at Strand-on-the-Green, to the Doves tavern at Hammersmith, and to visit his friends in town.
During this halcyon period Thomson was working at his most cherished poem. The first part of ‘Liberty’ was published in December 1734; it was followed in 1735 by the second and third, and in 1736 by the fourth and fifth parts. The whole appeared in 1736, together with ‘Sophonisba’ and ‘Britannia,’ forming a second octavo volume uniform with that containing ‘The Seasons.’ It was dedicated to Frederick, prince of Wales, and was well subscribed for by the booksellers; but the public, forewarned by Thomson's previous patriotic essay, ‘Britannia,’ took little interest in it.
The ease he anticipated at Richmond was of short duration. The death of Talbot on 14 Feb. 1737 deprived him of his sinecure. Lord Hardwicke, who succeeded to the woolsack, kept the office open for some time, expecting that Thomson would apply for it; but a combination of pride and indolence restrained him from doing so, and the post was given to another. Thomson may have found satisfaction in the composition of his fine panegyric ‘To the Memory of the Rt. Hon. Lord Talbot,’ in which he took occasion to vindicate his friend Dr. Rundle from the imputation of heresy. In the meantime his income was precarious, though it is probable that during 1738 his second play, ‘Agamemnon,’ brought him in a fair sum. It was acted at Drury Lane on 6 April 1738, with the author's good friend James Quin in the title-part; and two editions appeared during the year, while Thomson had three benefit nights—the third, sixth, and ninth. Pope appeared in a box on the first night, when he was recognised by a round of applause, and the Prince and Princess of Wales commanded the seventh night. The intrinsic merits of the piece hardly justified such attentions.
Fortunately for the poet a more satisfactory source of supplies was secured during 1738. A new but staunch friend and patron, George Lyttelton, first lord Lyttelton [q. v.], introduced Thomson to the Prince of Wales, and ‘his royal highness upon inquiry into the state of his affairs, being pleasantly informed that they were in a more poetical posture than formerly, granted him a pension of 100l. a year’ (Johnson). His connection with the prince involved the rejection of his play ‘Edward and Eleanora’ (founded on an apocryphal episode in the history of Edward I and owing something to Euripides's ‘Alcestis’) in 1739 by the newly appointed censor of plays (under 10 George II, c. 28). It was printed ‘as it was to have been acted’ (London, 1739, 8vo; two Dublin editions, and a French translation by De Barante), but the play was damned as effectually as if it had been performed. It found a vehement panegyrist in John Wesley, who had otherwise a ‘very low opinion of Mr. Thomson's poetical abilities’ (Journal, 1827, iii. 465).
From 1740 dates one of Thomson's most famous compositions—the noble ode known as ‘Rule Britannia,’ destined to be ‘the political hymn of this country as long as she maintains her political power’ (Southey). It first appeared in ‘The Masque of Alfred,’ composed by Dr. Arne, written by Thomson and David Mallet, and performed in the gardens of Cliefden House, Buckinghamshire, at a fête given by Frederick, prince of Wales, on 1 and 2 Aug. 1740. It was already a celebrated song in 1745, when the Jacobites deftly altered the words to suit their own cause, and Handel made use of the air in 1746. ‘The Masque of Alfred,’ altered into an opera, was given at Covent Garden in 1745, and was entirely remodelled by Mallet for Drury Lane in 1751. Thomson's name, however, was retained upon the public advertisements of the opera as author of the ‘Ode’ (presumably ‘Rule Britannia’), and the song appeared with his initials attached to it in the second edition of a well-known song-book, ‘The Charmer’ (Edinburgh, 1752, p. 130). It was not until eleven years after Thomson's death that Mallet, in his collected works (1759, vol. iii.), in an advertisement to a reissue of ‘The Masque of Alfred,’ which included ‘Rule Britannia’ with three stanzas altered, as a note explains, ‘by the late Lord Bolingbroke in 1751,’ remarked with studied vagueness that he had discarded all his collaborator's share in the production with the exception of a few speeches and ‘part of one song’ (see art. David Mallet; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. vol. ii. passim; Saturday Review, 20 Feb. 1897). There is no just ground for doubting Thomson's exclusive responsibility for ‘Rule Britannia.’ M. Morel has demonstrated that it is in effect reconstructed from fragments and echoes of Thomson's previous patriotic poems ‘Britannia’ and ‘Liberty’ (Morel, pp. 584–7).
During the six years from 1738 to 1744 the most serious of Thomson's occupations was the revision of ‘The Seasons.’ In addition to many verbal alterations, and the elimination of a few passages, he enlarged ‘Spring’ from 1087 to 1173 lines, ‘Summer’ from 1206 to 1796, ‘Autumn’ from 1269 to 1375, and ‘Winter’ from 787 to
