Samuel Thomson

Life
1766-1816 [occas. Thompson]; b. 27 May 1766; resided Carngreine, Templepatrick, Co. Antrim; worked as a schoolmaster, and occupied a secluded cottage on the northern side of Lyle Hill; he visited Robert Burns in Scotland, March 1794, and received autograph “Song to Clarinda”; issued Poems on Various Subjects, partly in the Scottish dialect (Belfast 1793); Poems (Belfast 1797); New Poems on avariety of diferent subjects (Belfast 1799); Simple Poems (Belfast 1806); d. 1 June. PI

 

Criticism
James McAleavey , ‘Sam Thompson’ in Bernice Schrank & William Demastes, ed., Irish Playwrights, 1880-1995: A Research and Production Sourcebook (CT: Greenwood Press 1997), pp.367-74;

See also Frank Ferguson, ed., Ulster Scots Writing (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2008), espec. p.12 [His radical sentiments were tempered somewhat by the failure of the United Irish rebellion and compounded by his perception that the rebellion might have ushered in an alternative form of tyranny and atheism that clashed with his deeply held religious convictions.]

 

Commentary
‘His radical sentiments were tempered somewhat by the failure of the United Irish rebellion and compounded by his perception that the rebellion might have ushered in an alternative form of tyranny and atheism that clashed with his deeply held religious convictions. (Frank Ferguson, ed., Ulster Scots Writing, Dublin: Four Courts Press 2008), p.117; quoted in Philip Muldoon, UG Essay, ENG519, UUC, 2011.)

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Quotations
‘Fowk tell how though, sae far frae daft, / When wind-faan fruit be scatted saft, / Will row thysel wi cunning craft / An bear awa / Upon thy back, what fares thee aft / A day or twa.’ (Incl. in Montague, ed., Faber Book of Irish Verse, London: Faber 1974, p.170; quoted in Loreto Todd, The Language of Irish Literature (London: Macmillan 1989, p.97.)

“On a Spider”
Despot like, see where it hings,
The fellest far of creeping things:
How artfully the glewy strings
Enwarpèd are!
To thoughtless insects feet and wings
A fatal snare!
When midges o’ a merry sort,
About the window keep their court,
Their silly freaks, their wanton sport
Gies him nae joy;
His steady aim is out to dart, and then destroy.
 
—Poems on Different Subjects, partly in the Scottish Dialect (1793)

“To a Hedgehog”
Thou grimest far o’ gruesome tykes,
Grubbing thy food by thorny dykes,
Gudefaith thou dinna want for pikes
Baith sharp an’ rauckle;
Though looks (L**d save ’s) array’d in spikes,
A creepin’ heckle.
 
—Rep. in Frank Ferguson, Ulster-Scots Writing (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2008), p.113.

[ The foregoing two poems quoted in Philip Muldoon, UG Essay, ENG519, UUC, 2011. ]

 

References
Anthologies: John Montague, ed., The Faber Book of Irish Verse (London: Faber & Faber 1974), p.170; Frank Ferguson, ed., Ulster Scots Writing (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2008), p.113 [both as supra].

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