t appeared, I tried to read, and soon desisted. I
have never tried again, and, therefore, will not hazard either praise or
censure.

The highest praise which he has received ought not to be suppressed; it
is said by lord Lyttelton, in the prologue to his posthumous play, that
his works contained

No line which, dying, he could wish to blot.

-----

[Footnote 160: According to the Biographical Dictionary the name of
Thomson's mother was Beatrix Trotter. Hume was the name of his
grandmother. ED.]

[Footnote 161: See the Life of Beattie, by sir William Forbes, for some
additional anecdotes. ED.]

[Footnote 162: Warton was told by Millan that the book lay a long time
unsold on his stall. ED.]

[Footnote 163: "It was at this time that the school of Pope was giving
way: addresses to the head rather than to the heart, or the fancy; moral
axioms and witty observations, expressed in harmonious numbers, and with
epigrammatick terseness; the _limae labor_, all the artifices of a
highly polished style, and the graces of finished composition, which had
long usurped the place of the more sterling beauties of the imagination
and sentiment, began first to be lessened in the public estimation by
the appearance of Thomson's Seasons, a work which constituted a new era
in our poetry." Censura Literaria, iv. 280.]

[Footnote 164: An interesting anecdote respecting Thomson's deportment
before a commission, instituted in 1732, for an inquiry into the state
of the public offices under the lord chancellor, is omitted by Johnson
and all the poet's biographers. We extract it from the nineteenth volume
of the Critical Review, p. 141. "Mr. Thomson's place of secretary of the
briefs fell under the cognizance of this commission; and he was summoned
to attend it, which he accordingly did, and made a speech, explaining
the nature, duty, and income of his place, in terms that, though very
concise, were so perspicuous and elegant, that lord chancellor Talbot,
who was present, publicly said he preferred that single speech to the
best of his poetical compositions." The above praise is precisely such
as we might anticipate that an old lawyer would give, but it, at all
events, exempts the poet's character from the imputation of listless
indolence, advanced by Murdoch, and leaves lord Hardwicke little excuse
for _his_ conduct. ED.]

[Footnote 165: It is not generally known that in this year an edition of
Milton's Areopagitiea was published by