The next stanza (wrote by a friend of the author’s, as the note mentions) is a friendly, though familiar, compliment; it gives us an image of our bard himself, at once entertaining, striking, and just.

STANZA LXVIII.

  A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems,
  Who void of envy, guile, and lust of gain,
  On virtue still, and nature’s pleasing themes,
  Pour’d forth his unpremeditated strain: 
  The world forsaking with a calm disdain. 
  Here laugh’d he, careless in his easy seat;
  Here quaff’d, encircl’d with the joyous train,
  Oft moralizing sage:  his ditty sweet
  He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat.

We shall now consider Mr. Thomson as a dramatic writer.

In the year 1730, about six years after he had been in London, he brought a Tragedy upon the stage, called Sophonisba, built upon the Carthaginian history of that princess, and upon which the famous Nathaniel Lee has likewise written a Tragedy.  This play met with a favourable reception from the public.  Mrs. Oldfield greatly distinguished herself in the character of Sophonisba, which Mr. Thomson acknowledges in his preface.—­’I cannot conclude, says he, without owning my obligations to those concerned in the representation.  They have indeed done me more than justice; Whatever was designed as amiable and engageing in Masinessa shines out in Mr. Wilks’s action.  Mrs. Oldfield, in the character of Sophonisba, has excelled what even in the fondness of an author I could either wish or imagine.  The grace, dignity and happy variety of her action, have been universally applauded, and are truly admirable.’

Before we quit this play, we must not omit two anecdotes which happened the first night of the representation.  Mr. Thomson makes one of his characters address Sophonisba in a line, which some critics reckoned the false pathetic.

  O!  Sophonisba, Sophonisba Oh!

Upon which a smart from the pit cried out,

  Oh!  Jamey Thomson, Jamey Thomson Oh!

However ill-natured this critic might be in interrupting the action of the play for sake of a joke; yet it is certain that the line ridiculed does partake of the false pathetic, and should be a warning to tragic poets to guard against the swelling stile; for by aiming at the sublime, they are often betrayed into the bombast.—­Mr. Thomson who could not but feel all the emotions and sollicitudes of a young author the first night of his play, wanted to place himself in some obscure part of the house, in order to see the representation to the best advantage, without being known as the poet.—­He accordingly placed himself in the upper gallery; but such was the power of nature in him, that he could not help repeating the parts along with the players, and would sometimes whisper to himself, ‘now such a scene is to open,’ by which he was soon discovered to be the author, by some gentlemen who could not, on account of the great crowd, be situated in any other part of the house.