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THOMPSON, FRANCIS (1860-1907)

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 869 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THOMPSON, See also:FRANCIS (1860-1907) , See also:English poet, was See also:born at See also:Ashton, See also:Lancashire, in r86o. His See also:father, a See also:doctor, became a convert to See also:Roman Catholicism, following his See also:brother See also:Edward See also:Healy Thompson, a friend of See also:Manning. The boy was accordingly educated at Ushaw See also:College, near See also:Durham, and subses quently studied See also:medicine at See also:Owens College, See also:Manchester; but he took no real See also:interest in the profession of a doctor and was See also:bent on See also:literary See also:production. A See also:period of friendlessness and failure (from the point of view of " See also:practical See also:life") followed, in which he became a solitary creature who yet turned his visions of beauty into unrecognized See also:verse. It was not till 1893 that, after some five obscure years, in which he was brought to the lowest depths of destitution and See also:ill See also:health, his poetic See also:genius became known to the public. Through his sending a poem to the See also:magazine Merrie See also:England, he was sought out by Mr and Mrs See also:Wilfrid See also:Meynell and rescued from the See also:verge of See also:starvation and self-destruction, and these See also:friends of his own communion, recognizing the value of his See also:work, gave him a See also:home and procured the publication of his first See also:volume of Poems (1893). His See also:debt to Mrs Meynell was repaid by some of his finest verse. The volume quickly attracted the See also:attention of sympathetic critics, in the St See also:James's See also:Gazette and other quarters, and See also:Coventry See also:Patmore wrote a eulogistic See also:notice in the Fortnightly See also:Review (See also:Jan. 1894). An ardent Roman See also:Catholic, much of Francis Thompson's verse reminded the critics of See also:Crashaw, but the beauty and splendid though often See also:strange inventiveness of his diction were immediately recognized as giving him a See also:place by himself among contemporary poets, recalling See also:Keats and See also:Shelley rather than any of his own See also:day. Persistent ill health limited his literary output, but See also:Sister Songs (1895) and New Poems (1897) confirmed the See also:opinion formed of his remarkable gifts. But his health was hopelessly broken down by See also:tuberculosis.

Cared for by the friends already mentioned, he lived a frail existence, chiefly at the Capuchin monastery at Tanlasapt, and later at Storrington; and on the 13th of See also:

November 1907 he died in See also:London. He had done a little See also:prose journalism, and in 1905 published a See also:treatise on Health and Holiness, dealing with the ascetic life; but it is with his three volumes of poems that his name will be connected. Among his work there is a certain amount which can justly be called See also:eccentric or unusual, especially in his usage of poetically compounded neologisms; but nothing can be purer or more simply beautiful than " The See also:Daisy," nothing more intimate and reverent than his poems about See also:children, or more magnificent than " The See also:Hound of See also:Heaven." For See also:glory of See also:inspiration and natural magnificence of utterance he is unique among the poets of his See also:time. (H.

End of Article: THOMPSON, FRANCIS (1860-1907)

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