of precarious dependance, in which he paffed the remainder of his life, excepting only the two laft years of it, during which he enjoyed the place of Surveyor General of the Leeward-Islands, procured for him by the generous friendship of my Lord Lyttelton.

Immediately upon his return to England with Mr. Talbot, the Chancellor had made him his Secretary of Briefs, a place of little attendance, fuiting his retired indolent way of life, and equal to all his wants. This place fell with his patron; and although the noble Lord who fucceeded to Lord Talbot in office kept it vacant for fome time, probably till Mr. Thomson should apply for it, he was fo difpirited, and fo liftlefs to every concern of that kind, that he never took one ftep in the affair; a neglect which his best friends greatly blamed in him.

Yet could not his genius be depreffed, or his temper hurt, by this reverfe of fortune. He refumed, with time, his ufual cheerfulnefs, and never abated one article in the way of living, which, though simple, was genial and elegant. The profits arifing from his works were not inconsiderable; his tragedy of Agamemnon, acted in 1738, yielded a good fum; Mr. Millar was always at hand to anfwer, or even to prevent, his demands; and he had a friend or two befides, whose hearts, he knew, were not contracted by the ample fortunes they had acquired, who would of themselves interpofe, if they faw any occafion for it.

But his chief dependence, during this long interval, was on the protection and bounty of his Royal Highness Frederick Prince of Wales, who, upon the recommendation of Lord Lyttelton, then his chief favourite, fettled on him a handsome allowance; and afterwards, when he was introduced to his Royal Highness, that excellent prince, who truly was what Mr. Thomson paints him, "The friend of mankind ❝ and of merit," received him very graciously, and ever after honoured him with many marks of particular favour and confidence: a circumftance which does equal honour to the patron and the poet ought not here to be omitted, that my Lord Lyttelton's recommendation came altogether unfolicited, and long before Mr. Thomson was perfonally known to him. It happened, however, that the favour of his Royal Highness was in one instance of fome prejudice to our Author, in the refusal of a licence for his tragedy of Edward and Eleonora, which he had prepared for the flage in the year 1739. The reader may fee that this play contains not a linewhich could juftlygive offence; but the ministry, ftill fore from certain pasquinades which had lately produced the Stage act, and as little fatisfied with fome parts of the Prince's political conduct, as he was with their management of the public affairs, would not rifque the reprefentation of a piece written under his eye,and,they might probably think, by his command.

This refufal drew after it another, and in a way which, as it is related, was rather ludicrous. Mr. Paterfon, a companion of Mr. Thomson, afterwards his Deputy, and then his fucceffor in the general furveyorfhip, ufed to write out fair copies for his friend, when fuch were wanted for the prefs, or for the stage. This gentleman, likewife, courted the Tragic Mufe,and had taken for his subject the story of Arminius the German hero: but his play, guiltless as it was, being prefented for a licence, no fooner had the Cenfor caft his eyes on the hand-writing in which he had feen Edward and Eleonora, than he cried out, Away with it! and the Author's profits were reduced to what his Bookfeller could afford for a tragedy in distress.

Mr. Thomfon's next dramatic performance was his Mask of Alfred, written jointly with Mr. Mallet, by command of the Prince of Wales, for the entertainment of his Royal Highnefs's court at his fummer-refidence. This piece, with fome alterations, and the mufic new, has been fince brought upon the stage by Mr. Mallet. It was acted at Clifden in the year 1740, on the birth-day of her Royal Highness the Princefs Augufta.

In the year 1745, his Tancred and Sigifmunda, taken from the novel in Gil Blas, was performed with applaufe, and, from the deep romantic diftrefs of the lovers, continues to draw crowded houfes. The fuccels of this piece was indeed infured, from the first,

by Mr. Garrick and Mrs. Cibber, their appearing in the principal characters, which they heighten and adorn with all the magic of their never-failing art.

He had, in the mean time, been finishing his Castle of Indolence, in two canto's. It was, at firft, little more than a few detached stanzas, in the way of raillery on himself, and on fome of his friends, who would reproach him with indolence, while he thought them, at leaft, as indolent as himself: but he faw, very foon, that the subject deserved to be treated more seriously, and in a form fitted to convey one of the most important moral leffons.

The ftanza which he ufes in this work is that of Spenfer, borrowed from the Italian poets, in which he thought rhymes had their proper place, and were even graceful, the compafs of the stanza admitting an agreeable variety of final founds, while the fenfe of the poet is not cramped or cut fhort, nor yet too much dilated, as must often happen when it is parcelled out into rhymed couplets, the ufual measure, indeed, of our elegy and fatire, but which always weakens the higher poetry, and, to a true ear, will fometimes give it an air of the burlesque.

This was the last piece Mr. Thomson himself publifhed, his tragedy of Coriolanus being only prepared for the theatre, when a fatal accident robbed the world of one of the best men and best poets that lived in it. He had always been a timorous horfeman, and

4

more fo in a road where numbers of giddy or unskil ful riders are continually paffing; so that when the weather did not invite him to go by water, he would commonly walk the distance between London and Richmond with any acquaintance that offered, with whom he might chat and reft himself, or perhaps dine, by the way. One fummer evening, being alone, in his walk from town to Hammersmith he had overheated himself, and in that condition imprudently took a boat to carry him to Kew, apprehending no bad confequence from the chill air on the river, which his walk to his house, at the upper-end of Kew-Lane had always hitherto prevented: but now the cold had fo feized him, that next day he found himself in a high fever, fo much the more to be dreaded that he was of a full habit. This, however, by the ufe of proper medicines, was removed, fo that he was thought to be out of danger, till the fine weather having tempted him to expofe himself once more to the evening dews, his fever returned with violence, and with fuch symptoms, as left no hopes of a cure. Two days had passed before his relapfe was known in town; at laft Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Reid, with Dr. Armstrong, being informed of it, pofted out at midnight to his affiftance; but, alas! came only to endure a fight of all others the most fhocking to nature, the last agonies of their beloved friend. This lamented death happened on the 27th day of August 1748.