running very high, Mr. Thomson zealously took part in it; and wrote his poem Britannia, to rouse the nation to revenge. And although this piece is the less read that its subject was but accidental and temporary; the spirited generous sentiments that enrich it, can never be out of season: they will at least remain a monument of that love of his country, that devotion to the Public, which he is ever inculcating as the perfection of virtue, and which none ever felt more pure, or more intense, than himself.
Our author's poetical studies were now to be interrupted, or rather improved, by his attendance on the Honourable Mr. Charles Talbot in his travels. A delightful task indeed! endowed as that young nobleman was by Nature, and accomplished by the care and example of the best of fathers, in whatever could adorn humanity: graceful of person, elegant in manners and address, pious, humane, generous; with an exquisite taste in all the finer arts.
With this amiable companion and friend, Mr. Thomson visited most of the courts and capital cities of Europe; and returned with his views greatly enlarged; not of exterior Nature only, and the works of art, but of human life and manners, of the constitution and policy of the several states, their connexions, and their religious institutions. How particular and judicious his observations were, we see in his poem of Liberty, begun soon after his return to England. We see, at the same time, to what a high pitch his love of his country was raised, by the comparisons he had all along been making of our happy well-poised government with those of other
nations.
