The reverend Messrs. Riccaltoun 5 and Gusthart, particularly, took a most affectionate and friendly part in all their concerns. The former, a man of uncommon penetration and good taste, had very early discovered, through the rudeness of young Thomson's puerile essays, a fund of genius well deserving culture and encouragement. He undertook, therefore, with the father's approbation, the chief direction of his studies, furnished him with the proper books, corrected his performances; and was daily rewarded with the pleasure of seeing his labour so happily employed.

The other reverend gentleman, Mr. Gusthart, who is still living [1762], one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and senior of the chapel-royal, was no less serviceable to Mrs. Thomson in the management of her little affairs; which, after the decease of her husband, burdened as she was with a family of nine children, required the prudent counsels and assistance of that faithful and generous friend.

Sir William Bennet 7 likewise, well known for his gay humour and ready poetical wit, was highly delighted with our young poet, and used to invite him to pass the summer vacation at his country seat; a scene of life which Mr. Thomson always remembered with particular pleasure. But what he wrote during that time, either

5 The Rev. Robert Riccaltoun appears to have resided at Hobkirk, about three miles from Southdean. He was minister of Hobkirk from 1725 to 1769. His literary works were published at Edinburgh in 1771, 8vo. 3 vols.

6 The Rev. William Gusthart died in 1764. His son, Robert Gusthart, M. D., who visited Thomson at Richmond, died at Bath in 1780.

7 Sir William Bennet of Grubit, Bart. He is celebrated by Allan Ramsay. His seat was in the parish of Eckford, Roxburghshire where he died in 1729. Ramsay thus adverts to its picturesque attractions :

"Your lovely scenes of Marlèfield abound

With as much choice as is in Britain found."

Lord Cranston and sir Gilbert Elliot were also attentive to our young poet.

to entertain sir William and Mr. Riccaltoun, or for his own amusement, he destroyed every new year's days; committing his little pieces to the flames in their due order, and crowning the solemnity with a copy of verses in which were humorously recited the several grounds of their condemnation.

After the usual course of school education, under an able master at Jedburgh 9, Mr. Thomson was sent to the university of Edinburgh. 10 But in the second year of his admission, his studies were for some time interrupted by the death of his father 11; who was carried off so suddenly that it was not possible for Mr. Thomson, with all the diligence he could use, to receive his last blessing. This affected him to an uncommon degree; and his relations still remember some extraordinary instances of his grief and filial duty on that occasion.

Mrs. Thomson, whose maiden name was Trotter 12, and who was co-heiress of a small estate in the country 13, did not sink under this misfortune. She consulted her friend Mr. Gusthart; and having,

8 One of these pieces, a poetical epistle to sir William Bennet, has been preserved. It is chiefly remarkable for its anticipations of poetical celebrity.

9 He was educated in the grammar-school, which was held in a chapel on the south side of the choir of the venerable abbey of Jedburgh. The poet had a twofold reason to celebrate the sylvan Jed.

10 His matriculation is not recorded. He was admitted as a student of divinity in 1719, and is presumed to have left the university towards the close of 1724. 11 The Rev. Thomas Thomson appears to have died in 1720. His tombstone still remains in the churchyard of Southdean, but the inscription is obliterated. 12 The edition of 1762 has Hume. In the revised edition of 1768 it is altered to Trotter; and I am enabled to confirm the propriety of this alteration by a certified extract from the session-records of Ednam: “1693. Oct. 6. The said day Mr. Thomas Thomson minister of Ednam and Beatrix Trotter in the parish of Kelso gave up their names for proclamation in order to marriage."

13 This estate, which bore the name of Widehope, is in the parish of Morbattle, Roxburghshire. It is now the property of the marquess of Tweeddale.

by his advice, mortgaged her moiety of the farm, repaired with her family to Edinburgh-where she lived in a decent, frugal manner, till her favourite son had not only finished his academical course, but was even distinguished and patronised as a man of genius. She was, herself, a person of uncommon natural endowments; possessed of every social and domestic virtue; with an imagination, for vivacity and warmth, scarce inferior to her son's, and which raised her devotional exercises to a pitch bordering on enthusiasm. 14

But whatever advantage Mr. Thomson might derive from the complexion of his parent, it is certain he owed much to a religious education; and that his early acquaintance with the sacred writings contributed greatly to that sublime by which his works will be for ever distinguished. In his first pieces, the Seasons, we see him at once assume the majestic freedom of an Eastern writer; seizing the grand images as they rise, clothing them in his own expressive language, and preserving, throughout, the grace, the variety, and the dignity which belong to a just composition, unhurt by the stiffness of formal method.

About this time the study of poetry was become general in Scotland, the best English authors being universally read, and imitations of them attempted. Addison 15 had lately displayed the

14 Mrs. Thomson died in 1725.

The verses which our poet wrote on this occasion do honour to his feelings and his poetic taste. I shall give a specimen :

"Ye fabled muses, I your aid disclaim,

Your airy raptures, and your fancied flame :
True genuine woe my throbbing breast inspires,
Love prompts my lays, and filial duty fires;
The soul springs instant at the warm design,
And the heart dictates every flowing line."

15 The criticism on Paradise Lost appeared in 1712. It occupies eighteen numbers of the Spectator-which, as Bisset proves, was much read in Scotland.

beauties of Milton's immortal work; and his remarks on it, together with Mr. Pope's celebrated Essay 16, had opened the way to an acquaintance with the best poets and critics.

But the most learned critic is not always the best judge of poetry; taste being a gift of nature, the want of which Aristotle and Bossu 17 cannot supply, nor even the study of the best originals, when the reader's faculties are not tuned in a certain consonance to those of the poet-and this happened to be the case with certain learned gentlemen into whose hands a few of Mr. Thomson's first essays had fallen. Some inaccuracies of style, and those luxuriances which a young writer can hardly avoid, lay open to their cavils and censure; so far indeed they might be competent judges

but the fire and enthusiasm of the poet had entirely escaped their notice. Mr. Thomson, however, conscious of his own strength, was not discouraged by this treatment; especially as he had some friends on whose judgment he could better rely, and who thought very differently of his performances. Only, from that time he began to turn his views towards London, where works of genius may always expect a candid reception and due encouragement; and an accident soon after entirely determined him to try his fortune there.

The divinity chair at Edinburgh was then filled by the reverend and learned Mr. Hamilton 18, a gentleman universally respected and

16 The Essay on criticism was published in 1711. It was first advertised in the Spectator, No. 65. The best homeborn critical-code, and the best models of style, appeared in the same year!

17 René Le Bossu, author of the Traité du poëme épique, 1675.-" Son Traité," said Voltaire in 1752," a beaucoup de réputation, mais il ne fera jamais de poëtes." Blair and Laharpe have censured it more pointedly.

18 The Rev. William Hamilton, minister of Cramond in 1694, was appointed professor of divinity in 1709, and succeeded Wishart as principal in 1732. He died in the following year. Anne, his daughter, was married to John Horsley, F. R.S.

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 psalm in which the power and majesty of God are celebrated. Of this psalm he gave a paraphrase and illustration, as the nature of the exercise required; but in a style so highly poetical as surprised the whole audience, 19 Mr. Hamilton, as his custom was, complimented the orator upon his performance, and pointed out to the students the most masterly striking parts of it; but at last, turning to Mr. Thomson, he told him, smiling, that if he thought of being useful in the ministry, he must keep a stricter rein upon his imagination, and express himself in language more intelligible 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, soon after, received some encouragement from a lady of quality 20, 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 served for the present as a good pretext to cover the imprudence of committing himself to the wide world, unfriended and unpatronised, and with the slender stock of money he was then possessed of.

19 The prescribed exercise was an illustration of the 10th section of the 119th psalm. It was delivered in the divinity-hall on the 27th of October 1724.

20 Lady Grisell Baillie, daughter of sir Patrick Hume afterwards earl of Marchmont, and wife of George Baillie of Jerviswood, Esq., then member for Berwickshire-both exalted characters. Rachel, their second daughter, was married to Charles lord Binning, in whose family Thomson acted as a tutor soon after his arrival in London in March 1725. Lady Grisell Baillie died in 1746.