Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/253

 his letters of introduction by a London pickpocket within a few days of his landing at Wapping (27 [?] Feb. 1725). The loss of the documents, tied, according to the traditional story, in a knotted handkerchief, would seem to have been promptly repaired, for Thomson very soon obtained a footing at the houses of Sir Gilbert Elliot, lord Minto [q. v.], and Duncan Forbes (1644?–1704) [q. v.] of Culloden, and also at Montrose House in Hanover Square. Unfortunately, however, his resources were too small to enable him to pay the assiduous court to these gentlemen that the situation required, and at the end of June he was glad to fall back upon the promised aid of a distant kinswoman, Lady Grizel Baillie [q. v.] of Jerviswood (the daughter of Sir Patrick Hume [q. v.]), who procured him a comfortable though unsalaried post as tutor to her grandson, Thomas Hamilton (afterwards seventh Earl of Haddington), the eldest boy of Charles, lord Binning [see, sixth ]. While under the roof of Lord Binning at East Barnet he began to combine some detached fragments of descriptive verse into what became his first notable poem.

The germ of ‘Winter’ may be found in the lines ‘On a Country Life’ written by Thomson before he was twenty, and contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Miscellany’ (see above). The outlines of the implied scheme may have been suggested by Pope's four ‘Pastorals,’ named after the respective seasons. More directly, however, as he himself states, he owed inspiration to a manuscript poem of his friend Riccaltoun on ‘Winter,’ which was published in 1726 in Savage's ‘Miscellany,’ and reprinted in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ of 1740 (p. 256), as corrected ‘by an eminent hand,’ that of Mallet. Subsequently, among other stray pieces of merit by obscure authors, Thomson's ‘Country Life’ was included in Mallet's ‘Works’ (cf. Gent. Mag. 1853, ii. 364–71;, ed. Bell, 1855, ii. 263–4).

As he progressed with his work, Thomson felt the desirability of getting nearer the booksellers and the patrons. His sojourn at East Barnet can have hardly exceeded four months. His desire for a wider circle of acquaintance in the capital was soon gratified. Duncan Forbes was prodigal of introductions to celebrities, including Arbuthnot, Gay, and Pope. Mallet took him into more bohemian circles, and presented him to the notorious Martha Fowke or Fowkes, known to poetical admirers indifferently as ‘Mira’ and as ‘Clio’ (see Bolton Corney in Athenæum, 1859, ii. 78). There is a story that Thomson dwelt with the bookseller John Millan (1702–1784) during 1725; a house numbered 30 Charing Cross is still pointed out as his home during part of the same year (it is figured in, Memorable London Houses, p. 22), while another tradition tells how he frequented the Doves tavern in Hammersmith Mall. In the winter of 1725–6 he paid a visit to Mallet at Twyford, the seat of the Duke of Montrose, in Hampshire. Thomson had been compelled during the summer to ask a loan of 12l. from Cranstoun, and he was again in want of money at Christmas, when he and Mallet induced John Millan to advance 3l. upon ‘Winter’ (cf., Orig. Letters, iii. 27).

In March 1726, under Millan's auspices, appeared ‘Winter, a poem by James Thomson, A.M.’ (London, folio; another edition with additions and commendatory verses by Aaron Hill, Mallet, and ‘Mira,’ 1726, 8vo; reprinted Dublin, 1726). The description of him as ‘A.M.’ was a mistake; the degree was seldom taken by arts students in Thomson's time (see, Hist. of Edinburgh Univ. ii. 238). The work was dedicated to Sir Spencer Compton (Lord Wilmington), who forwarded in the following June a tardy acknowledgment of twenty guineas.

In the meantime the success of the poem was assured. Men of discernment such as Robert Whatley (afterwards prebendary of York), Aaron Hill [q. v.], and that connoisseur of poets, Joseph Spence (see his Essay on the Odyssey), had sung its praises upon every opportunity, while Riccaltoun is stated to have ‘dropped the poem from his hands in an ecstasy of admiration.’ Especially loud in their applause were the two patronesses whom Thomson celebrated with so much warmth in later poems, Frances Seymour, the wife of Algernon, lord Hertford [see under, sixth ], and Sarah, eldest daughter of Sir Hans Sloane and mother of Hans Stanley [q. v.]; while among more influential admirers was soon numbered Thomas Rundle [q. v.] (afterbishop of Derry), who introduced Thomson to his own patron, Charles Talbot (afterwards lord chancellor).

Thomson needed little urging to repeat his experiment, and during 1726, though tied to the town (like a ‘caged linnet,’ as he expressed it) by an appointment as tutor to one of Montrose's sons at an academy in Little Tower Street, he worked hard at ‘Summer,’ which appeared early in 1727 with a dedication to Bubb Dodington (London, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1728). In the same year John Millan published one of the best of Thomson's minor