J.B.
[158] Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. DRYDEN, on Mrs. Killigrew.
[159] The same thought is found in George Whetstone’s epitaph on the good lord Dyer, 1582:
Et semper bonus ille bonis fuit, ergo bonorum
Sunt illi demum pectora sarcophagus.
J.B.
[160] It has since been added to the collection. R.
[161] According to the Biographical Dictionary the name of Thomson’s mother was Beatrix Trotter. Hume was the name of his grandmother. Ed.
[162] See the Life of Beattie, by sir William Forbes, for some additional anecdotes. Ed.
[163] Warton was told by Millan that the book lay a long time unsold on his stall. Ed.
[164] “It was at this time that the school of Pope was giving way: addresses to the head rather than to the heart, or the fancy; moral axioms and witty observations, expressed in harmonious numbers, and with epigrammatick terseness; the limae labor, all the artifices of a highly polished style, and the graces of finished composition, which had long usurped the place of the more sterling beauties of the imagination and sentiment, began first to be lessened in the public estimation by the appearance of Thomson’s Seasons, a work which constituted a new era in our poetry.” Censura Literaria, iv. 280.
[165] An interesting anecdote respecting Thomson’s deportment before a commission, instituted in 1732, for an inquiry into the state of the public offices under the lord chancellor, is omitted by Johnson and all the poet’s biographers. We extract it from the nineteenth volume of the Critical Review, p. 141. “Mr. Thomson’s place of secretary of the briefs fell under the cognizance of this commission; and he was summoned to attend it, which he accordingly did, and made a speech, explaining the nature, duty, and income of his place, in terms that, though very concise, were so perspicuous and elegant, that lord chancellor Talbot, who was present, publicly said he preferred that single speech to the best of his poetical compositions.” The above praise is precisely such as we might anticipate that an old lawyer would give, but it, at all events, exempts the poet’s character from the imputation of listless indolence, advanced by Murdoch, and leaves lord Hardwicke little excuse for his conduct. Ed.