James ThomsonJames Thomson was born in Ednam in Roxburghshire around 11 September 1700 and baptised on 15 September. He was the fourth of nine children of Thomas Thomson and Beatrix Thomson (née Trotter).[3] Beatrix Thomson was born in Fogo, Berwickshire and was a distant relation of the house of Hume.
By 1727, Thomson was working on "Summer", published in February, and was working at Watt's Academy, a school for young gentlemen and a bastion of Newtonian science. In the same year Millian published a poem by Thomson titled "A Poem to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton" (who had died in March). Leaving Watt's Academy, Thomson hoped to earn a living through his poetry, helped by his acquiring several wealthy patrons including Thomas Rundle, the countess of Hertford and Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbo.
He wrote "Spring" in 1728 and finally "Autumn" in 1730, when the set of four was published together as The Seasons. During this period he also wrote other poems, such as "To the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton", and his first play, Sophonisba (1730). The latter is best known today for its mention in Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets, where Johnson records that one 'feeble' line of the poem – "O, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O!" was parodied by the wags of the theatre as, "O, Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O!
