found or fancied so many evils arising from the tyranny of other governments, that he resolved to write a very long poem, in five parts, upon Li berty. While he was busy on the first book, Mr. Talbot died; and Thomson, who had been rewarded for his attendance by the place of Secretary of the Briefs, pays in the initial lines a decent tributè to his memory. Upon this great poem two years were spent, and the author congratulated himself upon it as his noblest work; but an author and his reader are not always of a mind. Liberty called in vain upon her votaries to read her praises, and reward her encomiast: her praises were condemned to harbour spiders, and to gather dust. Thomson now lived in ease and plenty, and seems for a while to have suspended his poetry; but he was soon called back to labour by the death of the Chancellor, for his place then became vacant; and though the Lord Hardwicke delayed for some time to give it away, Thomson's bashfulness, or pride, or some other motive, perhaps not more laudable, withheld him from soliciting, and the new Chancellor would not give him what he would not ask. He now relapsed to his former indigence; but the Prince of Wales was at that time struggling for popularity, and by the influence of Mr. Lytu telton professed himself the patron of wit. To him Thomson was introduced, and being gaily interrogated about the state of his affairs, said *that they were in a more poetical posture than formerly; and had a pension allowed him of one hundred pounds a year. Being now obliged to write, he produced 1738 the tragedy of Agamemnon,' which was much shortened in the representation. It had the fate which most commonly attends mythological sto ries, and was only endured, but not favoured. It struggled with such difficulty through the first night, that Thomson, coming late to his friends with whom he was to sup, excused his delay by telling them how the sweat of his distress had so disordered his wig, that he could not come till he had been refitted by a barber. He so interested himself in his own drama, that, if I remember right, as he sat in the upper gallery, he accompanied the players by audible recitation, till a friendly hint frightened him to silence. Pope countenanced Agamemnon,' by coming to it the first night, and was welcomed to the theatre by a general clap: he had much, regard for. Thomson, and once expressed it in a poetical Epistle sent to Italy, of which however, he abated the value, by transplanting some of the lines into his epistle to Arbuthnot.' He was soon after employed, in conjunction with Mr. Mallet, to write the masque of ، Alfred,' which was acted before the Prince at Cliefdenhouse. His next work 1745 was ، Tancred and Sigismunda,' the most successful of all his tragedies; for it still keeps its turn upon the stage. ، His friend Mr. Lyttelton was now in power, and conferred upon him the office of SurveyorGeneral of the Leeward Islands; from which, when his deputy was paid, he received about three hundred pounds a year. The last piece, that he lived to publish, was the Castle of Indolence,' which was many years under his hand, but was at last finished with great accuracy. The first canto opens a scene of lazy luxury, that fills the imagination. He was now at ease, but was not long to enjoy it; for, by taking cold on the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which terminated in a fever, that put an end to his life, August 27, 1748. He was buried in the church of Richmond, without an inscription: but a monument has been erected to his memory in Westminster-abbey. Thomson was of stature above the middle size, and more fat than bard beseems;' of a dull countenance, and a gross, unanimated, uninviting appearance; silent in mingled company, but cheerful among select friends, and by his friends very tenderly and warmly beloved. He left behind him the tragedy of Coriolanus,' which was, by the zeal of his patron Sir George Lyttelton, brought upon the stage for the benefit of his family, and recommended by a prologue, which Quin, who had long lived with Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in such a manner as shewed him to be,' on that occasion, no actor." The commencement of this benevolence is very, honourable to Quin; who is reported to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest, by a very considerable present and its continuance is honourable to both; for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation. By this tragedy a considerable sum was raised, of which, part discharged his debts, and the rest was remitted to his sisters. : : The benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but not active he would give on all occasions what assistance his purse would supply; but the offices of intervention or solicitation he could not conquer his sluggishness sufficiently to perform. xii LIFE OF THOMSON. Among his peculiarities was a very unskilful and inarticulate manner of pronouncing any lofty or solemn composition. He was once reading to Dodington, who, being himself a reader eminently elegant, was so much provoked by his odd utterance, that he snatched the paper from his hands, and told him that he did not understand his own verses. The biographer of Thomson has remarked, that an author's life is best read in his works: his observation was not well timed. Savage, who lived much with Thomson, once told me, he heard a lady remarking that she could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was a great lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously absti nent; but, said Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was perhaps never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that comes within his reach. Yet Savage always spoke with the most eager praise of his social qualities, his warmth and constancy of friendship, and his adherence to his first acquaintance when the advancement of his reputation had left them behind him. As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode of thinking and of express ing his thoughts is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other |