James Thomson

“ During about thirty years the bulk of the critics pronounced him unintelligible, and the mass of the public ignored him, yet he possessed his soul in patience; but during the last dozen years or so the poor puzzled critics (I mean the professional book-tasters) have treated him with respect if not with understanding, and the poor bewildered public (I mean the small public that reads poetry) has looked into his books, though for the most part with glances of mere despair, yet now he bursts out upon both with almost savage scorn. ”

“ He has accumulated such immense stores of knowledge, and much of it recondite knowledge, of literature, of art, and of things in general; he has gathered such wealth of manifold reflections on some of the abstrusest problems of life, that he appears to be anxious to disburthen himself of as much as possible ere death overtake him, that the treasures of his learning and thought may not perish with him. ”

“ One cannot say that he has no right to be angry, supposing that mere human stupidity ought ever to move to anger; one cannot help thinking that the anger is postdated. It would not have been surprising had he lashed out merrily and fiercely when a fatuous Edinburgh Reviewer, among other choice grievances, complained that he had not rendered the burning of the last Master of the Templars in a pleasing manner! ”