grance of fruit-trees and green fields, the warmth of the sun, the splendor of the moon and stars; but no poet, save the inspired one who wrote the eighth Psalm, attempted, like Thomson, to raise the beauties of nature out of the low regions of sensual delight, and make them objects of moral grandeur and spiritual contemplation. Thomson perceived order, unity, and high meaning in the loveliest as well as the loftiest things: he loved to observe the connection of the animate with the inanimate; the speechless with the eloquent; and all with God. He saw testimony of heavenly intelligence in the swelling sea, the dropping cloud, and the rolling thunder; in earthquake and eclipse; as well as in the presence of Spring on the fields, of Summer on the flowers, of Autumn in her golden harvest, and of Winter in her frosty breath and her purifying tempests.

As the seasons are in nature, so he sung them, and in their proper order. The poet seems not to have erred (in regard to method), as the critic (Dr. Johnson) imagines: he has truly observed the great order of the seasons, and followed the footsteps of Nature, without ascribing to one period of the year what belongs to another; while he has regarded storms and tempests, earthquakes and plagues, as common to all seasons, and mployed them accordingly. His language has been called, by high authorities, swelling and redundant; but Thomson, with other great poets, held that a certain pomp and measured march of words was necessary to elevate verse which sung of the humble toils of the shepherd, the husbandman, and the mechanic; and though Campbell prefers the idiomatic simplicity of Cowper, and Coleridge his chastity of diction, to the unvaried pomp of Thomson, yet both confess their preference of the latter, as a lofty and born poet. I believe this conclusion will be that of all who can feel the power, the glow, and the upward flame-like spirit of his poetry.

From Chambers' Cyclopedia of English Literature the succeeding account of Thomson is selected:

The publication of the "Seasons" was an important era in the history of English poetry. So true and beautiful are the descriptions in the poem, and so entirely do they harmonize with those fresh feelings and glowing impulses which all would wish to cherish, that a love of Nature seems to be synonymous with a love of Thomson. It is difficult to conceive a person of education, imbued with an admiration of rural or woodland scenery, not entertaining a strong affection and regard for that delightful poet, who has painted their charms with so much fidelity and enthusiasm. The same features of blandness and benevolence, of simplicity of design, and beauty of form and color, which we recognize as distinguishing traits of the natural landscape, are seen in the pages of Thomson, conveyed by his artless mind as faithfully as the lights and shades on the face of creation. No criticism or change of style has, therefore, affected his popularity. We may smile at sometimes meeting with a heavy monotonous period, a false ornament, or tumid expression, the result of an indolent mind working itself up to a great effort, and we may wish the subjects of his description were sometimes more select and dignified; but this drawback does not affect our permanent regard or general feeling our first love remains unaltered, and Thomson is still the poet with whom some of our best and purest associations are indissolubly joined. In the "Seasons" we have a poetical subject poetically treated-filled to overflowing with the richest materials of poetry, and the emanations of benevolence. In the "Castle of Indolence" we have the concentration or essence of those materials applied to a subject less poetical, but still affording room for luxuriant fancy, the most exquisite art, and still greater melody of numbers.

The power of Thomson, however, lay not in his art, but in the exuberance of his genius, which sometimes required to be disciplined and controlled. The poetic glow is spread over all.

He never slackens in his enthusiasm, nor tires of pointing out the phenomena of nature, which, indolent as he was, he had surveyed under every aspect till he had become familiar with all. Among the mountains, vales, and forests, he seems to realize his own words

Man superior walks

Amid the glad creation, musing praise,
And looking lively gratitude.

But he looks also, as Johnson has finely observed, "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." He looks also with a heart that feels for all mankind. His sympathies are universal. His touching allusions

to the condition of the poor and suffering, to the helpless state of bird and beast in winter; the description of the peasant perishing in the snow, the Siberian exile, or the Arab pilgrims—all are marked with that humanity and true feeling which shows that the poet's virtues "formed the magic of his song."

The ardor and fulness of Thomson's descriptions distinguish them from those of Cowper, who was naturally less enthusiastic, and who was restricted by his religious tenets, and by his critical and classically formed taste. The diction of the "Seasons" is at times pure and musical; it is too elevated and ambitious, however, for ordinary themes; and where the poet descends to minute description, or to humorous or satirical scenes (as in the account of the chase and fox-hunter's dinner in "Autumn"), the effect is grotesque and absurd. Mr. Campbell has happily said that, "as long as Thomson dwells in the pure contemplation of nature, and appeals to the universal poetry of the human breast, his redundant style comes to us as something venial and adventitious-it is the flowing vesture of the Druid; and perhaps, to the general experience, is rather imposing; but

when he returns to the familiar narratives or courtesies of life, the same diction ceases to seem the mantle of inspiration, and only strikes us by its unwieldy difference from the common costume of expression." Cowper avoided this want of keeping between his style and his subjects, adapting one to the other with inimitable ease, grace, and variety; yet only rising in one or two instances to the higher flights of Thomson.

To no critic upon Thomson's genius, and upon the "Seasons," have I been more largely indebted than to Prof. Wilson (lately the distinguished occupant of the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edin burgh), as will be discovered on reading the notes to this edition. Besides the admirable criticisms from his pen which are there introduced, the following paragraphs will be read with interest and gratification :

Thomson's genius does not-very, very often-though oftendelight us by exquisite minute touches in the description of nature-like that of Cowper. It loves to paint on a great scale— and to dash objects off sweepingly by bold strokes—such, indeed, as have almost always marked the genius of the mighty masters of the lyre, and the rainbow! Cowper sets nature before your eyes-Thomson before your imagination. Which do you prefer? Both. Be assured these poets had pored night and day upon nature, in all her aspects, and that she had revealed herself equally to both. But they, in their religion, delighted in different modes of worship-and both were worthy of the mighty mother. In one mood of mind we love Cowper best; in another, Thomson. Sometimes the "Seasons" are almost a "Task"-and sometimes the Task is out of season. There is a delightful distinctness in all the pictures of the Bard

of Olney; glories gloom or glimmer in most of those of the Bard of Ednam. Cowper paints trees; Thomson, woods. Thomson paints, in a few wondrous lines, rivers from source to sea, like the mighty Burrampooter; Cowper, in many no very wondrous lines, brightens up one bend of a stream, or awakens our fancy to the murmur of some single waterfall.

time. had the

To what era, pray, did Thomson belong; and to what era, Cowper? To none. Thomson had no precursor-and, till Cowper, no follower. He effulged all at once, sun-like—like Scotland's storm-loving, mist-enamored sun, which, till you have seen on a day of thunder, you cannot be said ever to have seen the sun. Cowper followed Thomson merely in We should have had the "Task," even had we never Seasons." These two were "heralds of a mighty train issuing;" add them, then, to the worthies of our own age, and they belong to it,-and all the rest of the poetry of the modern world-to which add that of the ancient-if multiplied by ten in quantity—and by twenty in quality—would not so variously, so vigorously, so magnificently, so beautifully, and so truly image the form and pressure, the life and spirit of the mother of us all-Nature. Are, then, the "Seasons” and the "Task" great poems? Yes. Why? We presume you need not be told that that poem must be great, which was the first to paint the rolling mystery of the Year, and to show that all its seasons were but 66 the varied God." The idea was original and sublime; and the fulfilment thereof so complete, that some six thousand years having elapsed between the creation of the world and of that poem, some sixty thousand, we prophesy, will elapse between the appearance of that poem and the publication of another equally great, on a subject external to the mind, equally magnificent.

Some of the remarks of William Hazlitt, in his Lec