His tragedies _Agamemnon_ and _Edward and Eleanora_ are in the then prevailing taste. They were issued in 1738-39. The latter is of political significance, in that Edward was like Frederick the Prince of Wales--heir apparent to the crown; and some of the passages are designed to strengthen the prince in the favor of the people. The personal life of Thomson is not of much interest. From his first residence in London, he supported, with his slender means, a brother, who died young of consumption, and aided two maiden sisters, who kept a small milliner-shop in Edinburgh. This is greatly to his praise, as he was at one time so poor that he was arrested for debt and committed to prison. As his reputation increased, his fortunes were ameliorated. In 1745 his play _Tancred and Sigismunda_ was performed. It was founded upon a story universally popular,--the same which appears in the episode of _The Fatal Marriage_ in Gil Bias, and in one of the stories of Boccaccio. He enjoyed for a short time a pension from the Prince of Wales, of which, however, he was deprived without apparent cause; but he received the office of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, the duties of which he could perform by deputy; after that he lived a lazy life at his cottage near Richmond, which, if otherwise reprehensible, at least gave him the power to write his most beautiful poem, _The Castle of Indolence_. It appeared in 1748, and was universally admired; it has a rhetorical harmony similar and quite equal to that of the _Lotos Eaters_ of Tennyson. The poet, who had become quite plethoric, was heated by a walk from London, and, from a check of perspiration, was thrown into a high fever, a relapse of which caused his death on the 27th of August, 1748. His friend Lord Lyttleton wrote the prologue to his play of _Coriolanus_, which was acted after the poet's death, in which he says: "--His chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre None but the noblest missions to inspire, Not one immoral, one corrupted thought, _One line which, dying, he could wish to blot_."