If in Young the genius of the satirist is always apparent, the intellectual temper of English society in the reign of George II.-its sense of material security`; its consequent tendency to contemplate with self-satisfaction the works of Nature and the state of less favoured nations; its indolence; its benevolence; its enjoyment of art and luxury-is more directly reflected in the poetry of James Thomson. In the absence of motives to strenuous action, poetry tended to become descriptive and reflective; and the attention given to the principles of Natural Religion turned imagination aside from the passions of men to trace the mind of God in the order of external Nature. Thomson spoke for many when he said : I solitary court Th' inspiring breeze, and meditate the book Warm from the heart to pour the moral song. From thoughts like these the transition was easy to such didactic reflections, aroused by foreign travel, on the fate of Empires, as are embodied in Liberty; while in The Castle of Indolence we find an expression, not only of the poet's own sluggish temperament, but of the peaceful, contemplative, artistic character of his times. James Thomson was born on 11th September 1700, at Ednam, near Kelso, in Roxburghshire, of which place his father was minister. His mother was Beatrix Trotter, the daughter and co-heiress of a small proprietor of Fogo in Berwickshire, who, by the death of her husband about 1716, was left with straitened means to support a family of nine children. Her brave struggle in these hard circumstances is alluded to by the poet in his Elegy on the Death of his Mother (in 1725): No more the orphan train around her stands, Th' oppressor's scourge, the scorn of wealthy pride, 1 He was himself at the time of his father's death at the University of Edinburgh, preparing for ordination. Having in the course of his probation to expound a psalm, his diction was so ornate that he is said to have been reproved by the professor of Divinity for using language which could not be understood by the people; it seems, however, that Johnson exaggerates when he says that Thomson hence became disgusted with theology, and determined to devote himself to poetry. He had composed in verse from his early boyhood, and he was encouraged by Lady Grizzel Baillie, a friend of his mother, who advised him to try his fortune in London, and promised him assistance. Thomson came there, accordingly, in 1725, bringing with him the disjecta membra of his Winter which he showed to his friend Mallet, who advised him to cast them into a single poem. This he did, and found for his work a publisher in Millan, a bookseller, who undertook the venture in 1726, after several other members of the trade had declined it. It was dedicated to Spencer Compton, but remained unnoticed by him, till his neglect was publicly rebuked by Aaron Hill in a copy of verses addressed to Thomson. Compton then made Thomson a present of twenty guineas, and Winter gradually acquired reputation. Thomson's advance was afterwards rapid. He became a friend of Pope, and his acquaintance was sought, among others, by Rundle, Bishop of Derry, who introduced him to the Solicitor-General, Sir Charles Talbot. In 1727 he published Summer, inscribing it to Bubb Dodington; Spring followed in 1728, under the patronage of the Countess of Hertford, afterwards Duchess of Somerset. Thomson also wrote in 1727 an elegiac poem in memory of Sir Isaac Newton, whose various discoveries he celebrated in the same kind of blank verse that he employed in describing the Seasons. Autumn, the last of this series to be published, appeared in 1730, as part of Thomson's collected works, being dedicated to the Speaker, Onslow. In this year he was engaged by the SolicitorGeneral to travel with his son on the Continent, and 1 Poetical Works of James Thomson (D. C. Tovey), p. xx. the effects of his new experience on his imagination are plainly visible in Liberty, written after his return to England in 1730 and published in 1734. The poem opens with an address to his pupil, to whom he was much attached, and who had died while it was being composed. It was dedicated to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and was largely inspired by the genius of the Opposition, then under the management of Bolingbroke. Thomson had been early brought into this political connection by his friendship with Lyttelton, the Prince's Secretary, and had given expression to his sentiments in Britannia, a poem written in 1727, which, while extolling the blessings of peace, inveighed against Walpole's foreign policy for its failure to assert England's supremacy at sea. He was to some extent a sufferer for his political opinions. Talbot, when made Lord Chancellor, had rewarded him for his tutorship by giving him the sinecure post of Secretary of the Briefs, but he lost this when Lord Hardwick became Lord Chancellor in 1737. The displeasure of the Ministry also curtailed his profits on the stage. His tragedy Sophonisba had been acted before a full house on 28th February 1730, and Agamemnon was produced in 1738, with equal exertion on the part of his patrons, especially of Pope. But Edward and Eleonora-modelled on the Alcestis of Euripides 1-which was to have come upon the stage in 1739, was prohibited on account of the hostility of the censor to Thomson. Being introduced by Lyttelton to the Prince of Wales, and asked about the state of his affairs, Thomson replied that "they were in a more poetical position than formerly,” and in consequence the Prince granted him a pension of £100 | In 1740 he wrote, in co-operation with Mallet, the masque of Alfred, which was acted before the Prince of Wales at Cliefden House on the birthday of the Princess Augusta: in this appeared the song, "Rule Britannia." He appears to have resided at this time in Kew where Frederick held his Court; and the Amanda so frequently mentioned in his poems was a Miss Young, a year. 1 Poetical Works of James Thomson (D. C. Tovey), p. lxv. sister of Mrs. Robertson, the wife of the surgeon to the Prince's Household. After the appearance of Alfred the political atmosphere seems to cool in his work. Tancred and Sigismunda, the most successful of his tragedies, which aims almost entirely at the pathetic, was acted at Drury Lane in 1745, and The Castle of Indolence, published in 1746, is an example of the tendency, then exhibited in many poets, to veil modern sentiments under antique literary forms. Thomson's circumstances, which had seldom been distressing, were now easy. In 1746 Lyttelton, who had come into power, made him Surveyor-General to the Leeward Islands, a place which he was allowed to fill by means of a deputy, and which, after making the necessary deduction, brought him in £300. He had not, however, been long in enjoyment of his new prosperity when he was carried off by a fever on the 27th of August 1748. His body was buried at Richmond Church, but a monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey in 1762, the expense of which was defrayed by the profits arising out of an edition of his works issued by his friend Andrew Millar, the bookseller who had published Spring. Johnson says: "As a writer Thomson is entitled to one praise of the highest kind, his mode of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts is original.” With a certain qualification this judgment may be accepted. Thomson, like all poets of real genius, is, in the best and highest sense of the word "original," that is to say he impresses on whatever he writes the stamp of his individual character. But he is not unique in the way that Donne and Young are unique. His "mode of thinking in The Seasons is partly inspired by Virgil, partly by the Deistical tendencies of the day: 'in the "expression of his thoughts," he directly imitates both Milton and the author of Cider. Liberty, in its sentiment, though not in its form, is an expansion of Addison's Letter to Halifax. The Castle of Indolence is an obvious imitation of Spenser's manner in The Faery Queen. 1 Lives of the Poets: Thomson. حمد The mixture of imaginative elements peculiar to the time is very apparent in The Seasons. Prominent among these is the influence of Deism. Not that Thomson shows any traces of the aggressive anti-Christianity of Tindal and Bolingbroke; but there is a conspicuous absence in his poem of Christian theology; his arguments, wherever these appear, are based on observation of Nature; his sentiments are coloured by the vague idea of the benevolence of God, which a loose-thinking and luxurious society regarded as His main attribute. Thomson moved in the intellectual orbit of Bolingbroke's disciples, and his view of Natural Religion doubtless reflected the creed then held by enthusiastic young men of distinction like Lyttelton. The following passages from the different Seasons will sufficiently indicate the source of his “mode of thinking." In Spring he accounts thus for the power of Love: What is this mighty breath, ye sages, say, That in a powerful language, felt, not heard, Instructs the fowls of heaven; and through their breast These arts of love diffuses? What, but God? Inspiring God! who, boundless spirit all, And unremitting energy, pervades, Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole. Seems not to work with such perfection framed And air, attest his bounty; which exalts The brute creation to this finer thought, And annual melts their undesigning hearts, Profusely thus in tenderness and joy.1 From the light and colour of the Season he rises, in How shall I then attempt to sing of Him, VOL. V 1 The Seasons: Spring, 946-963. X |