Though the old man-servant who had jogged along to Edinburgh with little Jemmy Thomson behind him was astonished, on his return, to find him at home again, yet another attempt must have been more successful, for at the University of Edinburgh he finished his education. The poetic nature, however, convinced him by that time that it was not his vocation to preach the arid notions of Knox, and palm them off as the grand, heart-opening truths of Christianity. His father had died two years after his coming to Edinburgh, leaving his mother with a considerable family, who raised upon her little estate, by mortgage, what she could, and came to reside in Edinburgh. James resolved not to weigh upon her resources longer than needful, but set out for London with his poem of Winter in his pocket. He had introductions to several influential persons, and one of them to Mr. Mallet, then tutor to the sons of the Duke of Montrose. His great want, Dr. Johnson says, on reaching London, was a pair of shoes. To make his calls, these were necessary, and his Winter was his sole resource. It was a wintery one, for he could find no purchaser for it for a long time, and when purchased, it did not for a good while sell. At length it fell under the eye of a Mr. Whatley, who instantly perceived its merit, and zealously spread the information. Thomson was quickly a popular author, and from this time resided chiefly in the neighborhood of London. He made one tour on the Continent as companion to Mr. Talbot, the eldest son of the chancellor. The despotism which he saw abroad induced him to write his poem of Liberty, one of his very worst productions, and which lost him much government preferment; and when the public complained of this, a ministerial writer remarked that "Thomson had taken a _Liberty_ which was not agreeable to _Britannia_ in any _Season_."