James Thomson

THOMSON, JAMES English poet, author of The Seasons, was born at Ednam, in Roxburghshire, on Sept. 1700—the third son and fourth child of Thomas Thomson, min ister of that place. About 1701 Thomas Thomson removd to Southdean near Jedburgh. Here James was educated at first by Robert Riccaltoun, to whose verses on Winter he owed the idea of his own poem, and then at a school at Jedburgh. In 1715 he went to Edinburgh university. He became a divinity student, and it was partly to make a reputation as a preacher that he went to London in March 1725. He had already friends in London in Lady Grizel Baillie, and Duncan Forbes of Culloden, and he was introduced by them to literary society in London, where he sup ported himself partly by acting as tutor.

The Seasons.

Thomson's Winter appeared in March 1726. It was dedicated to Sir Spencer Compton, the Speaker, who rewarded the poet, to his great disgust, with a bare twenty guineas. Summer appeared in 1727, dedicated to Bubb Dodington. In the same year Thomson published his Poem to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton. Spring appeared in 1728, published by Andrew Millar. In 1729 he produced Sophonisba, a tragedy now only remembered by the line "0 Sophonisba, Sophonisba, 0," and the parody "0 Jemmy Thom son, Jemmy Thomson, 0." A poem, anonymous but unquestion ably Thomson's, to the memory of Congreve appeared in the same year. In 1730 Autumn was first published in a collected edition of The Seasons. It was dedicated to the Speaker, Onslow. In this year, he accompanied the son of Sir Charles Talbot, solicitor general, upon his travels. In the course of these he projected his Liberty as "a poetical landscape of countries, mixed with moral observations on their government and people." In December 1731 he returned with his pupil to London. His pupil died soon after, and Talbot, who became chancellor, gave Thomson a sine cure in Chancery. The first part of Liberty appeared in and it was completed in five parts in 1736. The poem was a failure ; its execution did not correspond with its design ; in a sense indeed it is a survey of countries and might have anticipated Gold smith's Traveller. The truth is that Thomson's poetical gift was for many years perverted by the zeal of partisanship.

His patron died in February 1737 and he lost his sinecure. His tragedy Agamemnon appeared in April 1738, not before he had been arrested for a debt of £70, from which, according to a story which has been discredited on quite insufficient grounds, Quin re lieved him in the most generous and tactful manner. The incident took place probably a little before the production of Agamemnon, in which Quin played the leading part. The play is of course mod elled upon Aeschylus and owes whatever of dignity it possesses to that fact ; the part of Cassandra, for instance, retains something of its original force. But most of the other characters exist only for the purpose of political innuendo. Agamemnon is George, ab sent in Germany ; Aegisthus is Walpole, and so on. As a result his next tragedy, Edward and Eleanora, was banned This event sufficiently accounts for the poet's next experiment, a preface to Milton's Areopagitica. He joined Mallet in composing the masque of Alfred, represented at Clieveden on the Thames before the prince of Wales, on Aug. 1, 1740. There can be little question that

"Rule Britannia," a song in this drama, was the production of Thomson. The music of the song, as of the whole masque, was composed by Arne. In 1744 Thomson was appointed surveyor general of the Leeward Islands by Lyttelton with an income of £300 a year; this improved his circumstances considerably, and whilst completing at his leisure The Castle of Indolence, he pro duced Tancred and Sigismunda at Drury Lane in Eventually The Castle of Indolence, after a gestation of fif teen years, appeared in May 1748. It is in the Spenserian stanza with the Spenserian archaism, and is the first and last long effort of Thomson in rhyme. The great and varied interest of the poem might well rescue it from the neglect into which even The Seasons has fallen. It was worthy of an age which was fertile in character sketches, and excels in the lifelike presentation of a noteworthy circle. It is the last work by Thomson which appeared in his life time. In walking from London to his house at Richmond he be came heated and took a boat at Hammersmith ; he thus caught a chill and died on Aug. 27, 1748. He was buried in Richmond churchyard. His tragedy Coriolanus was acted for the first time in January 1749. In itself a feeble performance, it is noteworthy for the prologue which his friend Lyttelton wrote, two lines of which— He loved his friends—torgive the gushing tear! Alas! I feel I am no actor here— were recited by Quin with no simulated emotion.

Precursor of Romanticism.

It may be questioned whether Thomson himself ever quite realized the distinctive significance of his own achievement in The Seasons, or the place which criticism assigns him as the pioneer of a special literary movement and the precursor of Cowper and Wordsworth. His avowed preference was for great and worthy themes of which the world of nature was but one, but fortunately his readers were wiser than himself. And though he recalled the minds of his contemporaries from the town to the country, in his feeling for nature, he is a true man of his age ; his descriptions are general, and purely objective. There is no hint yet of the emotional reactions of the Romantic school. He has many audacities and many felicities of expression, and enriched the vocabulary even of the poets who have disparaged him. Yet it is difficult to believe that he was not the better for that training in refinement of style which he partly owed to Pope.

The first collected editions of

The Seasons bear dates 173o, 1738, 1744, 5746. Lyttelton tampered both with The Seasons and with Liberty in editions after his friend's death. Among the numerous lives of the poet may be mentioned those by his friend Patrick Murdoch, by Dr. Johnson in Lives of the Poets, by Sir Harris Nicolas (Ald. ed., 186o), by- M. Morel, James Thomson, sec vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1895), and James Thomson, in the English Men of Letters Series, by G. C. Macaulay (5908). See also Dr. G. Schmeding's Jacob Thomson, ein vergessener Dichter des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts; the life prefixed to the Aldine edition of his works in 1897 ; and an excellent edition of The Seasons in the Clarendon Press Series by J. Logie Robertson. Also A. H. Thompson in Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. io (1913). (D. C. To.; X.)