Where the pure limpid stream has slid along In grateful errors through the under-wood, Sweet murmuring: methought the shrill-tongued thrush Of dress. Oh! then, the longest summer's day Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed, Not to return, how painful the remembrance! Dull grave-thou spoil'st the dance of youthful blood, Strik'st out the dimple from the cheek of mirth, And ev'ry smirking feature from the face; Branding our laughter with the name of madness. Strength too-thou surly, and less gentle boast With greater ease, than e'er thou didst the stripling What groan was that I heard?-deep groan indeed! The strong-built sinewy limbs, and well-spread shoulders? * groan? Sure the last end Of the good man is peace! How calm his exit ! Of the fast-coming harvest. Then, oh then! Nor shall it hope in vain :-The time draws on : Make up the full account; not the least atom Ask not, how this can be? Sure the same pow'r And put them as they were. Thus, at the shut of ev'n, the weary bird Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Cow'rs down, and dozes till the dawn of day, Then claps his well-fledg'd wings, and bears away. JAMES THOMSON was born in the year 1700, at Ednam-a parish of which his father was minister-near Kelso, in the shire of Roxburgh. At a very early age he began to write poetry; and it is said produced many pieces which, after having amused with them his friends and schoolfellows, he had the prudence and the courage to destroy. At the University of Edinburgh, where he received his education, a reproof on the part of the divinity professor, for having written his exercise in a style so "poetically splendid" as to be unintelligible to a popular audience, produced disgust towards a scholastic life, and led him to seek patronage and fame in the English metropolis. In 1725 he arrived in London, and at once found in Mallet, the companion of his boyhood, an able and eager friend--their intimacy endured while they lived, "undisturbed by any casual mistake, envy, or jealousy." By his advice "Winter" was finished, sold for a small sum, and published; but it was neither understood nor appreciated until some time after its appearance. By degrees, however, it gained upon the public; "being of a new kind," says Dr. Johnson, "few would venture at first to like it;" but no sooner did it meet the eye and obtain the approbation of some persons of taste and judgment, who "ran about from place to place celebrating its excellence," than its merits were universally acknowledged, and one edition was speedily succeeded by another. "Summer" was issued in 1727; "Spring" in 1728, and "Autumn" in 1730; meanwhile, however, the tragedy of Sophonisba had been acted, and the poems "Britannia," and "on the Death of Sir Isaac Newton," had appeared. Soon afterwards he was selected by the Lord Chancellor Talbot as travelling tutor to his son, in company with whom he visited most of the European courts. On his return to England he was appointed to a sinecure office in the Court of Chancery, and lived in "ease and plenty," until the death of his patron placed his affairs again "in a poetical posture." The influence of Lord Lyttleton soon obtained for him, however, a more profitable appointment; and his latter days were spent at Richmond, in affluent and elegant retirement. In 1746, he published "the Castle of Indolence"-the most highly finished of all his compositions, and which was "many years under his hand." He died of fever, in 1748, and was buried at Richmond; but a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. Thomson was of stature above the middle size; "more fat than bard beseems;" of a dull countenance, a gross, unanimated and uninviting appearance; silent in mingled company, but cheerful among his friends, by whom he was "very tenderly and warmly beloved." He was naturally sluggish and inactive; the reader of the Castle of Indolence will not fail to recognise the picture he has given of his own character, habits, and feelings. It is however certain that he was "void of envy, guile, and lust of gain;" and that he left for posterity, "No line which dying he could wish to blot." Thomson earned and merited a place among the best and highest of the British poets. "The Seasons" will continue popular as long as the English language shall endure. "He is," says Dr. Johnson, "entitled to one praise of the highest kindhis mode of thinking and of expressing his thoughts is original. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation, He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius. He looks round on nature and on life with the eye which nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes in every thing presented to its view whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute." Place it in any light, and the poem appears faultless-the episodes are delicious stories-the descriptions so accurate as to bear the closest test-the versification richly harmonious, yet always in perfect keeping with the subject--and, above all, the sentiments are so pure, the lessons in virtue so attractive, the "religion" so natural, graceful, and winning, so opposed to bigotry and superstition, that the reader cannot fail to become better and wiser by the perusal of that which produces sensations of the most supreme pleasure. It was his perpetual study "Warm from the heart to pour the moral song." THEN Commerce brought into the public walk The busy merchant; the big warehouse built; Large, gentle, deep, majestic, king of floods! Chose for his grand resort. On either hand, Like a long wintery forest, groves of masts Shot up their spires; the bellying sheet between Steer'd sluggish on; the splendid barge along Row'd, regular, to harmony; around, The boat, light skimming, stretch'd its oary wings; Thy sons of glory many! Alfred thine, In whom the splendour of heroic war, And more heroic peace, when govern'd well, A dauntless soul erect, who smil'd on death. A Drake, who made thee mistress of the deep, |