The poetical works of James Thomson ...

MIEMOIR OF THOMSON. Cxi
The " Castle of Indolence " and " Coriolanus"
next occupied his attention; and the former, which
had been in progress for nearly fifteen years, and
was originally intended to consist of a few stanzas
ridiculing his own want of energy and that of
some of his friends, appeared about May, 1748,
and was reprinted in the same year. This was
the last production of his pen which he lived to
print. The sketch of himself is extremely interesting; though he says all, except the first line,
was written by a friend, who is supposed to have
been Mr. Lyttelton:" 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 quaffd encircled with the joyous train,
Oft moralizing sage: his ditty sweet
He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat."
Of the other portraits a few only have been
identified. The sixty-sixth stanza alludes to Mr.
Lyttelton; the sixty-seventh to M3r. Quin; the
sixty-linth has been supposed to describe Dr.
Ayscough, Mr. Lyttelton's brother-in-law, but it
was clearly a picture of Dr. Murdoch, as he applies nearly the same words to him in a letter
printed in this Memoir. Another was, he says,
intended for his friend, Mr. Paterson, the translator of Paterculus, and who was appointed