VISIT TO THE BIRTHPLACE OF JAMES THOMSON, THE AUTHOR OF THE SEASONS.

Southland Times, Issue 870, 23 December 1867, Page 1 (Supplement)

VISIT TO THE BIRTHPLACE OF JAMES THOMSON, THE AUTHOR OF THE SEASONS.

BY JOHN Q. SMITH. (From the " Border Review and Roxburgh Magazine.") Having had occasion to be in " Auld Reekie" a few years ago, I met with a kind and esteemed friend from whom I had received a visit the previous summer. His principal object had been to gain information about the birthplace of Thomson, the author of " The Seasons," and as he had penned a few desultory notts on that subject, he kindly allowed me to peruse and transfer them to the pages of my portfolio. These notes I have now the pleasure of transcribing and presenting in an unmutilated form to the readers of the ! Border Review and Roxburgh Magazine. \ " About Thomson's birthplace," exclaims the reader, " why, everybody, the merest tyro in literature, knows all about it. Who is not conversant with the facts that Thomson's father was a minister of the Parish of Edram, that his gifted son was born in the Manse, and that, inspired with the beauties of the surrounding scenery, he tuned his reed on the sweet hanks of the lovely river Eden, since regarded as classic ground ?" I have read the meagre biography usually prefixed to every stereotyped edition of " The Seasons," but 1 am not satisfied. I have also perused the account of the visit of that renowned literateur, William Howitt, to the birth place of the poet, and I am still not satisfied. Can anyone tell me why this sagacious traveller made his visit to Edram on a Sunday morning ? Of all the days of the week, Sunday is the most unlikely on which to glean information about any event that occurred, or any celebrated individual who lived in the remote past ; and of all people, the rustics who stood around the church door before the hour of service, and who glowered at the appearance of the illustrious stranger, as he moved along the church-yard path, oppressed with the heat of that sultry August morning, were about the last that any man with all his wits about him would have thought of seeking information from. Everybody knows that in a small rural parish it is generally the minister or the schoolmaster who can supply the information desired ; but on the Sabbath even William Howitt was precluded by common decency and a due regard to the sanctities of the day from having intercourse with either. It is proverbially known also that the .people of the border counties are a migratory race, who take no interest whatever in the parish of their temporary sojourn, whose information is confined to the good or bad points of the horses on the different farms, or the merits or demerits of their respective masters, and who would as soon thing of puzzling their brains about the magnetic pole, or the quadrature of the circle, as about any poet past, present, or to come. No wonder that they shook their heads, and that the modicum of information supplied to the querist was nil. Tes, absolutely nil. And in consequence of that little word, with its big meaning, William enters the sacred edifice, " when the bell rings," as the old rhyme says, and expectorates his bile on everybody and everything — tht preacher, the sermon, the doctrine, the place, the people, Presbyterianism in general, but Free Kirks in particular, and, though perhaps not quite so naughty as the folk of Little Dunkeld, " Wha hangit the minister, Drownit the precentor ; Daiig down the Kirk- steeple, And drank the Kirk-bell ;" Yet he seems to have been animated by the same amiable spirit, and if this scene had been enacted when he left the Church that day, it is probable he would have chuckled with supreme satisfaction and delight. (To be continued.)