Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/296

560 had unconsciously made a choice for himself, and such a choice as was little in coincidence with the wonted occupations of a country pastor. Instead of submitting to the drudgery of the school-room and the study, the young boy was to be found afield, roaming in quest of the beautiful and the picturesque, for which the banks of the water of Girvan are so justly famed ; and to extend these explorations, he frequently rose at two o'clock in a summer morning, and made a journey of miles, that he might watch the effect of sunrise, as it fell upon different portions of the scenery, or played among the foliage with which the cliffs and hill tops were clothed. What he thus appreciated and admired, he was anxious to delineate, and this he did on pasteboard, paper, or the walls of the house, while his only materials for painting were the ends of burnt sticks, or the snuffings of candles. This was by no means the most hopeful of preparations for the ministry, and so he was told by his father, while he was informed at the same time, that the pulpit was to be his final destination. John at first stood aghast, and then wept at the intelligence. He was already a painter with all his heart and soul, and how then could he be a minister? He even knelt to the old man, and besought him with tears in his eyes to let him follow out his own favourite bent; but the father in reply only patted the boy's head, bidding him be a good scholar, and go to his Latin lessons. In this way, like many Scottish youths of the period, John Thomson, through mistaken parental zeal, was thrust forward towards that most sacred of offices for which, at the time at least, he felt no inclination.

As nothing remained for him but submission, the embryo painter yielded to necessity, and in due time was sent to the university of Edinburgh. There, besides the learned languages, he earnestly devoted his attention to the physical sciences, and became a respectable proficient in astronomy, geology, optics, and chemistry. While in Edinburgh, he lodged with his brother, Thomas Thomson, afterwards the distinguished antiquarian, who was twelve years his senior, and at that time a candidate for the honours of the bar ; and in consequence of this connection, John was frequently brought into the company of Walter Scott, Francis Jeffrey, and other rising luminaries of the literary world, who had commenced their public life as Scottish barristers. It was impossible for the young student to mingle in such society without catching its intellectual inspiration; and he showed its effect by the proficiency he made in the different departments of his university curriculum, as well as the acquisition of general knowledge, and his facility in imparting it. Such was his career during the winter months; but when the return of summer released him from attendance on his classes, he showed his prevailing bent by an escape into the country, where the green earth and the blue sky were the volumes on which he delighted to pore. During the last session of his stay at college, he also attended for a month the lessons in drawing of Alexander Nasmyth, the teacher of so many of our Scottish artists, by whose instructions as well as his own diligent application, he improved himself in the mechanical departments of pictorial art.

Having finished the usual course of theology, John Thomson, at the age of twenty-one, was licensed as a preacher; and his father having died a few months after, he succeeded him as minister of Dailly in 1800. A short time after his settlement as a country clergyman, he married Miss Ramsay, daughter of the Rev. John Ramsay, minister of Kirkmichael, Ayrshire. He had now full inclination (and he took full leisure also) to pursue his favourite bent, and thus, the pencil was as often in his hand as the pen, while the landscapes which he