RECOLLECTIONS OF THOMSON, POPE, LYTTLE

TON, MALLETT, &c.

(By Thomson's hair-dresser.*)

A memorandum of a conversation with Mr. William Taylor, formerly barber and peruke maker, at Richmond, in Surrey, which contains many curious particulars of the poets Thomson, and Pope; Lord Lyttleton; Quin, Mallett, Armstrong, &c. The conversation was held in one of the alcoves on Richmond Green, in September, 1791, at which time, poor Taylor was blind. This alcove was a rural rendezvous for a set of old invalids on nature's infirm list, who met there every afternoon in fine weather to recount and comment on the tales of other times. Taylor said that the late Dr. Dodd had applied to him several years ago for anecdotes and informa

tion relative to Thomson.

When this poet first came to London, he took up his abode with Park Egerton, Millar's predecessor, the bookseller near Whitehall, and

This article, which, we think, cannot fail of exciting considerable interest, we deem it an act of justice to declare is extracted from that agreeable miscellany entitled "THE MIRROR."

finished his poem on Winter in an apartment over the shop. It remained on his shelves a long time unnoticed; but after Thomson began to gain some reputation as a poet, he either went himself, or was taken by Mallett, to Millar in the Strand, with whom he entered into new engagements for printing his works, which so much incensed his first patron, and his countryman also, that they never afterwards were cordially reconciled, although Lord Lyttleton took uncommon pains to mediate between them. The following is a minute of the most important part of the conversation :--

'Mr. Taylor, do you remember any thing of Thomson, who lived in Kew Lane, some years ago?' Thomson, Thomson the poet? Aye, very well. I have taken him by the nose many hundred times; I shaved him, I believe, seven or eight years or more; he had a face as long as a horse; and he perspired so much, that I remember, after walking one day in summer, I shaved his head without lather by his own desire. His hair was as soft as a camel's. I hardly ever felt such; and yet it grew so remarkably, that if it was but an inch long, it stood upright on end from his head like a brush.'-'His

person, I am told, was large and clumsy?' 'Yes; he was pretty corpulent, and stooped forward rather when he walked, as though he was full of thought; he was very careless and negligent about his dress, and wore his clothes remarkably plain.' 'Did he always wear a wig?' 'Always, in my memory, and very extravagant he was with them. I have seen a dozen at a time hanging

up

in my master's shop, and all of them so big that nobody else could wear them. I suppose his perspiring so much made him have so many, for I have known him spoil a new one only in walking to London.'—' He was a great walker, I believe?' 'Yes: he used to walk from Malloch's, at Strand on the Green, near Kew Bridge, and from London, at all hours in the night; he seldom liked to go into a carriage, and I never saw him on horseback. I believe he was too fearful to ride.'-'Had he a Scotch accent?' 'Very broad: he always called me Wull.'—'Did you know any of his relations?' Yes; he had two nephews [cousins?] Andrew and Gilbert Thomson, both gardeners, who were much with him. Andrew used to work in his garden and keep it in order at over hours; he died at Richmond, about eleven years ago, of a cancer in his face. Gilbert,

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his brother, lived at East Sheen with one Squire Taylor, till he fell out of a mulberry tree and was killed.'—'Did T. keep much company?' 'Yes; a good deal of the writing sort. I remember Pope, and Paterson, and Malloch, and Lyttleton, and Dr. Armstrong, and Andrew Millar, the bookseller, who had a house near Thomson's, in Kew Lane. Mr. Robertson (one of the company) could tell you more about them.'-'Did Pope often visit him?' 'Very often; he used to wear a lightcoloured great coat, and commonly kept it on in the house: he was a strange ill-formed little figure of a man; but I have heard him, and Quin and Paterson, talk together so at Thomson's, that I could have listened to them for ever.' -'Quin was frequently there, I suppose?' 'Yes: Mrs. Hobart, his housekeeper, often wished Quin dead, he made his master drink so. I have seen him and Quin coming from the Castle together at four o'clock in the morning; and not over sober, you may be sure. When he was writing in his own house, he frequently sat with a bowl of punch before him, and that a good large one too.'-'Did he sit much in his garden?' 'Yes; he had an arbour at the end of it, where he used to write, in summer time. I have known

him lie along by himself upon the grass near it, and talk away as though three or four people were with him.'-'Did you ever see any of his writings?' I was once tempted, I remember, to take a peep; his papers used to lie in a loose pile upon the table in his study, and I had longed for a look at them a good while: so, one morning, while I was waiting in the room to shave him, and he was longer than usual before he came down, I slipped off the top sheet of paper, and expected to find something very curious, but I could make nothing of it. I could not even read it, for the letters looked all like in one.'-' He was very affable in his manner?' 'O yes! he had no pride; he was very free in his conversation, and very cheerful, and one of the best-natured men that ever lived.'-'He seldom was much burthened with cash?' No, to be sure, he was deuced long-winded; but when he had money, he would send for his creditors and pay them all round; he has paid my master between twenty and thirty pounds at a time.'

'You did not keep a shop yourself at that time?'

No, Sir; I lived with one Lander here, for

twenty years; and it was while I was 'prentice and journeyman with him, that I used to wait