Thomson, James

   1. (1700-1748)

   Scottish poet, the son of a minister, born and raised in Roxburghshire and educated at Jedburgh Grammar School and Edinburgh University, where three of his poems appeared in the Edinburgh Miscellany of 1720. He worked as tutor for several notable figures, including Sir Charles Talbot, then solicitor-general. His collected poetry was published as The Seasons in 1730. He quickly became successful and won favor with Frederick, Prince of Wales, whom he supported politically. He also wrote several plays, including The Tragedy of Sophonisba (1734) and collaborated with David Mallet (see entry) on the masque Alfred, which contained the song "Rule Britannia," first performed at Cliveden, the country home of the Prince and Princess of Wales. He was buried near the font in Richmond parish church, Surrey, and is memorialized by a stone in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. Some of his poems: "For I must sing of all I feel and know," "Liberty," "On Beauty," "On Happiness," "Short is the Doubtful Empire of the Night," "Sunday Up the River," "The Castle of Indolence," "The Doom of a City," "To the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton."

   Sources: An Antholog y of World Poetry. Mark Van Doren, ed. Reynal and Hitchcock, Inc., 1936. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Microsoft Encarta 2006 (DVD). Microsoft Corporation, 2006. Poems of James Thomson. Henry Holt and Company, 1927. Poets of the English Language, Vols. I-V. W.H. Auden and Norman Holmes Pearson, eds. Viking Press, 1950. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Poetical Works of James Thomson. Houghton, Mifflin (no date). Through the Year with the Poets. Oscar Fay Adams, ed. D. Lothrop and Company, 1886. Westminster Abbey Official Guide (no date).

   2. (1834-1882)

   Born at Port Glasgow, as an orphan of an officer in the merchant service he was educated at the Royal Caledonian Asylum, London (see MacKay, Charles). From 1851 to 1862, he was an Army schoolmaster where, in Ireland, he fell in love with beautiful Matilda Weller, whose sudden death in 1853 affected the rest of his life. He made friends with Charles Bradlaugh, the founder of the radical journal National Reformer (1860), for which paper Thomson became a journalist, writing under the pseudonyms "B.V." or "Bysshe Vanolis" (in honor of Shelley and the German poet known as Novalis). From 1866 his life degenerated into heavy drinking, poverty, loneliness, insomnia, and deep pessimism, living in a one-room lodging on Gower Street, London. During this period he wrote his masterpiece, City of Dreadful Night (1874), a great poem of massive structure and profound symbolism. He died in University College Hospital and was buried without any religious ceremony in Highgate Cemetery. Some of his other poems: "A Capstan Chorus," "Robert Burns," "Siren's Song," "Sunday at Hampstead," "The Cypress and the Roses," "The Jolly Veterans," "Withered Leaves."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Microsoft Encarta 2006 (DVD). Microsoft Corporation, 2006. Poems and Some Letters of James Thomson. Anne Ridler, ed. Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1963. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse. John Hayward, ed. Oxford University Press, 1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. Arthur QuillerCouch, ed. Oxford University Press, 1971. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.