He gives his word-then all your hopes are gone : He gives his honour-then you're quite undone. His and some women's love the same are found; You rashly board a fireship, and are drown'd. Most folks so partial to themselves are grown, They hate a temper differing from their own. The grave abhor the gay, the gay the sad, And formalists pronounce the witty mad: The sot, who drinks six bottles in a place, Swears at the flinchers who refuse their glass. Would you not pass for an ill-natured man, Comply with every humour that you can. Pope will instruct you how to pass away Your time like him, and never lose a day; From hopes or fears your quiet to defend, With maps, globes, books, my bottle, and a friend. E'en though the house should pass the Quakers' bill: For life or wealth let Heaven my lot assign, UNIVERSITY THE LIFE OF THOMSON, BY DR. JOHNSON. JAMES THOMSON, the son of a minister well esteemed for his piety and diligence, was born September 7, 1700, at Ednam, in the shire of Roxburgh, of which his father was pastor. His mother, whose name was Hume', inherited as co-heiress a portion of a small estate. The revenue of a parish in Scotland is seldom large; and it was probably in commiseration of the difficulty with which Mr. Thomson supported his family, having nine children, that Mr. Riccarton, a neighbouring minister, discovering in James uncommon promises of future excellence, undertook to superintend his education, and provide him books. He was taught the common rudiments of learning at the school of Jedburgh, a place which he delights to recollect in his poem of Autumn; but was not considered by his master as superior to common boys, though in those early days he amused his patron and his friends with poetical compositions; with which, however, he so little pleased himself, that on every new-year's day he threw into the fire all the productions of the foregoing year. From the school he was removed to Edinburgh, where he had not resided two years when his father died, and left all his children to the care of their mother, who raised upon her little estate what money a mortgage could afford, and, removing with her family to Edinburgh, lived to see her son rising into eminence. The design of Thomson's friends was to breed him a minister. He lived at Edinburgh, as at school, without distinction or expectation, till, at the usual time, he performed a probationary exercise by explaining a psalm. His diction was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, the professor of Divinity, reproved him for speaking language unintelligible to a popular audience; and he censured one of his expressions as indecent, if not profane. This rebuke is reported to have repressed his thoughts of an ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated with new diligence his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some danger of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some who thought themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but, finding 1 His mother's name was Beatrix Trotter. His grandmother's name was Hume. C. |