[166] It is not generally known that in this year an edition of Milton’s Areopagitiea was published by Millar, to which Thomson wrote a preface.
[167] See vol. v. p. 329 of this edition, and Mr. Roscoe’s Life of Pope, for some anecdotes respecting Gay’s Beggars’ Opera and Polly, illustrative of the efficacy of a lord-chamberlain’s interference with the stage. Ed.
[168] Several anecdotes of Thomson’s personal appearance and habits are scattered over the volumes of Boswell. Ed.
[169] For an interesting collection of the various readings of the successive editions of the Seasons, see vols. ii. in. and iv. of the Censura Literaria. Thomson’s own preface to the second edition of Winter may be found in vol. ii. p. 67, of the above-quoted work. Ed.
[170] He took his degrees, A. B. 1696, A. M. 1700.
[171] This ought to have been noticed before. It was published in 1700, when he appears to have obtained a fellowship of St. John’s.
[172] Spence.
[173] Ibid.
[174] The archbishop’s letters, published in 1760, (the originals of which are now in Christ-church library, Oxford,) were collected by Mr. Philips.
[175] At his house in Hanover-street, and was buried in Audley chapel.