Thomsoniana.
To the Editor.
Sir,—I shall be greatly obliged, and there can be no doubt your readers will be considerably interested, by your insertion of the subjoined article in your valuable Table Book. It was copied from the “Weekly Entertainer,” published at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, in the year 1800.
I am, sir,
Yours, very respectfully,
G. H. I.
Memoranda of Mr. Thomson, the poet, collected from Mr. William Taylor, formerly a barber and peruke-maker, at Richmond, Surrey, now blind. September, 1791.
(Communicated by the Earl of Buchan.)
Q. Mr. Taylor, do you remember any thing of Thomson, who lived in Kew-lane some years ago?
A. Thomson?—
Q. Thomson, the poet.
A. Ay, very well. I have taken him by the nose many hundred times. I shaved him, I believe, seven or eight years, or more; he had a face as long as a horse; and he sweated so much, that I remember, after walking one day in summer, I shaved his head without lather by his own desire. His hair was as soft as a camel’s; I hardly ever felt such; and yet it grew so remarkably, that if it was but an inch long, it stood upright an end from his head like a brush. (Mr. Robertson[440] confirmed this remark.)