Gazette Of The United States, & Daily Advertiser

The following amusing particulars of the life of the Poet Thomson, we have extracted from the London "Star," They are pleasantly told by one, who seems to resemble Partridge in Tom Jones both in his professional and in his chattering capacity.

THOMSON

Memorandum of Thomson, the Poet, collected from Mr William Taylor, formerly a barber and Peruke maker at Richmond, Surrey-now blind, September 1791, by the Earl of Buchan.

Q. Mr. Taylor, do you remember any thing of Thomson, who lived in Kew-lane some years ago? -Thomson.

Q. Thomson, the Poet? -Aye, very well. I have taken him by the nose many hundred times. I shaved him, I believe, seven or eight years, or more; he had a face as long as a horse; and he sweat so much, that I remember, after walking one day in summer, I shaved his head without lather by his own desire. His hair was as soft as a camel's. I hardly ever felt such; and yet it grew so remarkably, that if it was but an inch long, it stood upright an end from his head like a brush. [Mr. Robertson confirmed this remark.]

His person I am told, was large and clumsy? Yes; he was pretty corpulent, and stooped forward rather when he walked, as though he was full of thought he was full of thought; he was very careless and negligent about his dress, and wore his clothes remarkably plain.-[Mr. Robertson, when I read this to him, said, He was clean and yet slovenly, he stooped a good deal.]

Q. Did he always wear a wig? -Always to my memory, and very extravagant he was with them I have seen a dozen at a time hanging up in my master's shop, and all of them so big that nobody else could wear them. I suppose his sweating to such a degree made him have so many, for I have known him spoil a new one only in walking from London.

Q. He was a great walker I believe? Yes; he used to walk from Malloch's [Mallet's] at Strand on the Green near Kew Bridge, and from London, at all hours in the night: he seldom liked to go in a carriage, and I never saw him on horseback. I believe he was too fearful to ride Mr. Robertson said, he could not bear to get upon a horse.]

Q. Had he a Scotch accent? -Very broad; he always called me Wull.

Q. Did you know any of his relations? 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 Squire Taylor, till he fell out of a mulberry tree and was killed.

Q. Did Thomson keep much company: Yes; a good deal of the writing sort. I remember Pope, and Paterson, and Malloch, and Lyttleton, and Dr. Armstrong, and Andrew Miller 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? 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? 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? 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 if 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? I was once tempted, I remember, to take a peep ; his papers used to lie in a loose pile upon the table in his study, and I had longed for a look at them a good while ; so one morning, while I was waiting in the room to have him, and he was longer than usual before he came down I slipped off the top sheet of paper and expected to find something very curious, but I could make nothing of it. I could not even read it for the letters looked like all in one.

Q. He was very affable in his manners? O yes ! he had no pride : he was very free in his conversation and very cheerful, and one of the best natured men that ever lived.

Q. He seldom was much burdened with cash? -No ; to be sure he was deuced long winded ; but when he had money, he would send for his creditors and pay them all round · he has paid my master between 20 and 30l. at a time.

Q. You did not keep a shop yourself then at that time? No Sir : I lived with one Lander here for 20 years, and it was while I was apprentice and journeyman with him that I used to wait on. Mr. Thomson. Lander made his majors and bobs, and a person of the name of Taylor, in Craven-street in the Strand made his tie wigs. And an excellent customer he was to both.

Did you dress any of his visitors ! Yes, Quin and Lyttleton, Sir, George I think he was called. He was so tender faced I remember, and so devilish difficult to have, that none of the men in the shop dared to venture on him except myself. I have often taken Quin by the nose too, which required some courage let me tell you. One day he asked particularly if the razor was in good order, protested he had as many barber's ears in his parlor at home, as any boy had bird's eggs on a string, and swore, if I did not shave him smoothly. he would add mine to the number, " Ah," said Thomson, " Wull shaves very well, I assure you."

Q.. You have seen the Seasons. I suppose? Yes, Sir : and once had a great deal of them by heart (he here quoted a passage from Spring).-Shepherd who formerly kept the Castle Inn, shewed me a book of Thomson's writing' which was about the rebellion in 1745. and set to music, but I think he told me not published. I mentioned this to ['Mr. Robertson, but he thought Taylor had made a small mistake, perhaps it might be some of those patriotic songs in the Masque of Alfred.].

Q. The cause of his death is said to have been taking a boat from Kew to Richmond, when he was much heated by walking? No; I believe he got the better of that ; but having had a batch of drinking with Quin, he took a quantity of cream of tartar, as he frequently did on such occasions, which with a fever before carried him off. Mr. Robertson did not assent to this.

Q. He lived I think in Kew Foot-lane? -Yes; and died there : at the furthest house next Richmond Gardens, now Mr. Boscawen's. He lived some time before at a smaller one higher up, inhabited by Mrs. Davis.

Q. Did you attend on him to the last? Sir, I shaved him the very day before his death : he was very weak, but made a shift to sit up in the bed. I asked him how he found himself that morning? " Ah, Wull," he replied, " I am very bad in deed." [Mr. Robertson told me, he ordered this operation himself, as a refreshment to his friend.]

Taylor concluded by giving a hearty encomium on his character.

This conversation took place at one of the alcoves on Richmond Green, where I accidentally dropped in. I afterwards found it was a rural rendezvous for a set of old invalids on Nature's infirm list, who met there every afternoon in fine weather, to recount and comment on the "tales of other times."

I inquired after Lander, and Mrs. Ho-bart and Taylor of Craven street. but found that none of them were surviving. Mrs. Hobart was thought to have a daughter married in the town called Egerton ; but it was not likely from the distance of time, that she could impart any thing new.

Taylor told me the late Dr. Dodd had applied to him several years ago for anecdotes and information relative to Thomson.

Park Egerton, the bookseller, near Whitehall, tells me, that when Thomson first came to London, he took up his abode with his predecessor Millan, and finished his poem of Winter in the apartment over the shop; that Millan printed, it for him, and it remained on his shelves a long time unnoticed ; but after Thomson began to gain some reputation as a poet, he either went himself, or was taken by Mallet, to Millar in the Strand, with whom he entered into new engagements for printing his works ; which so much incensed Millan, his first patron, and his countryman also, that they never afterwards were cordially reconciled, altho' Lord Lyttleton took uncommon pains to mediate between them.