He was also a popular lecturer, and his lectures on
the _Four Georges_, and _The English Humourists of the Eighteenth
Century_, were very successful. He edited the _Cornhill Magazine_
from 1860 until April, 1862, when he relinquished it, continuing however to
write for the Magazine. He died somewhat suddenly on December 24th, 1863,
leaving a novel, _Denis Duval_, unfinished. His inimitably graceful
style, in which he has been excelled by no novelist, may be in part due to
his familiarity with Addison, Steele, Swift and their contemporaries. His
pathos is as touching and sincere as his humour is subtle and delicate. His
fame as a novelist has caused his poems to be somewhat neglected, but his
admirable ballads and society verses attain a degree of excellence rarely
reached by such performances.
THOMSON, JAMES.--A celebrated poet, born in Roxburghshire, Scotland,
September 11th, 1700. He went to London to seek his fortune in 1725, and
his poem of _The Seasons_, published in 1726-30, was an important era
in the history of English poetry, as it marked the revival of the taste for
the poetry of nature.
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