nations. To inspire his fellow-subjects with the like sentiments; and to shew them by what means the precious freedom we enjoy may be preserved, and how it may be abused or lost; he employed two years of his life in composing that noble work: upon which, conscious of the importance and dignity of the subject, he valued himself more than upon all his other writings.
While Mr. Thomson was writing the first Part of Liberty, he received a severe shock, by the death of his noble friend and fellow-traveller: which was soon followed by another that was severer still, and of more general concern; the death of Lord Talbot himself; which Mr. Thomson so pathetically and so justly laments in the poem dedicated to his memory. In him, the nation saw itself deprived of an uncorrupted patriot, the faithful guardian of their rights, on whose wisdom and integrity they had founded their hopes of relief from many tedious vexations: and Mr. Thomson, besides his share in the general mourning, had to bear all the affliction which a heart like his could feel, for the person whom, of all mankind, he most revered and loved. At the same time, he found himself, from an easy competency reduced to a state of precarious dependence, in which he passed the remainder of his life; excepting only the two last years of it, during which he enjoyed the place of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, procured for him by the generous friendship of my Lord Lyttelton.
Immediately upon his return to England with Mr. Talbot, the Chancellor had made him his Secretary of Briefs: a place
