He appears to have gone to London early in 1725, in the character of tutor to Lord Binning's family. A letter, in Thomson's own hand-writing, is now before us, dated from East Barnet, where Lord Binning's family then resided, in July of that year. He soon after, in the same season, settled in London, trusting, for a livelihood to his poetical talents, till his friends should find him some per manent situation. Of these friends, one of the most valuable was Mr. Duncan Forbes, then attending his duty in parliament, and whose character as a scholar and a judge, a patriot and a christian, have secured for his memory a lasting and well merited reputation. Though naturally of an easy and indo lent temper, Thomson felt the necessity of exertion, and was so happy as in his first public enterprise to appropriate a theme worthy of all his genius. Its origin appears from a most interesting letter to his beloved companion, Dr. Cranston, then residing at Ancrum with his father, the amiable and re spected minister of that parish, which appears, though without a date, to have been written early in the winter of the year 1725, not long after he had settled in London. He begins by complaining of his poverty, and asking a small temporary loan from his early friend: he then rises gradually into the sublimity of poetic emotion, and gives a sketch of a part of his Winter, and several appropriate quotations from the unfinished production of his muse. But what gives the chief interest to this let ter is, that he distinctly states the source whence he drew the idea of his great yet simple plan of The Seasons. We shall give the passage, in con nexion with the chain of associations by which it is naturally introduced.
Having finely pourtrayed his friend as contem plating the fading glories of the year, on the ro mantic banks of the stream where they had spent together many pleasing hours, Thomson thus pro ceeds, " There I walk in spirit, and disport in its beloved gloom. This country I am in is not very entertaining; no variety but that of woods, and them we have in abundance. But where is the living stream, the airy mountain, and the hanging rock, with twenty other things that elegantly please the lover of nature? Nature delights me in every form. I am just now painting her in her most lugubrious dress, for my own amusement, describing winter as it presents itself," Stc.—" Mr. Riekleton's poem, on winter, which I still have, first put the design into my head. In it are some masterly strokes that awakened me. Being only a present amusement, 'tis ten to one but I drop it whenever another fancy comes cross." The letter of which this extract forms a part, was first published in the first num ber of the Kelso Mail, from the original, with an introduction from the hand of the present writer, stating the circumstances in which it was brought to light, so as clearly to establish its genuineness and authenticity. Much unavailing labour has been since used to discover the poem of Mr. Riccaltoun here alluded to. The venerable Dr. Somerville of Jedburgh, now the father of the Church of Scot land, and still in advanced age enjoying much of the mental vigour of youth, says, he remembers to have heard part of it recited by the author, and thinks he learned from himself that it was printed in a miscellany about 1718 or 1720, under the title of " Prospect of a Storm from Ruberslaw." It may
yet, however, be discovered. In the mean time it appears certain, first, that Thomson's Winter, the first of " The Seasons," was begun, not, as some have alleged, before the poet removed from his na tive land, otherwise Dr. Cranston, his confidential friend, must have known it ; secondly, that it was composed soon after his arrival in London, more with the view of pleasure than of gain; thirdly, that the idea originated in his admiration of the conge nial poem of his respected counsellor and friend Mr. Riccaltoun; and lastly, that he seems hardly at this time to have contemplated the conclusion of this part of his plan, far less the extension of the subject to the other " Seasons." Winter was published by Millar, London, in March 1726, and though at first it excited little notice, yet it speedily attained such popularity as to raise its author into the first rank of our national poets. It secured for him friends and admirers of every rank, and laid the foundation of an honour able and enduring fame. In the course of the same year, a second edition of it appeared. Summer next appeared, in 1727; Spring in the course of the same year, and Autumn not until 1730, when it formed part of the first quarto edition of his works.
In 1727, besides his Summer, as already men tioned, he published his poem on the then recent death of Sir Isaac Newton, which Dr. Johnson, in his " Life of Thomson," says, the poet was enabled to perform as an exact philosopher, by the aid of Mr. Gray. This may be a correct statement, though it is given without authority. If true, it is by no means discreditable to the author; for a man of pro found knowledge on one class of subjects may, from that very circumstance, be ignorant of others. Nay, the intense application of the mind to works of imagination, has a tendency to loosen its hold on the scientific attainments it had formerly made. But that Thomson, though chiefly occupied with intellectual and moral themes, was not ignorant of the principles of Natural Philosophy, as seems to be insinuated, appears from many distinct passages of the Seasons, and from the general structure of the work. In the same year he published Britan nia, in which there are fine passages. Yet, as it may be regarded as an opposition political pam phlet in verse, written for a particular purpose, though under excited feelings, it occasioned but a temporary and a partial interest, and is floated down to posterity, only by the buoyancy of his more finished and popular productions. A short time after, he wrote and produced on the stage, un der very auspicious circumstances, and high antici pations of success, the tragedy of Sophonisba, the actual popularity of which, however, was brief, and seems never to have been great.