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 paraphrafe and illustration, as the nature of the exercife required; but in a style so 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 ftriking parts of it; but at last, turning to Mr. Thomson, he told him, fmiling, that if he thought of being useful in the ministry, he must keep a ftricter rein upon his imagination, and exprefs himself in language more intelligible to an ordinary congregation.

This gave Mr. Thomson to understand, that his expectations from the ftudy 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. 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, unfriended and unpatronised, and with the flender stock of money he was then poffeffed of.

And

But his merit did not long lie concealed. Mr. Forbes, afterwards Lord Prefident of the Seffion, then attending the service of Parliament, having feen a fpecimen of Mr. Thomfon'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 persons of diftinguished rank and worth. This gentleman, from a connoiffeur in painting, was become a profeffed painter; and his taste being no lefs juft 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. Thomfon was affected by his friend's premature death, appears in the copy of verfes which he wrote on that occafion.

In the mean time, our author's reception, whereever he was introduced, emboldened him to risque 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 fea-officer. To Mr. Mallet he likewise owed his first acquaintance with feveral of the wits of that time; an exact information of their characters, per

fonal and poetical, and how they stood 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 antithefis richly trimmed with rhyme, or the foftnefs of an elegiac complaint. To fuch his manly claffical fpirit could not readily recommend itself; till, after a more attentive perufal, they had got the better of their prejudices, and either acquired or affected a truer tafte. A few others flood aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and refigned themfelves to an abfolute defpair of ever seeing any thing new and original. These were somewhat 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 fhort 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 digreffions 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. Thomfon's acquaintance was courted by all men of taste; and several ladies of high rank and diftinction became his declared patroneffes: the Countess of Hertford, Mifs Drelincourt, afterwards Viscountefs 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 thofe of a poet, received him into his intimate confidence and friendfhip; promoted his character every where; 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 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 manœuvres that were employed: but Mr. Thomfon, who had accefs to the beft information, places it to the account of

-Slanderous zeal, and politics infirm,

Jealous of worth.

Meanwhile, our poet's chief care had been, in return for the public favour, to finish the plan which their wifhes 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 Seasons are placed in their natu❤ ral 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 praife.

Befides these, and his tragedy of Sophonisba, written and acted with applause, 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: