A. Yes; he had two nephews, (cousins,) Andrew and Gilbert Thomson, both gardeners, who were much with him. Andrew used to work in his garden, and keep it in order, at over hours; he died at Richmond, about eleven years ago, of a cancer in his face. Gilbert, his brother, lived at East Sheen, with one esquire Taylor, till he fell out of a mulberry-tree and was killed.
Q. Did Thomson keep much company?
A. Yes; a good deal of the writing sort. I remember Pope, and Paterson, and Malloch, and Lyttleton, and Dr. Armstrong, and Andrew Millar, the bookseller, who had a house near Thomson’s, in Kew-lane. Mr. Robertson could tell you more about them.
Q. Did Pope often visit him?
A. Very often; he used to wear a light-coloured great coat, and commonly kept it on in the house; he was a strange, ill-formed, little figure of a man; but I have heard him and Quin, and Paterson, talk together so at Thomson’s, that I could have listened to them for ever.
Q. Quin was frequently there, I suppose?
A. Yes; Mrs. Hobart, his housekeeper, often wished Quin dead, he made her master drink so. I have seen him and Quin coming from the Castle together at four o’clock in a morning, and not over sober you may be sure. When he was writing in his own house, he frequently sat with a bowl of punch before him, and that a good large one too.
Q. Did he sit much in his garden?
A. Yes, he had an arbour at the end of it, where he used to write in summer time. I have known him lie along by himself upon the grass near it, and talk away as though three or four people were along with him. (This might probably be when he was reciting his own compositions.)
Q. Did you ever see any of his writing?