At this time a long courfe of oppofition to Sir Robert Walpole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the want, and with care for liberty, which was not in danger. Thomfon, in his travels on the continent, found or fancied fo many evils arifing from the tyranny of other governments, that he refolved to write a very long poem, in five parts, upon Liberty.

While he was busy on the first book, Mr. Talbot died; and Thomson, who had been rewarded for his attendance by the place of fecretary of the Briefs, pays in the initial lines a decent tribute to his

memory.

Upon

Upon this great poem two years were fpent, and the author congratulated himself upon it as his nobleft work; but an author and his reader are not always of a mind. Liberty called in vain upon her votaries to read her praises and reward her encomiaft: her praifes were condemned to harbour fpiders, and to gather duft; none of Thomson's performances were fo little regarded.

The judgement of the publick was not erroneous; the recurrence of the fame images must tire in time; an enumeration of examples to prove a pofition which nobody denied, as it was from the beginning fuperfluous, must quickly grow disgusting.

The

The poem of Liberty does not now appear in its original ftate; but when the author's works were collected, after his death, was fhortened by Sir George Lyttelton, with a liberty which, as it has a manifeft tendency to leffen the confidence of fociety, and to confound the characters of authors, by making one man write by the judgement of another, cannot be juftified by any fuppofed propriety of the alteration, or kindness of the friend.I wish it had been exhibited in this Collection as its author left it.

Thomfon now lived in eafe and plenty, and feems for a while to have fufpended his poetry; but he was foon called back to labour by the death of

the Chancellor, for his place then became vacant; and though the lord Hardwicke delayed for fome time to give it away, Thomson's bashfulness, or pride, or fome other motive perhaps not more laudable, withheld him from foliciting; and the new Chancellor would not give him what he would not afk.

He now relapsed to his former indigence; but the prince of Wales was at that time struggling for popularity, and by the influence of Mr. Lyttelton profeffed himself the patron of wit: to him Thomson was introduced, and being gaily interrogated about the state of his affairs, faid, that they were in a more poetical pofture than formerly; and had a

pen

penfion allowed him of one hundred

pounds a year.

Being now obliged to write, he produced (1738) the tragedy of Agamemnon, which was much fhortened in the reprefentation. It had the fate which most commonly attends mythological ftories, and was only endured, but not favoured. It struggled with fuch difficulty through the first night, that Thomson, coming late to his friends with whom he was to fup, excufed his delay by telling them how the sweat of his diftrefs had fo difordered his wig, that he could not come till he had been, refitted by a barber.

He fo interested himself in his own: drama, that, if I remember right, as he