of which he afterwards experienced.  With an honest simplicity of heart, unsuspecting, as unknowing of guilt, he was ten times longer in reaching Hanover-Square, than one less sensible and curious would have been.  When he arrived, he found he had paid for his curiosity; his pocket was picked of his handkerchief, and all the letters that were wrapped up in it.  This accident would have proved very mortifying to a man less philosophical than Thomson; but he was of a temper never to be agitated; he then smiled at it, and frequently made his companions laugh at the relation.

It is natural to suppose, that as soon as Mr. Thomson arrived in town, he shewed to some of his friends his poem on Winter[3].  The approbation it might meet with from them, was not, however, a sufficient recommendation to introduce it to the world.  He had the mortification of offering it to several Booksellers without success, who, perhaps, not being qualified themselves to judge of the merit of the performance, refused to risque the necessary expences, on the work of an obscure stranger, whose name could be no recommendation to it.  These were severe repulses; but, at last, the difficulty was surmounted.  Mr. Mallet, offered it to Mr. Millan, now Bookseller at Charing-Cross, who without making any scruples, printed it.  For some time Mr. Millan had reason to believe, that he should be a loser by his frankness; for the impression lay like as paper on his hands, few copies being sold, ’till by an accident its merit was discovered.[4] One Mr. Whatley, a man of some taste in letters, but perfectly enthusiastic in the admiration of any thing which pleased him, happened to cast his eye upon it, and finding something which delighted him, perused the whole, not without growing astonishment, that the poem should be unknown, and the author obscure.  He learned from the Bookseller the circumstances already mentioned, and, in the extasy of his admiration of this poem, he went from Coffee-house to Coffee house, pointing out its beauties, and calling upon all men of taste, to exert themselves in rescuing one of the greatest geniuses that ever appeared, from obscurity.  This had a very happy effect, for, in a short time, the impression was bought up, and they who read the poem, had no reason to complain of Mr. Whatley’s exaggeration; for they found it so compleatly beautiful, that they could not but think themselves happy in doing justice to a man of so much merit.

The poem of Winter is, perhaps, the most finished, as well as most picturesque, of any of the Four Seasons.  The scenes are grand and lively.  It is in that season that the creation appears in distress, and nature assumes a melancholy air; and an imagination so poetical as Thomson’s, could not but furnish those awful and striking images, which fill the soul with a solemn dread of those Vapours, and Storms, and Clouds, he has so well painted.  Description is the peculiar talent of Thomson; we tremble at his thunder in summer, we shiver with his winter’s cold, and we rejoice at the renovation of nature, by the sweet influence of spring.  But the poem deserves a further illustration, and we shall take an opportunity of pointing out some of its most striking beauties; but before we speak of these, we beg leave to relate the following anecdote.