lly
unwilling to compound with them, as his brother advised him to do, and
unable to satisfy their demands, he prevailed on them to accept his
notes of hand, payable in four months. When the time was expired, he
found himself, as might have been expected, involved in embarrassments
from which he could devise no means of escaping. His mind was harassed
by bitter reflections on the distress which threatened those whom his
parent had left to his protection; and he was scared by the terrors of a
jail. But they, with whom he had to reckon, were again lenient. He
consoled himself with recollecting that his delinquency had proceeded
from inadvertence, not from design, and resolved to be more sedulous in
future: but had still the weakness to trust for relief to his poem on
Providence. This was soon after published by Dodsley, and, that it might
win for itself such advantages as patronage could give, was sent to Lord
Lyttelton, under the assumed name of William Moore, with a
representation that the author was a youth, friendless and unknown, and
with the offer of a dedication if the poem should be again edited. This
proceeding did not evince much knowledge of mankind. A poet has as
seldom gained a patron as a mistress, by solicitation to which no
previous encouragement has been given. It was more than half a year
before he received an answer from Lyttelton, with just kindness enough
to keep alive his expectations. In the meantime, the friendly offices of
a carpenter in Edinburgh, whose name was Good, had been exerted to save
his property from being seized for rent; but the fear of arrest impelled
him to quit that city in haste; and embarking on board a coal vessel at
Newcastle, he reached London, pennyless, in May, 1763. His immediate
necessities were supplied by remittances from his brothers, and by such
profits as he could derive from writing for periodical publications.
There is no reason to suppose that he was indebted to Lyttelton for more
than the commendation of his genius, and for some criticism on his
poems; and even this favour was denied to the most beautiful among them,
his Elegy on Mary, Queen of Scots. The cause assigned for the exclusion
was, that poetry should not consecrate what history must condemn, a
sacred principle if it he applied to the characters of those yet living,
but of more doubtful obligation as it regards past times. When
Euripides, in one of his dramas, chose to avail himself of a wild and
unauthor