ling, recommended Mr. Thomfon as a proper companion for him. His affection and gratitude to Dr. Rundle, and his indignation at the treatment that worthy prelate had met with, are finely expreffed in his poem to the memory of Lord Talbot. The true cause of that undeserved treatment has been fecreted from the public, as well as the dark maneuvres that were employed: but Mr. Thomson, who had accefs to the best information, places it to the account of

-Slanderous zeal, and politics infirm,

Jealous of worth.

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

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

reader is left enraptur'd in filent adoration and praife.

BESIDES thefe, and his tragedy of Sophonisba, written, and acted with applaufe, in the year 1729, Mr. Thomfon had, in 1727, published his poem to the Memory of Sir Ifaac Newton, then lately deceased; containing a deserved encomium of that incomparable man, with an account of his chief discoveries; fublimely poetical; and yet fo juft, that an ingenious foreigner, the Count Algarotti, takes a line of it for the text of his philofophical dialogues, Il Neutonianifmo per le dame: this was in part owing to the afliftance he had of his friend Mr. Gray, a gentleman well versed in the Newtonian Philofophy, who, on that occafion, gave him a very exact, though general, abstract of its principles.

THAT fame year, the refentment of our merchants, for the interruption of their trade by the Spaniards in America, running very high, Mr. Thomfon zealously took part in it; and wrote his poem Britannia, to roufe the nation to revenge. And although this piece is the lefs read that its subject was but accidental and temporary; the fpirited generous fentiments that enrich it, can never be out of season: they will at least remain a monument of that love of his country, that devotion to the public, which he is ever inculcating as

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the perfection of virtue, and which none ever felt more pure, or more intense, than himself.

OUR author's poetical studies were now to be in terrupted, or rather improved, by his attendance on the honourable Mr. Charles Talbot in his travels. A delightful task indeed! endowed as that young nobleman was by nature, and accomplished by the care and example of the best of fathers, in whatever could adorn humanity: graceful of perfon, elegant in manners and addrefs, pious, humane, generous; with an exquifite taste in all the finer arts.

WITH this amiable companion and friend, Mr. Thomfon vifited most of the courts and capital cities of Europe; and returned with his views greatly enlarged not of exterior nature only, and the works of art, but of human life and manners, of the conftitution and policy of the feveral ftates, their connections, and their religious inftitutions. How particular and judi cious his obfervations were, we fee in his poem of Liberty, begun foon after his return to England. We fee, at the same time, to what a high pitch his love of his country was raised, by the comparisons he had all along been making of our happy well-poifed government with thofe of other nations. To infpire his fellow-fubjects with the like fentiments; and to shew them by what means the precious freedom we

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enjoy may be preferved, and how it may be abused or loft; he employed two years of his life in compofing that noble work; upon which, confcious of the importance and dignity of the subject, he valued himself more than upon all his other writings.

WHILE Mr. Thomfon was writing the First Part of Liberty, he received a fevere fhock, by the death of his noble friend and fellow traveller: which was foon followed by another that was. feverer ftill, and of more general concern; the death of Lord Talbot himfelf; which Mr. Thomfon fo pathetically and fo juftly laments in the poem dedicated to his memory. In him, the nation faw itself deprived of an uncorrupted patriot, the faithful guardian of their rights, on whofe wifdom and integrity they had founded their hopes of relief from many tedious vexations and Mr. Thomfon, befides his fhare in the general mourning, had to bear all the affliction which a heart like his could feel, for the person whom, of all mankind, he most revered and loved. At the fame time, he found himfelf, from an eafy competency, reduced to a state of precarious dependence, in which he paffed the remainder of his life; excepting only the two last years of it, during which he enjoyed the place of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, procured for him by the generous friendship of my Lord Lyttleton.

IMMEDIATELY upon his return to England with Mr. Talbot, the Chancellor had made him his fecretary of Briefs; a place of little attendance, fuiting his retired indolent way of life, and equal to all his wants. This place fell with his patron; and although the noble Lord, who fucceeded to Lord Talbot in office, kept it vacant for fome tine, probably till Mr. Thomfon fhould apply for it, he was fo difpirited, and fo liftless to every concern of that kind, that he newer took one step in the affair: a neglect which his best friends greatly blamed in him.

YET could not his genius be depressed, or his temper hurt, by this reverfe of fortune. He refumed, with time, his ufual cheerfulnefs, and never abated one article in his way of living; which, though fimple, was genial and elegant. The profits arifing from his works were not inconfiderable; his tragedy of Agamemnon, acted in 1738, yielded a good fum; Mr. Millar was always at hand, to answer, or even to prevent, his demands; and he had a friend or two befides, whofe hearts, he knew, were not contracted by the ample fortunes they had acquired; who would, of themselves, interpofe, if they saw any occafion for it.

But his chief dependence, during this long interval, was on the protection and bounty of his Royal Highness FREDERIC Prince of Wales; who,