impending hangs o'er Gallia's humbled coast, 
 Hence rules the circling deep and awes the world.' 
 
JAMES THOMSON 125 
 
 He returns to the subject in the same poem, comparing 
 favourably the condition of the British people with that 
 of foreign nations. The contemplation leads him to 
 dwell upon the general happiness of the peasant and 
 the mechanic; the heroic capability of the soldier and 
 the sailor ; and the characteristic generosity of the British 
 nobility. This is succeeded by a long and eloquent 
 passage on past leaders in British greatness, celebrating 
 the deeds of the Edwards and the Henries, of Drake, 
 Raleigh, Hampden, Algernon Sidney, and Lord William 
 Russell. Then comes a final stirring piece of writing, in 
 which the poet recites the glories of British literature. 
 
 ' Is not wild Shakespear thine and Nature's boast ? 
 Is not each great, each amiable Muse 
 Of classic ages in thy Milton met ? 
 A genius universal as his theme. 
 Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom 
 Of blowing Eden fair, as heaven sublime. 
 Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget 
 The gentle Spenser, fancy's pleasing son 
 Who, like a copious river, poured his song 
 O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground ; 
 Or thee, his ancient master, laughing sage ; 
 Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse 
 Well-moralised, shines through the gothic cloud 
 Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown.' 
 
 It has been discriminatingly pointed out by Mr Logie 
 Robertson that Thomson's patriotism was inspired from 
 a peculiar external source; that he primarily loved his 
 country, and Scotland, principally, as viewed ' rather 
 in its geographical than its historical aspects.' As far 
 as Scotland was concerned, this national pride had much 
 
126 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 to nourish it. ' The associations of his own early life doubt- 
 less made it clear to him; doubtless, too, the heroism 
 exemplified by Wallace in ancient times, and by the " good 
 Argyle " in his own, was viewed with true Scottish rever- 
 ence and admiration; but more than the history of its 
 "battle mounds and Border towers," his recollection of 
 its scenes of rural life and rustic sociality, viewed idyllic- 
 ally through his own poetical imagination, was the main 
 and overmastering element of his patriotism.' Britannia, 
 too, he wrote upon one occasion, in language that bespeaks 
 a note of this affectionate memory, ' includes our native 
 kingdom of Scotland.' But, withal, his affection for Eng- 
 land also was at length firmly planted; the scenes at 
 Richmond and at Hagley drew out his friendly zeal as 
 well. The much-expanded Great Britain bf to-day 
 would have found in Thomson an eager and loyal 
 admirer. 
 
 The religious philosophy of Nature presented in The 
 Seasons does not, as a rule, attract the closest regard. 
 This absence of concern as to the speculative character 
 of the poem has some defence in the positive character 
 of the work itself; for it was not the chief aim of the poet 
 to expound a philosophy. But, along with the graphic 
 and subtle interpretation of Nature in The Seasons, there 
 exists a carefully-balanced and systematic reUgious philo- 
 sophy, with a meaning and a force of its own. The choric 
 passages of reflection that are introduced in each division 
 of The Seasons exhibit it with distinctness, while it burns 
 with a steady and effulgent light in the ideas of the 
 culminating Hymn. Criticism has been wont to con- 
 tent itself with the assurance that Thomson in these 
 
JAMES THOMSON 127 
 
 philosophical passages did no more than give ready and un- 
 considered utterance to the ordinary, and often superficial, 
 philosophical beliefs of his day. There is some truth in this. 
 Both philosophical thought and language in the eighteenth 
 century were of a stereotyped order, and only a writer of 
 the greatest originality could have been expected to throw 
 aside their encompassing bonds. Further vindication of 
 the concessions paid to received intellectual fashions in 
 The Seasons proceeds from the fact that the writer was an 
 artist first and then a philosopher. But there is sufficient 
 reason to suppose that Thomson also thought and wrote 
 with an independent outlook ; the passage on Creative 
 Wisdom in Summer, the concluding passage of the same 
 poem, and the Hymn fully warrant such a decision. 
 
 Thomson's creed regarding Nature was an impersonal 
 one, and here, perhaps, he comes nearer to man's atti- 
 tude to Nature to-day than do the highly-wrought philo- 
 sophies of nature intervening between his date and the 
 present. Modern science, which has dispelled to some 
 extent the enchantment of the splendid pantheistic 
 systems of Wordsworth and Shelley, has not been able 
 to pierce beyond the inscrutable veil in the presence 
 of which the poet of The Seasons reverently worked. 
 Nor has it, with its relentless connotation of the 
 evil as well as of the brightness that exists in Nature, 
 succeeded in sapping the foundation of that earnest 
 optimism on which his spirit was stayed against all reck 
 of shock. The cardinal terms of his creed of Nature — its 
 sanity, its calm, its self-centred strength — remain a 
 powerful faith to-day. One great voice of our century 
 proclaims this : — 
 
128 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ' From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, 
 Over the lit sea's unquiet way. 
 In the rustling night-air came the answer, 
 Wouldst thou be as these are ? live as they. 
 
 Unaffrighted by the silence round them, 
 Undistracted by the sights they see. 
 These demand not that the things without them 
 Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 
 
 And with joy the stars perform their shining, 
 And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll ; 
 For alone they live, nor pine with noting 
 All the fever of some differing soul. 
 
 Bounded by themselves, and unobservant 
 In what state God's other works may be. 
 In their own tasks all their powers pouring. 
 These attain the mighty life you see.' 
 
 The joy of the earlier poet in the glory of Nature sounded 
 a more jubilant and more thrilling note than this. And 
 yet by implication both might, with perfect sincerity, have 
 been attuned to the more inspiring strain. The radiant 
 hopefulness of the Hymn has not been silenced : — 
 
 ' I cannot go 
 Where Universal Love not smiles around, 
 Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their sons ; 
 From seeming evil still educing good. 
 And better thence again, and better still, 
 In infinite progression.' 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 •the castle of indolence' 
 
 Spenser was a long-established favourite of Thomson's, 
 and he therefore took up a very congenial piece of work 
 when he began his Castle- of Indolence, avowedly based 
 upon the great '?pi,'; yia rrativp. of the ' poet's poet' The 
 poem was begun, according to his own words, as early as 
 1733, and. engaged his attention at intervals of more or 
 less duration till its publication in 1748. It formed 
 another 'departure' in his poetry. The intention of 
 the writer obviously was that the work should be a re- 
 flection of his ideas and capabilities as an artist — as an 
 artist especially of the effects of poetical cadence, and of 
 the literary grace of language. The result fully justified 
 his aim. No imitatio n of a similar kind ever made has 
 attained so near n ranV nf PYPpHpnrp to the original as 
 do certain passages_flf_7%e Castle of Indolence to The Faery 
 Queen. Although Thomson's poem was the principal 
 achievement of the sort in his day, Spenser awakened an 
 active spirit of enthusiasm among English writers in the 
 first half of the eighteenth century. In 1736 Gilbert 
 West published his Education, written 'in imitation of 
 the style and manners of Spenser's Faery Queen,' which 
 was rewarded with considerable popular favour. This 
 
 I "9 
 
130 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 was followed by Akenside's Virtuoso in 1737, and by 
 Shenstone's Schoolmistress in 1742. But none of these 
 productions takes any serious place as a faithful replica 
 of Spenser's style. The stanza is correctly and fluently 
 written ; but so bereft is it in every case of its ^eng^ng 
 beautyjthat the manner of its use approaches perilously 
 near to travesty. These imitations in general fully merit 
 the criticism passed in the Lives of the Poets upon those 
 of West. 'Works of this kind may deserve praise as 
 proofs of great industry, and great nicety of observation; 
 but the highest praise, the praise of genius, they do not 
 claim. The noblest beauties of art are those of which 
 the effect is co-extended with rational nature, or at least 
 with the whole circle of polished life; what is less than 
 this can be only pretty, the plaything of a fashion, and 
 the amusement of a day.' But The Castle of Indolence 
 baffles the dire condemnation of this category. A 
 professed and successful imitation of Spenser, it is also 
 much more : ^a quite spontaneous and living poemj 
 (^ The comparison in method between The Seasons and The 
 Castle of Indolence is fraught with suggestive interest. In 
 The Seasons we have the poet, in his most representative 
 character, dealing with the intrinsic imaginative elements 
 of his art, with the conception, vividness, and lively 
 comprehension of his ideas ; in The Castle of Indolence 
 he seeks to emphasise the power of expression of his 
 thought, the aptness and felicity of his language, the 
 beauty and tunefulness of phrase and rhythm. In The 
 Seasons we recognise chiefly the hand of the poet; in 
 The Castle of Indolence the hand of the artist. In the 
 one he achieves distinction beside those whose special 
 
JAMES THOMSON 131 
 
 of55ce it has been to grasp and vivify some poetic truth; 
 in the other he enters the select ranks of the formal 
 stylists of our literature. Here he belongs of right to 
 the school of Coleridge and Keats. In deft and curious 
 arrangement of topic, and in the exercise of subtle 
 peculiarities of form and diction, The Castle of Indolence 
 bears adequate consideration beside the masterpieces of 
 the great romanticists of our own century. Nor does 
 this excellence in point of outward form remain its simple 
 recommendation. The poet's imagination asserts its 
 capacity to answer to the particular demands made upon 
 it by the conditions of the form upon which he works ; 
 and the result is something of that ethereal temper which 
 characterises alone the best products in rare and delicate 
 romance. Realistic, in a sense, in TTie Seasons, Thomson 
 now becomes the exponent of an idealism in poetry. The 
 region of The Castle of Indolence has no locality or name. 
 It is a region of dream, of entrancing vision and enticing 
 sound, of sun-flushed skies and radiant air, of bright sward 
 and purple hill, of murmurous forest and melodious river, 
 but where there lurks, moreover, depth of horror, and where 
 landscape not far removed shines fair beneath a temperate 
 day. It is a region consecrated indeed by the 'light 
 that never was on sea or land.' 
 
 No work of poetry between the time of Spenser and 
 Thomson is so marked by this absolutely delicate idealis- 
 ing tendency j nothing like it appears again till the time of 
 Keats. We do not hear much about the significance of 
 Thomson's part in setting forth anew the ' sweet-slipping 
 movement' and charm of the Spenserian manner as a model 
 for the poets of the nineteenth century literary renaissance ; 
 
138 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 but there can be no doubt about the vaUdity of his right 
 in this matter. In the romantic method, so excellently 
 represented by Thomson, Keats may be taken as the 
 most direct successor who understood the extraordinary 
 richness of the note that was struck in The Castle of 
 Indolence; for though there is its mystic glamour in the 
 poetry of Coleridge, Keats, in his work, combines in a 
 more general way, the main aims in the literary design 
 of Thomson. The supreme greatness of Coleridge and 
 of Keats has tended to dim the less splendid glory 
 of their distinguished predecessor; but the claim of 
 his accomplishment in this direction demands ac- 
 knowledgment. The matter is valuable if only as an 
 item in the historical development of our literature. Mr 
 Theodore Watts-Dunton, in an admirable essay on 
 Chatterton, contributed to Ward's English Poets, points 
 out with conclusive force that the gracefully light and 
 flexible octosyllabic rhythms, which became so great a 
 power in the hands of Coleridge and Scott, had already 
 received efficient illustration from the bright genius of 
 Chatterton. >The brilliancy of conception, the wealth 
 of imagery, the ample command of the musical re- 
 sources of language displayed in The Castle of Indolence, 
 certainly seem to constrain the like recognition of a 
 strong claim on the part of its author as a master of 
 style in which worked some of the greatest who came 
 ajfter him. 
 
 V The Faery Queen was not only the model upon which 
 Thomson based his Castle of Indolence, but it supplied 
 him with a definite hint as to the very scene in which 
 he should set his narrative. This was the House of 
 
JAMES THOMSON 133 
 
 Sleep, whence the wizard Archimago sent for a dream 
 by which to cast a spell over the Red Cross Knight : 
 
 * And more to tell him in his slumber soft, 
 A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down, 
 And ever-drizzling rain upon the loft, 
 Mix'd with a murmuring wind, much like the sound 
 Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swound. 
 No other noise, no people's troublous cries. 
 That still are wont t'annoy the walled town, 
 Might there be heard ; but careless Quiet lies 
 Wrapt in eternal silence, far from enemies.' 
 
 But this hint given him, Thomson owed nothing more 
 with respect to the actual evolution of his story. With 
 the playful picture of the little society at North Haw 
 as a nucleus, he wove his own fascinating romance, original, 
 picturesque, and stored with new and strange allusions. 
 The figures who act in the drama, if not altogether novel, 
 are freshly and decisively drawn ; while the circumstances 
 by which they are surrounded, and the light in which 
 their activity is made clear and captivating, take their 
 origin from no source but that of the moulding imagina- 
 tion of the poet himself. The difference in the matter of 
 allusiveness between Spenser and Thomson is emphatic 
 enough. The bounteous fields from which Spenser 
 chiefly garnered his imposing array of literary allusions 
 were medieval legend and classical mythology. In The 
 Faery Queen no surprise attends the reader should he 
 now and again even meet the co-existence of persons 
 and events from these sources so widely separated by 
 time and space; when perhaps Venus and the Graces 
 are introduced side by side with historic personages of 
 a new era, 
 
134 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ' Knights of Logres and of Lyonesse, 
 Tristrem, and Pelleas, and Pellenore.' 
 
 In The Castle of Indolence, a totally different fund of 
 illustration is utilised. Now it is Oriental story that lends 
 its personages and its incidents as enriching factors; 
 the literary treasures of Chaldea and Arabia and their 
 neighbouring kingdoms, and these almost solely, afford 
 the material wherewith the poet of Tke Castle of Indolence 
 adorns his story. 
 
 Although the art, rather than the subject-matter, of 
 the allegory may be fairly premised — indubitably so from 
 the superiority of the art to the story with which it deals 
 — to have given the poet most concern, the theme which 
 he strove to elaborate is important enough. This de- 
 signates the old and perennial story of the conflict between 
 Pleasure and Duty. The poetical literature of the eigh- 
 teenth century evinced a special leaning to this sub- 
 ject. This bias, ultimately borrowed from the supremely 
 ethical tone which pervaded the religious discussion of the 
 day, affected alike all and sundry in the busy class of 
 poetical writers. No doubt Thomson's choice was also 
 considerably guided by the precise nature associated with 
 allegory in the pages of Spenser. But the didactic 
 spirit was abroad in the eighteenth century with a 
 power of exceeding energy. It did not, however, enter 
 into poetical art with very satisfactory result. The 
 doctrine that poetry is a criticism of life has much 
 to commend it; but, as far as it is pertinent, there 
 must be the admission that the poetical outcome 
 should be conditioned by laws of beauty as well as 
 of truth. The heroic measure of the eighteenth century 
 
JAMES THOMSON 135 
 
 writers with its inflexible and unvaried rhythmical ar- 
 rangement, approximating in a hazardous degree to 
 the bald usage of prose, did not offer a medium at all 
 attractive for the unreserved enunciation of moral and 
 philosophical truth. Not that it is utterly inimical to 
 the statement of such solid truth. Wordsworth's Happy 
 Warrior, though not so successful a poem as his Ode to 
 Duty, is, nevertheless, far from an unsuccessful poem. 
 Yet the professedly didactic poets of the early part of 
 the eighteenth century, with their love of paradox, of 
 hazy abstraction, and the mere gratification, as it some- 
 times seems, of a forcible iteration of words, produced 
 no great didactic poem. It has been said with a good 
 deal of justice even of Pope's Essay on Man that he 
 ' spins the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of 
 his argument.' Young, in the main merely a follower of 
 Pope, succeeded in placing the didactic poem in a still 
 less agreeable light. With an occasional evanescent 
 gleam of poetry in his Night Thoughts, Young, as a rule, 
 simply forges his way through the extensive and un- 
 relieved course of his ascetic message with a solemnity 
 at once depressing and amusing. With Young, morality 
 is not only a serious but a sombre affair. Little wonder 
 is it that Madam de Stael ingenuously associated him with 
 Ossian and the Northern Scalds as the prime cause of our 
 national melancholy. The poetical transition made in 
 passing from the perusal of a writer like Young, to the 
 allegorical method of Thomson, is of the most significant 
 character. Both works alike inculcate momentous truth; 
 both works are alike sound and decisive in what they aim 
 to enforce. But in the entire legitimate appeal of the 
 
136 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 argument of each, how far does the one outvie the 
 other I Inasmuch as both are to be judged as poetry, 
 the predominant merit of the one stands out with singular 
 clearness. The morality of the one cannot be dissevered 
 from that of the formal tractate ; that of the other 
 partakes in a very great degree of the transforming and 
 heightening power of imagination. 
 
 The two parts of The Castle of Indolence have a kind 
 of antithetical relation. The first canto, describing the 
 abode and circumstances of the wizard Indolence, teems 
 with rich and resplendent imagery ; the vein in which the 
 narrative is conveyed is of the most delicately-wrought 
 sweetness. The more restrained gift of the poet is 
 revealed in the second canto. Now, the pictures are 
 less finely-drawn and less gorgeous ; the music of the 
 verse is touched with less aerial tone; the diction has 
 not so much subtlety and skilful refinement of work- 
 manship. The allegory, in short, assumes conditions 
 that do not so readily kindle in the glow of the poet's 
 imagination. The story of the triumph of Industry 
 brings him back to the concrete affairs of the everyday 
 world, and to the necessity of emphasising the value 
 and character of its normal activities. The didactic 
 element more decidedly prevails, and though to Thomson 
 as well as to Spenser it was vouchsafed to inspire bright- 
 ness into the didactic note of poetry, it was scarcely 
 given to either to form it, ' musical as is Apollo's lute.' 
 
 Interesting alike from their biographical interest and 
 their nice elaboration is the group of portraits that are 
 introduced in the first canto, and that formed the first 
 suggestive draft of the whole poem. The least distinct 
 
JAMES THOMSON 137 
 
 is the first, which may be a composite presentment. 
 Were it not that the author speaks of Paterson, to whose 
 personality it answers with considerable faithfulness, the 
 resemblance might be as aptly referred to Collins. Per- 
 haps the original idea was taken from the character of 
 Paterson, to be afterwards developed and coloured with 
 various hints from that of Collins, who was no infrequent 
 dweller in the society of Thomson in his last years. The 
 second portrait also bears some slight divergence from the 
 original of Armstrong, to whom tradition has generally 
 applied it. Thomson, indeed, averred that Armstrong 
 was the victim of a ' certain kind of spleen that is both 
 humane and agreeable, like Jacques in the play ; ' but 
 another report speaks of Armstrong's ready share in 
 London social affairs, and makes it plain that ' pensiveness ' 
 was certainly not a prominent feature of his character. 
 Welby, who is said to have been the third of the group, 
 did not belong to the choice literary coterie at Richmond. 
 He must have gained admittance to this poetical dis- 
 tinction from sheer merit of his personal characteristics, 
 which receive such pointed and humorous setting in the 
 poem. The fourth portrait was in all likelihood that of 
 young Forbes of CuUoden, but this, like the first two, 
 is a somewhat generalised drawing. Any young man of 
 sprightly and masculine character would answer equally 
 well. The friendship of Thomson with Forbes, however, 
 gives much reliableness to the conjecture that the de- 
 scription is one from life. Lyttelton's portrait is faith- 
 fully and gracefully done. The poet does not err, as he 
 was so prone to do, on the side of exaggeration; but 
 presents a clear and natural picture of the estimable 
 
138 FAMOUS. SCOTS 
 
 friend of his later life. The last three portraits — those of 
 Quin, the poet himself, and Murdoch — have the most 
 piquant character, and are perhaps most felicitous of all. 
 Quin is drawn with sympathetic firmness. Lyttelton has 
 generally received the credit of writing the inimitable 
 account of Thomson himself. If so, he accomplished a 
 portraiture of rare spirit and exactness. Familiar enough 
 in some of its particulars, the whole stanza may be cited 
 as reflecting with quaintly humorous precision and eflfect 
 the character of the poet. 
 
 ' A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems ; 
 Who void of envy, guile, and lust of gain. 
 On virtue still, and Nature's pleasing themes, 
 Poured forth his unpremeditated strain : 
 The world forsaking with a calm disdain. 
 Here laughed he careless in his easy seat ; 
 Here quaffed, encircled with his joyous train ; 
 Oft-moralizing sage 1 his ditty sweet 
 He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat.' 
 
 The contrast between the artistic method of The 
 Seasons and that of TTie Castle of Indolence is most 
 definitely brought out in the first canto of the second 
 poem. No approach is made in Tfie Seasons, vivid 
 and striking as are so many of its descriptive passages, 
 to the superb imagery of the introductory part of 
 The Castle of Indolence; and of the marvellously fine 
 rhythmical cadences of the Spenserian imitation there 
 may, indeed, be said to be no trace at all in the 
 earlier poem. No better summary of this salient factor 
 of The Castle of Indolence could be desired than that 
 expressed in these words of Mr Logic Robertson : — 
 " Now the style is serious, grave, and solemn ; now 
 
JAMES THOMSON 139 
 
 it is cheerful, lively, and gay. It sometimes borders on 
 burlesque, mostly of a brisk and airy character. There 
 are, however, numerous descriptive passages of clear- 
 ringing and exalted melody, sufficient in themselves to 
 rank Thomson as a genuine singer of commanding rank." 
 As a typical instance of these passages, where it may be 
 added, the poet proves that he possessed the gift of 
 harmonious movement, which is so lacking in the blank 
 verse of The Seasons, there is here given the stanza which 
 describes the music of the harp of ^olus. Christabel 
 contains nothing better. 
 
 ' Ah me I what hand can touch the string so fine ? 
 Who up the lofty diapason roll 
 Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine. 
 Then let them down again into the soul : 
 Now rising love they fanned ; now pleasing dole 
 They breathed, in tender musings, thro' the heart ; 
 And now a graver sacred strain they stole, 
 As when seraphic hands a hymn impart : 
 Wild warbling nature all ; above the reach of art.' 
 
 Nothing of this bewitching music is to be heard in the 
 second canto, where the Knight of Industry and his 
 energetic train are depicted. The solemnity of his posi- 
 tion lends to the poet's verse something of its soberness. 
 The epithets lack the brightness and lucidity of the 
 first canto; the rhythm is more moderated and exact. 
 But one or two passages, especially that in which appears 
 the hortatory song of the bard, are written in well-com- 
 pounded verse of great excellence — nervous, fluent, and 
 graceful. This is, perhaps, best noticeable in the com- 
 parison made between the vigour belonging to Nature 
 and its reflection in man. 
 
140 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ' Is not the field, with living culture green, 
 A sight more joyous than the dead morass ? 
 Do not the skies, with active ether clean, 
 And fanned by sprightly zephyrs, far surpass 
 The foul November fogs, and slumbrous mass 
 With which sad Nature veils her drooping face ? 
 Does not the mountain stream, as clear as glass. 
 Gay-dancing on, the putrid pool disgrace ? 
 The same in all holds true, but chief in human race. 
 
 It was not by vile loitering in ease 
 That Greece obtained the brighter palm of art ; 
 That soft yet ardent Athens learned to please. 
 To keen the wit, and to sublime the heart : 
 In all supreme 1 complete In every part 1 
 It was not thence majestic Rome arose. 
 And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart : 
 For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows ; 
 Renown is not the child of indolent repose. 
 
 Had unambitious mortals minded nought, 
 But in loose joy their time to wear away ; 
 Had they alone the lap of dalliance sought, 
 Pleased on her pillow their dull heads to lay, 
 Rude Nature's state had been our state to-day ; 
 No cities e'er their towery fronts had raised. 
 No arts had made us opulent and gay ; 
 With brother brutes the human race had grazed ; 
 None e'er had soared to fame, none honoured been, none praise 
 
 Great Homer's song had never fired the breast 
 To thirst of glory and heroic deeds ; 
 Sweet Maro's muse, sunk in inglorious rest, 
 Had silent slept amid the Mincian reeds : 
 The wits of modern time had told their beads. 
 The monkish legends been their only strains ; 
 Our Milton's Eden had Iain wrapt in weeds, 
 Our Shakespeare strolled and laughed with Warwick swains, 
 Nor had my master Spenser charmed his MuUa's plains,' 
 
JAMES THOMSON 141 
 
 The realistic scene of horror with which the poem 
 concludes, though terminating somewhat abruptly, is 
 drawn with intense and masterly force. Slight as it is, 
 and thrown into denser obscurity by the magnificence 
 and extent of the scenes in which it is enclosed, it takes 
 a noteworthy place in its own line of poetical art. It 
 may not have suggested, but certainly deserves a place 
 beside, the description of the final terrors that beset the 
 path of Browning's ' Childe Roland.' 
 
 The apparent value of The Castle of Indolence as an 
 example of the application of careful sesthetic conditions in 
 poetry makes it less needful to dwell upon the character 
 of the work as an allegory. Thomson himself, although 
 he published the poem as an avowed effort in allegorical 
 reflection, probably did not feel that this feature of the 
 story was of paramount note. His preface, in truth, 
 declares as much. It runs as follows : — ' This poem being 
 writ in the manner of Spenser, the obsolete words, and a 
 simplicity of diction in some of the lines which borders 
 on the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation 
 more perfect. And the style of that admirable poet, as 
 well as the measure in which he wrote, are, as it were, 
 appropriated by custom to all allegorical poems writ in 
 our language ; just as in French the style of Marot, who 
 lived under Francis the First, has been used in tales and 
 familiar epistles of the age of Louis the Fourteenth.' 
 Clearly, the material and strain of the allegory do not 
 bulk very largely in the consideration of the author. 
 But in the matter of just evolution of the allegorical 
 materials of the story, Thomson reached a requisite 
 amount of success. The scene is perfectly realised ; the 
 
142 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 characters are drawn with distinctiveness and breadth ; 
 the moral to be derived from the story does not thrust 
 itself unpleasantly upon the attention. In respect of 
 structural arrangement, indeed, the allegory of The Castle 
 of Indolence is sufficiently praiseworthy. Especially has 
 this to be said of the balance preserved throughout the 
 development of the allegorical narrative. Though it 
 were scarcely justifiable to bring an allegorical effort so 
 much less ambitious into any sort of comparison with the 
 great allegories of Spenser and Bunyan, yet the merit of 
 adequate discrimination as to the respective places of 
 allegory and romance in a narrative of the kind seems, 
 at least, to be carried out with signal faithfulness by the 
 author of The Castle of Indolence. The clear outlines of 
 Bunyan's landscapes and the actuality of his personages 
 save his work from the overpowering depression incidental 
 to the general arrangement of his didactic narrative; 
 while Spenser's gorgeous scenes and moving episodes 
 fulfil a like virtue for his great epic. Both of these 
 allegories are weighed down by unvitalised material, by 
 ethical or theological doctrine, and other matters, that 
 hardly come with perfect right into the natural progress 
 of the story. There is good reason to think even from 
 the slighter performance which Thomson achieved, that 
 had he extended the plan of his work, built turret and 
 pinnacle on the pleasing edifice which he raised, the result 
 would have been a great and very convincing testimony 
 to the genius of the designer and builder. 
 
 Tennyson, in the recent biography of the late laureate 
 by his son, is reported to have declared that Thomson 
 was his earliest model. The appreciation thus begun 
 
JAMES THOMSON 143 
 
 was not abandoned, we may infer, in the critical con- 
 clusions of his later years. He has, at any rate, 
 signified his sincere approval of The Castle of Indolence 
 in the imaginative beauty, rich colouring, and finished 
 literary form of The Lotos Eaters. The imitation, 
 though individual enough, plainly intimates the closeness 
 and fulness with which the earlier artistic masterpiece 
 had enlisted his regard. The sun-tinted sky, the 
 soothing streams, the sombre pine, the 'joy of calm,' 
 all point to one undoubted source. Tennyson's power 
 of limpid and magical expression was all his own; 
 and so too was his gift of intricate and delicious 
 harmony; but it may be said with every truth that in 
 this poem, at least, he was not forgetful of the unique 
 picturesqueness and winning music of the art of Tht 
 Castle of Indolence. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Thomson's dramas, 'rule Britannia.' 
 
 The literary fame of Thomson depends little upon his 
 work as a dramatist. His plays held their place on the 
 stage of his own day; but succeeding fashion quickly 
 displaced them from esteem, and slight trace of their 
 character survived from their obscurity with the excep- 
 tion that the Masque of Alfred included the renowned 
 lyric of Rule Britannia. Sir Walter Scott in his essay 
 on the Drama, thought that Thomson and others 'who 
 followed the same wordy and declamatory system of com- 
 position, contributed rather to sink than to exalt the 
 character of the stage.' Admitting that Young and 
 Thomson were 'both men of excellent genius as their 
 other writings have sufficiently testified,' he concluded 
 that as dramatists 'they wrought upon a false model, 
 and their productions are of little value.' The dramas 
 of Thomson are certainly the fruit of his genius least to 
 be admired; but they reach, upon the whole, a fair 
 standard of merit, and, at least in one case, that of 
 Tancred and Sigismtinda, a real measure of dramatic con- 
 sequence. Apart from their intrinsic value, moreover, 
 they are noticeable and serious attempts at a hterary 
 exposition of the drama, and on this account alone 
 
JAMES THOMSON 145 
 
 would fitly call for some critical attention in any survey 
 of his work aiming to consider it to some representative 
 extent. 
 
 The French school of dramatic composition so 
 dominated the English stage at the time when Thomson 
 made his first effort as a playwright, that he would have 
 found it in the nature of an impossibility to shun the 
 literary fashion. That here, he was fain, however, boldly 
 to try his hand at further literary innovation is plain 
 enough by various references as well as in some points 
 of practice. In the prologue to Tancred and Sigis- 
 munda, he reverts with regret to the halcyon days of 
 the British drama, when false, if classical, restrictions 
 were unknown to the poet, and when criticism of the 
 dramatic art did not fetter its spontaneity and force. 
 
 ' Thrice happy could we catch great Shakespeare's art, 
 To trace the deep recesses of the heart ; 
 His simple, plain sublime, to which is given 
 To strike the soul with darted flame from heaven.' 
 
 But in those days criticism of dramatic form had usurped 
 such strong and mastering power that a dramatist was 
 bound to concede to it. The much-vexed question of 
 the unities, which stirred so great dispute in the circle of 
 literary authorities of the eighteenth century, has now 
 dwindled out of all proportion to the significance which 
 it possessed at that time. Then a drama was thought 
 to be made or marred, not so much by the skill with 
 which character was portrayed, or by which a story was 
 movingly told and developed, as from the consideration 
 whether the action was carried out in due time, or took 
 place in one invariable spot, or was itself merely an 
 
 K 
 
146 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 episode and not a series of actions. Dennis wrote one 
 of his most caustic criticism* to maintain the egregious 
 failure of Addison's Cato, because of the dramatist's 
 lack of success in these external matters. His remarks 
 on the scenery of the closing act, where Cato is repre- 
 sented in his soliloquy on the immortality of the soul, 
 contain admirable ridicule of the straits in which a 
 dramatist was occasionally placed by the rigorous 
 necessity imposed upon his art. 'Consider the plao»,' 
 says Dennis, 'in which this sight is presented to us. 
 The place, forsooth, is a large hall. Let us suppose 
 that anyone should place himself in this posture, in the 
 midst of one of our halls in London j that he should 
 appear solus, in a sullen posture, a drawn sword on the 
 table by him; in his hand, Plato's treatise on the 
 Immortality of the Soul, translated lately by Bernard 
 Lintot; I desire the reader to consider, whether such 
 a person as this would pass with them who beheld 
 him, for a great patriot, a great philosopher, or a 
 general, or for some whimsical person who fancied 
 himself all these.' But while the critic saw perfectly 
 the inevitable failure attending such efforts, he did not 
 perceive that the radical error lay in the literary method 
 from which they sprang. Both Dennis and Rymer, two 
 leading post-Restoration critics, persistently enforced the 
 stringent laws of the French dramatic system, which had 
 the earnest and militant advocacy of Voltaire himself. 
 
 Lessing, in his Dramaturgic, with a much juster insight 
 into the nature of Greek dramatic art than was possessed 
 by any of his predecessors in criticism, completely dis- 
 proved the efficacy of their view, and the romantic 
 
JAMES THOMSON 147 
 
 drama, with Shakespeare as its illustrious leader, was 
 restored to its former potency in the eyes of poet and 
 observer alike. The German critic pointed out with 
 the greatest thoroughness and lucidity, that both the 
 French idea of dramatic construction and that typified 
 in the work of Shakespeare were correct, and that the 
 French critics were in the wrong in assailing the art of 
 the romantic dramatists. He demonstrated that the 
 French dramatists were quite justified in their close 
 imitation of the Greek dramatic method, but also that 
 Shakespeare was equally right in wishing to surmount 
 its limitations. A short story, so ran his argument, may 
 be represented with perfect success in the confined area 
 prescribed by the Greek unities; and so may a story 
 of some considerable duration, independently of the laws 
 as supposed to be laid down by Aristotle. Lessing, in 
 short, enunciated the reasonable deduction that, so long 
 as one species of dramatic construction or the other was 
 faithfully followed out, was artistically handled, a dramatic 
 unity would assuredly be attained. All opinion to the con- 
 trary, thanks in the main to the analytic genius exercised 
 in the Dramaturgie, has long since been confuted. 
 
 It was a purely artificial resemblance which the 
 French dramatists established between the classical 
 drama and their own. Apart from the fact that the 
 Greek genius delighted in what was spectacularly simple 
 in dramatic representation, in this relation manifesting 
 the whole natural tendency of its idea of art, the 
 flower of which was sculpture; and that the whole 
 genius of the romantic spirit found its satisfaction in 
 variety of beauty, exemplified in its most characteristic 
 
148 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 exercise in painting, there was a practical difficulty in 
 the way of greater complication of incident on the part 
 of the Greek dramatist. He was hampered by the 
 continual presence of the chorus, who, stationed in some 
 appropriate place, acted throughout the part of interested 
 spectators of all the events that passed. To have with- 
 drawn any one of the scenes of the drama from the 
 observation of the chorus would have been an impossible 
 aim for the Greek writer ; equally incompetent would it 
 have been for him to alter the situation of a large and 
 obviously stationary body of spectators with a changing 
 order of events. Thus it came about that the simplicity 
 of structure in a Greek play was partly idealistic and 
 innate to the genius of the nation, and was also partly 
 practical. Imitation outright on the part of modern 
 dramatic writers was, therefore, a hollow necessity; and 
 though the French drama reckons some brilliant instances 
 of the success with which this illusive adaptation was 
 carried out, in England, although it was welcomed, 
 it never prospered. The movement initiated by 
 Lessing on the Continent, like all other enlightened 
 intellectual movements, was not inspired by one man 
 only; on the English stage, Garrick, grasping the 
 conviction that the interest in dramas upon a classical 
 model was effete, returned to the production of Shake- 
 speare's works, and the days of the so-called classical 
 drama in Britain were numbered. No guiding light 
 of the real truth in the matter beamed in the second 
 scholastic darkness in which Thomson produced his 
 dramas ; and it is to his credit that he so fully under- 
 stood the true drift in the case ; nay, that he endeavoured 
 
JAMES THOMSON 149 
 
 with all the knowledge, skill, and opportunity granted to 
 him, to withdraw English writers from their unvarying 
 devotion to the literary method of the artificial classical 
 school. 
 
 Although it is principally in Tancred and Sigismunda 
 that we observe the signs of Thomson's sympathy with 
 the romantic drama, this leaning is also perceptible in his 
 previous play Edward and Eleonora. In both dramas 
 we have a greater variety and plasticity in the story than 
 he had shown before; a closer interpretation of the 
 character as influenced by passion rather than events; 
 and a much more graceful and natural diction. He 
 congratulates the hearers of the first-mentioned play on 
 their quick approbation of what he thinks an improved 
 condition of dramatic art. 
 
 ' Your taste rejects the glittering, false sublime, 
 To sigh in metaphor, and die in rhyme. 
 High rant is tumbled from her gallery throne ; 
 Description, dreams, nay, similes are gone.' 
 
 But in his first dramatic performances he was perfectly in 
 touch with the orthodox school, and it is by the associa- 
 tion of his dramatic genius with these that he has come 
 to be virtually judged. Unfairly so; for, although the 
 coldness and artificiality of design and the love of mere 
 declamation which are serious blots on his early dramas, do 
 not wholly disappear in his maturer productions, there is 
 very much greater vitality and charm in his more thought- 
 fully elaborated dramas. Compared with a play on such 
 strictly classical lines as Cato, Thomson's early plays and 
 others of their class, take, of course, no great rank in 
 the history of the literary drama. 
 
ISO FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 The more accurate feeling for style exhibited in the 
 blank verse of Addison gives his drama an immense 
 advantage in this respect over the Sophonisba or the Aga- 
 memnon of Thomson, who here accentuates the bombastic 
 and stilted manner which was ever a threatening evil in 
 the blank verse of The Seasons. No passage in either of 
 those dramas of Thomson could be selected to place 
 satisfactorily beside many a one in the stately, yet never 
 pompous or frigid, verse of Cato. A sign of literary 
 inferiority, this defect of style did not, however, dis- 
 astrously affect the popularity of Thomson's plays when 
 they were performed. Actors and audience homolo- 
 gated the taste of the 'dramatic author. Fashion for a 
 time, indeed, favoured it. Tragedians like Booth and 
 Wilks delighted in declamation preferably to the finer 
 art of expressing emotion by fitness of tone, of look, and 
 gesture ; and their hearers of the hour agreed that it 
 was right and proper that that should be. 
 
 Voltaire pronounced a flattering estimate of Thomson's 
 dramas, and as M. Morel points out, shared with him, 
 despite their great diversity about Shakespeare, the wish 
 for some concession to the romantic method. He wrote 
 to Lyttelton after the death of Thomson : ' Mr Thomson's 
 tragedies seem to me wisely intricated and elegantly writ : 
 they want perhaps some fire, and it may be that his 
 heroes are neither moving nor busy enough, but taking 
 him all in all, methinks he has the highest claim to the 
 greatest esteem.' Voltaire's ripest idea regarding the 
 drama was that the most perfect form a play could take 
 would be effected by an expert blending of what was best 
 in the classical and romantic methods. He proposed, 
 
JAMES THOMSON 151 
 
 therefore, to graft the style of development in a story, and 
 the manner of interpretation of character, both as seen 
 in the romantic drama, on the ever-honoured irrefragable 
 unities of the classical drama. This is exactly what 
 Thomson accomplished in Tancred and Sigismunda, 
 though it is doubtful whether, with his excellent insight 
 into the best literary forms, and his inbred partiality for 
 the romantic in art, he would have stopped there. It is 
 not hard to conceive that the dramatist who could so 
 graphically depict the natural, impassioned conflict in 
 the heart of Sigismunda, and who could use language so 
 terse and expressive as characterises his greatest drama, 
 preserved only a superficial adherence to the enforced 
 limitations of his craft. No doubt he accomplished as 
 much as the circumstances in which he worked permitted 
 him to do. That he accomplished much may be easily 
 discerned by reference to only one element, that of 
 language, between the date when he wrote Sophonisba 
 and the production of his chief dramatic work. The 
 following passage might have been written with entire 
 appropriateness by one of the minor Elizabethan play- 
 wrights : — 
 
 ' Methinks 1 see again. 
 Those gentle days renew'd that bless'd our isle, 
 Ere by this wasteful fury of division, 
 Worse than our ^Etna's most destructive fires. 
 It desolated sunk. I see our plains 
 Unbounded waving with the gifts of harvest ; 
 Our seas with commerce throng'd, our busy ports 
 With cheerful toil. Our Enna blooms afresh ; 
 Afresh the sweets of thymy Hybla flow. 
 Our nymphs and shepherds, sporting in each vale, 
 Inspire new song, and wake the pastoral reed.' 
 
152 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 If he cannot be deemed a noteworthy English dramatist, 
 Thomson at least deserves recognition as a singularly 
 dexterous and estimable exponent in English stagecraft. 
 Perhaps the dramatic faculty was less developed in his 
 genius than those of description and reflection; yet, 
 under other literary conditions than those in which, with 
 the distracting elements belonging to a transition period, 
 he wrote, the issue might have been different. As it is, 
 his achievement holds a position of no inconsiderable 
 note in the history of the English drama. It embodies, 
 moreover, literary work possessed of qualities of com- 
 mendable mark and value. 
 
 In Sopkonisba, as in most of his other dramas, Thom- 
 son adopts a political subject as the motive agency in his 
 story. In Sopkonisba, as well as in Tancred and Sigis- 
 munda and Coriolanus, the interest turns upon the sacrifice 
 made by one or other of the personages in the cause of 
 the State. A like interest, to some extent, colours 
 Agamemnon. But it was, we can only suppose, the treat- 
 ment of political motive in its broadest and most dramatic 
 sense that influenced Thomson to the composition of such 
 plays. Mr Tovey adopts the astonishing theory that, at 
 least in one instance, Thomson wrote with a wholly 
 mercenary object. Mr Tovey, who utters sweeping con- 
 demnation on Thomson's dramatic work, gravely pro- 
 pounds the theory that the ' real interest of Agamemnon 
 is its political purpose,' that is, to exhort King George 
 and to damage Walpole. The active research into sym- 
 bolical history which such a style of play-writing would 
 involve would have been a very serious considera- 
 tion for a man of Thomson's alleged temperament ! A 
 
JAMES THOMSON 153 
 
 certain amount of innuendo may be with some show in- 
 ferred in the character of ^gisthus as reflecting Walpole ; 
 but in other respects the parallel is nought. The choice 
 of subjects so ambitious as those formerly treated by 
 Shakespeare, ^schylus, and Corneille would, at the 
 first blush, tend to the supposition of a very alert confi- 
 dence in his own dramatic capacity and experience on the 
 part of Thomson. Probably, however, the varied selec- 
 tion made here, as throughout his dramatic experiments, 
 was designed to test the dramatic terms under which 
 writers so different worked. We have the authority of 
 Voltaire's example in concluding that Thomson too strove 
 after adequacy of structural treatment. Beginning with 
 Corneille, therefore, he was at last drawn to Shakespeare, 
 with what may be reasonably believed to have been his 
 consummate preference. But both the conception of 
 this dramatist's art, and the material which he sought to 
 mould, conspicuously fail in his two classical tragedies, 
 and are strangely disappointing in Coriolanus. The 
 characters lack firmness and faithfulness of drawing ; the 
 episodes move with a certain rigidity, though accurately, 
 into their places ; the language is generally magniloquent, 
 sometimes fatuous. These defects stamp especially the 
 two early dramas, the sufficient mobility of the action 
 alone saving them from the charge of somewhat ineffective 
 presentation. 
 
 In Edward and Ekonora, and Tancred and Sigis- 
 munda, Thomson produced the best of his dramatic 
 experiments. Although both of these dramas again are 
 indebted to the political world for their groundwork, 
 their human interest is much more fully grasped, and 
 
154 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 much more distinctly limned, than in the rest of his 
 works. A lightness of structure, an agreeable variation 
 and intricacy of episode; a clearer, quicker, as well as 
 more searching play of passion ; and an altogether new 
 and graceful diction, quite separate these apparent studies 
 in romantic art from the dramatic attainment of his early 
 career. In both, too, is introduced, as a new element 
 of attraction, a considerable amount of local colour. Not 
 that the former deficiencies are obliterated. In Edward 
 and Eleonora, in particular, the obdurate fault of declama- 
 tion tends to assert itself, and to convert a scene, otherwise 
 of some passionate earnestness, into one spiritless and 
 flat. Tancred and Sigismunda has most excellences and 
 least blemishes of all Thomson's plays. Based upon an 
 episode in Gil Bias, whose source in turn was Boccaccio, 
 the story affords good scope for dramatic treatment. Thom- 
 son's especial liking for it is supposed to be established 
 by this probable authorship of a prose rendering of the 
 tale, published in 1745, under the initials 'J. T.' In 
 the drama the materials are managed with skill. The 
 action is vivid and stirring; the characters stand out 
 finished and hfe-like; the portrayal of passion is direct 
 and natural. The essential merits of the play, added to 
 the crisp and telling style in which it is written, make 
 it the most readable, as it seems to have been on its 
 representation the most admired, of all Thomson's 
 plays. 
 
 The masque of Alfred does not take a hiigh rank on its 
 general literary merits. With Alfred the Great as its 
 principal figure, the drama draws its other sources of 
 attraction from the introduction of scenes from English 
 
JAMES THOMSON 155 
 
 history, in which the most notable of the sovereigns play 
 a part. In this way, a considerable portion of the 
 dialogue recounts the deeds of Edward III., The Black 
 Prince, Elizabeth, and William III. Mainly spectacular, 
 much subsidiary display was obtained from the narrative 
 of the romantic wanderings and exploits of the hero. 
 Altogether, while exhibiting facility and deftness of con- 
 struction, the play is without great literary distinction. 
 The sprightly lyrics scattered throughout the piece redeem 
 its literary repute. The song, ' If those who live in shep- 
 herd's bower,' is worthy of the best examples of Thomson's 
 skill as a lyrical writer ; while the immortality of Rule 
 Britannia arises not only from the inspiring and noble 
 music to which it has been wedded, but from its indis- 
 putable Uterary value. 
 
 The much-argued question as to whether Thomson or 
 Mallet wrote Rule Britannia has long been and is still 
 debated. By most who discuss the subject, the possibility 
 as to its being a joint production is not contemplated ; 
 and, in truth, the cohesion and compactness of the lyric 
 discountenance the hkelihood of such a plan. The song, 
 it is pretty evident, was the work of one or other of the 
 two authors of Alfred ; the point at issue then comes to 
 be as to which of them should have the honour of the 
 claim. The whole body of evidence strongly postulates 
 Thomson's authorship. Whatever evidence inclines to 
 the case of Mallet is to be traced simply to his own 
 seeming assertion of his right on the matter, though, in 
 this instance, unlike that of the plundering of Riccaltoun's 
 poem, he adopted a more evasive attitude in attempting 
 to make good his claim. Mallet was endowed with not 
 
iS6 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 a little ability, and that he was capable of unselfish efiFort, 
 may be fairly judged from various acts in his career, to 
 name only his zeal on behalf of Thomson at the date 
 of the publication of Winter; but his treatment of 
 Riccaltoun, his base attack upon Pope's memory at the 
 instigation of Bolingbroke, and his petty hostility to 
 Admiral Byng, all heavily becloud his personal repute. 
 The very foundation of the argument, therefore, that 
 pleads for his authorship of Rule Britannia is of the 
 weakest character, and any trivial support it has can 
 count but poorly beside the vast array of testimony on 
 the side of Thomson. 
 
 No definite claim as to the authorship was evidently 
 made by either of the presumed writers during the life- 
 time of Thomson. The difficulty began with a second 
 and revised version of Alfred, which Mallet put on the 
 stage in 1751. He then announced that he had subjected 
 the play to a number of alterations, referring as follows to 
 the changes which he had thought necessary to carry out : 
 'According to the present arrangement of the fable,' so 
 he declared in a preface to the published version of the 
 revised play, ' I was obliged to reject a great deal of what 
 I had written in the other ; neither could I retain of my 
 friend's part more than three or four speeches and a part 
 of one song.' Dr Dinsdale, who in an edition of Mallet's 
 Ballads and Songs* advocates Mallet's authorship in a 
 very prejudiced and confident manner, rests completely 
 satisfied with the conclusion which he draws from Mallet's 
 words that only a part of the song, ' From those eternal 
 
 * Ballads and Songs of David Mallet. Edited by F, Dinsdale. 
 1857. 
 
JAMES THOMSON 157 
 
 regions bright,' obtains a place in the version of 1751, 
 and that this and nothing else can be the meaning of 
 Mallet's words. To assist the force of the friendly 
 biographer's conviction, Rule Britannia is inscribed as an 
 ' ode ' in the printed copy of the play. And so with Dr 
 Dinsdale the matter simply and summarily ends. But this is 
 to take the astute and unscrupulous Mallet verygenerously. 
 It seems very likely that in the case of such a popular 
 item as Rule Britannia his literary vanity seized at an 
 opportunity that would associate its authorship with him- 
 self. But his assertiveness on the subject, perhaps from 
 policy, was of but a half-hearted character, and his 
 friends have claimed more for him than he did himself. 
 He assuredly wished the public to infer that the ' song ' 
 by Thomson to which he refers in the advertisement was 
 ' From those eternal regions bright ' ; but he had not the 
 daring to affirm his own authorship of Rule Britannia. 
 With the help of Bolingbroke therefore he put together a 
 garbled copy of the original lyric. He cut out three of the 
 original stanzas — the three final and best — and, after 
 inverting the natural sequence of a fourth, substituted 
 three tawdry stanzas from the pen of Bolingbroke. By 
 this scheme, however. Mallet saved himself from the 
 perpetration of an entire falsehood, and still left room 
 for the inference of the actual authorship of the original 
 version to go to his credit. The dubiety that he probably 
 wished to throw over the authorship in this manner has 
 been so thoroughly sifted that no jot or tittle in favour 
 of the genuineness of his claim is left. 
 
 Outside of Mallet's suspicious action in the matter, the 
 advantage both in external and internal evidence lies 
 
iS8 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 wholly with Thomson. The poem was published in 
 Mallet's lifetime in an Edinburgh song-book called Tke 
 Charmer, the signature attached being Thomson's initials. 
 In various editions of Mallefs poems, issued before his 
 death, he does not include Ruk Britannia. It was never 
 assigned to him by any of his contemporaries, and 
 reference made to him at the time of his death spoke of 
 him as the writer of William and Margaret, but did 
 not credit him with the authorship of Rule Britannia. 
 Mr Churton Collins {Saturday Review, 20th February 
 1897) is of opinion that the knowledge which Dr Arne, 
 the composer, possessed of the authorship of the libretto 
 deterred Mallet from openly putting himself forward 
 as the author. ' A vainer and more unscrupulous man 
 than Mallet,' says Mr Churton Collins, ' never existed, 
 and it is simply incredible that he should not have 
 claimed what would have constituted his chief title 
 to popularity as a poet had he been able to do 
 so.' 
 
 Internal evidence corroborates the verdict of historical 
 opinion on behalf of Thomson. The ode in its language 
 and movement indubitably bespeaks his workmanship ; 
 it is marked by the imaginative sweep and thrill 
 of Thomson's poetry at its best. The form of the lyric, 
 too, suggests that of Thomson's Ijoics, the majority of 
 which are written on the stanzaic model used in Rule 
 Britannia. Moreover, the sentiment pervading the ode 
 is a most familiar constituent of Thomson's poetical 
 work in general. In Britannia, Liberty, and elsewhere, 
 the idea and the very words are easily recognisable. The 
 third stanza has distinct parallels in more than one 
 
JAMES THOMSON 159 
 
 passage of other poems by Thomson. It is here ^ven 
 
 with its original variants : 
 
 ' Still more majestic shall thou rise, 
 
 More dreadful from each foreign stroke ; 
 As the loud blast that tears the skies 
 Serves but to root thy native oak.' 
 
 In Liberty the simile runs : 
 
 ' Like an oak, 
 Nurs'd on feracious Algidum, whose boughs 
 Still stronger shoot beneath the rigid axe, 
 By loss, by slaughter, from the steel itself 
 E'en force and spirit drew.' 
 
 The same poem repeats this idea : 
 
 ' Every tempest sung 
 Innoxious by, or bade it firmer stand. ' 
 
 It occurs also in Sophonisba : 
 
 ' Thy rooted worth 
 Has stood these wintry blasts, grown stronger by them.' 
 
 A passage in Britannia, 11. 106-142, obviously supplies 
 
 the net material for one stanza which it is difficult to 
 
 suppose for a moment that anybody except Thomson 
 
 could have written : 
 
 ' To thee belongs the rural reign ; 
 
 Thy cities shall with commerce shine ; 
 All thine shall be the subject main ; 
 And every shore it circles thine.' 
 
 Many of the single terms and epithets, in addition, are 
 infrequent and specific use by Thomson. 'Azure' and 
 ' generous ' are of common note ; while another set of 
 favourite allusions are ' native oaks,' ' the fair,' and ' flame,' 
 in its secondary sense. Not the slightest trace of such 
 supplementary internal evidence is to be discovered in 
 
i6o FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 the poetry of Mallet. As has been pointed out by the 
 distinguished critic, to whose concise and trenchant dis- 
 cussion of the subject we have already referred, ' neatness 
 and tenderness bordering on effeminacy mark his character- 
 istic lyrics.' And equally certain is it that neither in the 
 smaller matter of phraseology, nor in the important factors 
 of sentiment and of insight, does the ode witness to the 
 handiwork of Mallet. No analogue or parallel to expres- 
 sions in Rule Britannia presents itself in his poetry ; he 
 betrays no sign of Thomson's patriotism and love of 
 liberty; while unstinted approval may be given to the 
 critical finding which declares that 'a man who was 
 capable of the jingling rubbish of such a masque as 
 Britannia, and who had the execrable taste to substitute 
 Bolingbroke's stanzas for the stanzas which they supersede, 
 could hardly have been equal to the production of this 
 lyric' The utmost appropriateness accompanies this 
 assignment of the authorship of Rule Britannia. No 
 more fitting lyrist than he who sang so admirably and 
 so unremittingly of Nature and of man, and the social 
 and industrial glory of hip country, could have composed 
 the unchallenged paean c>f the nation's greatness.