CHR. PITT, clerk, M.A.
Very eminent
for his talents in poetry;
and yet more
for the universal candour of
his mind, and the primitive
simplicity of his manners.
He lived innocent;
and died beloved,
Apr. 13, 1748,
aged 48.

-----

[Footnote 159: It has since been added to the collection. R.]

THOMSON.

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[160], inherited, as coheiress, 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 Jedburg,
a place which he delights to recollect in his poem of Autumn; but was
not considered by his master as superiour 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[161].

This rebuke is reported to have repressed