he began to turn his views towards London; where works of genius may always expect a candid reception and due encouragement; and an accident foon after entirely determined him to try his fortune there.

The divinity-chair at Edinburgh was then filled by the reverend and learned Mr Hamilton; a gentleman univerfally respected and beloved; and who had particularly endeared himself to the young divines under his care, by his kind offices, his candour and affability. Our author had attended his lectures for about a year, when there was prescribed to him for the subject of an exercise, a Pfalm, in which the power and majesty of God are celebrated. Of this pfalm he gave a paraphrase and illustration, as the nature of the exercise required; but in a ftyle fo highly poetical as furprised the whole audience. Mr Hamilton, as his custom was, complimented the orator upon his performance, and pointed out to the ftudents the most masterly striking parts of it; but at last, turning to Mr Thomson, he told him, fimiling, that if he thought of being useful in the ministry, he must keep a stricter rein upon his imągination, and express himself in language more intelli. gible to an ordinary congregation.

This gave Mr Thomson to understand, that his expectations from the study of theology might be very precarious; even though the church had been more his free choice than probably it was. So that having, foon after, received fome encouragement from a lady of quality, a friend of his mother's, then in London, he quickly prepared himself for his journey. And although this encouragement ended in nothing beneficial, it ferved, for the prefent, as a good pretext to cover the imprudence of committing himself to the wide world,

A 3

world, unfriended and unpatronised, and with the flender stock of money he was then possessed of.

But his merit did not long ly concealed. Mr Forbes, afterwards Lord Prefident of the Seffion, then attending the service of parliament, having feen a specimen of Mr Thomson's poetry in Scotland, received him very kindly, and recommended him to fome of his friends; particularly to Mr Aikman, who lived in great intimacy with many perfons of distinguished rank and worth. This gentleman, from a connoiffeur in painting, was become a profeffed painter; and his taste being no less just and delicate in the kindred art of defcriptive poetry, than in his own, no wonder that he foon conceived a friendship for our author. What a warm return he met with, and how Mr Thomson was affected by his friend's premature death, appears in the copy of verfes which he wrote on that occasion.

In the mean time, our author's reception, whereever he was introduced, emboldened him to risk the publication of his Winter; in which, as himself was a mere novice in fuch matters, he was kindly affifted by Mr Mallet, then private tutor to his Grace the Duke of Montrofe, and his brother the Lord George Graham, fo well known afterwards as an able and gallant feaofficer. To Mr Mallet he likewife owed his first acquaintance with several of the wits of that time; an exact information of their characters, perfonal and poetical, and how they ftood affected to each other.

The poem of Winter, published in March 1726, was no fooner read than univerfally admired: those only excepted who had not been used to feel, or to look for any thing in poetry, beyond a point of fatirical or epigrammatic wit, a smart antithesis richly trimmed with rhyme, or the foftness of an elegiac complaint. To

fuch

fuch his manly claffical fpirit could not readily commend itself; till, after a more attentive perufal, they had got the better of their prejudices, and either acquired or affected a truer taste. A few others kood

aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and resigned themselves to an abfolute despair of ever seeing any thing new and original. These were fomewhat mortified to find their notions disturbed by the appearance of a poet, who seemed to owe nothing but to nature and his own genius. But, in a short time, the applause became unanimous; every one wondering how fo many pictures, and pictures fo familiar, should have moved them but faintly to what they felt in his defcriptions. His di greffions too, the overflowings of a tender benevolent heart, charmed the reader no lefs; leaving him in doubt, whether he should more admire the Poet, or love the Man.

From that time Mr Thomson's acquaintance was courted by all men of taste; and several ladies of high rank and distinction became his declared patroneffes; the Countess of Hertford, Mifs Drelincourt, afterwards Viscountess Primrofe, Mrs Stanley, and others. But the chief happiness which his Winter procured him. was, that it brought him acquainted with Dr Rundle, afterwards Lord Bishop of Derry: who, upon converfing with Mr Thomson, and finding in him qualities greater still, and of more value, than those of a poet, received him into his intimate confidence and friendship; promoted his character everywhere; introduced him to his great friend the Lord Chancellor Talbot; and, fome years after, when the eldest son of that nobleman was to make his tour of travelling, recommended Mr Thomson 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 expressed in his poem to the memory of Lord Talbot. The true caufe of that undeferved treatment has been fecreted from the public, as well as the dark manœuvres that were employed: but Mr Thomson, who had access to the best information, places it to the account of

Slanderous zeal, and politics infirm,

Jealous of worth.

Mean-while, our poet's chief care had been, in 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 publications of the other Seasons 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 crowned 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 enraptured in filent adoration and praise.

Befides thefe, and his tragedy of Sophonisba, writ ten, and acted with applaufe, in the year 1729, Mr Thomson had, in 1727, published his poem to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, then lately deceased; containing a deferved encomium of that incomparable man, with an account of his chief difcoveries; fublimely poetical; and yet so just, that an ingenious foreigner, the Count Algarotti, takes a line of it for the text of his philofophical dialogues, Il Neutonianismo per le

dame :

dame: this was in part owing to the affiftance he had. of his friend Mr Grey, 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 refentmeut of our merchants, for the interruption of their trade by the Spaniards in America, running very high, Mr Thomson zealously took part in it, and wrote his poem Britannia, to rouse the nation to revenge. And although this piece is the lefs read that its fubject was but accidental and temporary; the spirited generous fentiments that en rich it, can never be out of seafon: they will at least remain a monument of that love of his country, that devotion to the public, which he is ever inculcating as 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 interrupted, or rather improved, by his attendance on the Honourable Mr Charles Talbot in his travels. A de lightful 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 tafte in all the finer arts.

With this amiable companion and friend, Mr Thom fen visited 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 several states, their connexions, and their religious institutions. How particular and judicious his obfervations were, we fee in his poem of Liberty, begun foon after his return to England. We fee, at

3

the