Page images
PDF
EPUB

wards Lord Chancellor); in Paris in December, where (probably) he visits Voltaire.

1731. Visits most of the courts and capital cities of Europe' (Murdoch); in Paris in October. Visits Italy-'I long to see the fields where Virgil gathered his immortal honey,' &c. Collecting material for his poem on Liberty. Correspondence with Dodington-'Should you inquire after my muse, I believe she did not cross the Channel with me.' Probably wrote, however, the lines on the death of Aikman, the painter. Returns to England in December. Birth of Cowper. The Gentleman's Magazine established.

1733. Death of young Talbot in September; the elder becomes Lord Chancellor in November; soon after, Thomson appointed Secretary of Briefs in the Court of Chancery-the post a sinecure with about 300l. a year. Some personal stanzas of The Castle of Indolence written about this time.

1735. Publication of Liberty; Parts I, II, and III, at intervals. 1736. Liberty; Parts IV and V at intervals. Thomson goes to live in Kew Lane, Richmond-his residence for the rest of his life. Intimacy with Pope, whose house was only a mile off, at Twickenham. Busy with the drama-' whipping and spurring to finish a tragedy this winter.' Sends pecuniary assistance to his sisters in Edinburgh. Becomes acquainted with Amanda'.

1737. Death of Lord Chancellor Talbot, in February; Thomson's memorial verses (panegyric and elegy) in June. Writing Agamemnon. Loss of Secretaryship. Acquaintance with George Lyttelton. Pension of 100l. a year from the Prince of Wales, to whom Liberty had been dedicated. Shenstone's

Schoolmistress published.

1738. Thomson's Preface to Milton's Areopagitica appears. Agamemnon produced in April, Quin in the title rôle. A new edition (a reprint of octavo edition of 1730) of The Seasons brought out.

1739. Thomson's tragedy of Edward and Eleonora prohibited by the censorship.

1740. Conjointly with Malloch, The Masque of Alfred, containing the ode 'Rule, Britannia', performed August 1, in Clifden Gardens, before the Prince of Wales.

1742. Young's Night Thoughts (Books I-III).

1743. Visits the Lytteltons, at Hagley Park, in August—' I am

[blocks in formation]

come to the most agreeable place and company in the world.' Correspondence with Amanda '.' But wherever I am I never cease to think of my loveliest Miss Young. You are part of my being; you mix with all my thoughts.' His song, For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove,' about this time. Preparing, at Hagley, a revised edition of The Seasons with Lyttelton's assistance.

[ocr errors]

1744. New edition of The Seasons, with many alterations and additions. Lyttelton in office: he appoints Thomson SurveyorGeneral of the Leeward Islands-a sinecure post, worth 300l. a year clear. Death of Pope.

1745. His best drama Tancred and Sigismunda produced at Drury Lane, with Garrick as Tancred. At Hagley in the

summer.

1746. Thomson makes way for his friend (and deputy), William Paterson, in the office of Surveyor-General. At Hagley in the autumn. Last edition of The Seasons published in the poet's lifetime. Collins's Odes published.

1747. At Hagley in the autumn. Visits Shenstone at the Leasowes. Busy at Coriolanus (nearly finished in March). 1748. Prince of Wales's displeasure with Lyttelton visited on Lyttelton's friends-Thomson's name struck off pension list. The Castle of Indolence, in May. Death of Thomson, after short illness, at Richmond, August 27th. Buried in Richmond churchyard. Collins's Ode in memory of Thomson—a lasting memorial.

1749. Coriolanus produced, in January-the Prologue by Lyttelton.

1753. Shiels's Life of Thomson (Cibber's Lives of the Poets). 1758. Death of Allan Ramsay.

1759. Birth of Burns.

1762. Murdoch's Memoir of Thomson (prefixed to an edition of Thomson's Works). Monument to Thomson in Westminster Abbey.

1781. Johnson's Life of Thomson (Lives of the Poets). 1791. Burns's Address to the Shade of Thomson. 1792. The Earl of Buchan's Essay on the Life of the Poet Thomson 1831. Biography of Thomson by Sir Harris Nicholas (prefixed to the Aldine Edition of Thomson's Works: annotated by P. Cunningham, 1860).

1842. An edition of The Seasons, with notes by Bolton Corney. 1891. Clarendon Press edition of The Seasons and The Castle

of Indolence, with a biographical notice and full notes by J. Logie Robertson.

1894. Furth in Field (Part IV-Of the poet of The Seasons), by Hugh Haliburton.

1895. James Thomson: Sa Vie et ses Œuvres (678 pp.), by Léon Morel.

1898. James Thomson (in Famous Scots Series), by W. Bayne. 1908. James Thomson (in English Men of Letters Series), by G. C. Macaulay.

[blocks in formation]

These four children were born while their father was minister of Ednam. In the November following the birth of James, the Rev. Thomas Thomson was translated to the parish of Southdean, in the same county as Ednam but on the English border, and five more children were born to him there, viz., a son, John, and four daughters, Jean, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Mary.

II. ON THE MOTHER'S SIDE

Sir John Home of Coldingknowles

(Fourth in descent from the first Baron Home, 1473)

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »