perfect the harmony of his organs with the fentiments of his mind, that his looks always announced, and half expressed, what he was about to fay; and his voice correfponded exactly to the manner and degree in which he was affected. This fenfibility had one inconvenience attending it, that it rendered him the very worst reader of good poetry: a fonnet, or a copy of tame verfes, he could manage pretty well; or even improve them in the reading: but a paffage of Virgil, Milton, or Shakespeare, would fometimes quite oppress him, that you could hear little else than some ill-articulated founds, rifing as from the bottom of his breast.

He had improved his tafte upon the best originals, ancient and modern ; but could not bear to write what was not ftrictly his own, what had not more immediately ftruck his imagination, or touched his heart: fo that he is not in the leaft concerned in that queftion about the merit or demerit of imitators. What he borrows from the ancients, he gives us in an avowed faithful paraphrafe or tranflation; as we fee in a few paffages taken from Virgil, and in that beautiful picture from Pliny the elder, where the course, and gradual increase, of the Nile, are figured by the stages of

man's life.

The autumn was his favourite season for poetical compofition, and the deep filence of the night, the time he commonly chofe for fuch ftudies; fo that he would often be heard walking in his library, till near morning, humming over, in his way, what he was to correct and write out next day.

The amusements of his leisure hours were civil and natural history, voyages, and the relations of travellers, the most authentic he could procure: and, had his fituation favoured it, he would certainly have excelled in gardening, agriculture, and every rural improvement and exercise. Although he performed on no inftrument, he was paffionately fond of mufic, and would fometimes liften a full hour at his window to the nightingales in Richmond gardens. While abroad, he had been greatly delighted with the regular Italian drama, fuch as Metaftafio writes; as it is there heightened by the charms of the best voices and inftruments; and looked upon our theatrical entertainments as, in one refpect, naked and imperfect, when compared with the ancient, or with those of Italy; wishing fometimes that a chorus, at least, and a better recitative, could be introduced.

Nor was his tafte lefs exquifite in the arts of paintng, fculpture, and architecture. In his travels he had

feen all the most celebrated monuments of antiquity, and the best productions of modern art; and studied them fo minutely, and with fo true a judgment, that in fome of his defcriptions, in the poem of Liberty, we have the master-pieces there mentioned placed in a ftronger light perhaps than if we faw them with our eyes; at least more juftly delineated than in any other account extant: fo fuperior is a natural taste of the grand and beautiful, to the traditional leffons of a common virtuofo. His collection of prints, and some drawings from the antique, are now in the poffeffion of his friend Mr. Gray, of Richmond Hill.

As for his more diftinguishing qualities of mind and heart, they are better reprefented in his writings than they can be by the pen of any biographer. There, his love of mankind, of his country and friends, his devotion to the Supreme Being, founded on the most elevated and juft conceptions of his operations and providence, fhine out in every page. So unbounded was his tenderness of heart, that it took in even the brute creation: judge what it must have been towards his own species. He is not indeed known, through his whole life, to have given any person one moment's pain, by his writings or otherwife. He took no part in the poetical fquabbles which happened in his time;

and was refpected and left undisturbed by both fides. He would even refuse to take offence when he juftly might; by interrupting any personal story that was brought him, with fome jeft, or fome humorous apology for the offender. Nor was he ever feen ruffled or difcompofed, but when he read or heard of fome flagrant instance of injustice, oppreffion, or cruelty: then, indeed, the ftrongest marks of horror and indignation were vifible in his countenance.

These amiable virtues, this divine temper of mind, did not fail of their due reward. His friends loved him with an enthusiastic ardor, and lamented his untimely fate in the manner that is ftill fresh in every one's memory; the best and greatest men of his time honored him with their friendship and protection; the applause of the Public attended every appearance he made; the actors, of whom the more eminent were his friends and admirers, grudging no pains to do juftice to his tragedies. At prefent, indeed, if we except Tancred, they are feldom called for; the fimplicity of his plots, and the models he worked after, not fuiting the reigning tafte, nor the impatience of an English theatre. They may hereafter come to be vogue: but we hazard no comment or conjecture upon them, or upon any part of Mr. Thomfon's works;

in

xxviii

THE LIFE OF MR. THOMSON.

neither need they any defence or apology, after the reception they have had at home, and in the foreign languages into which they have been tranflated. We fhall only fay, that, to judge from the imitations of his manner, which have been following him close, from the very first publication of Winter, he feems to have fixed no inconfiderable æra of the English poetry,