live innocently who lives only for his own enjoyment; that to live merely to enjoy ourselves is the highest treason against God and man; that God does not live merely for himself, his eternal existence is one constant work of beneficence; and that it is the social duty of every rational being to live like God, his Creator, for the good of others. Were this law of duty taught faithfully in all our schools, with all its responsibilities, the penalties of its neglect, the ineffable delight of its due discharge, there would be no longer seen that moral monster, the man or woman who lives alone for the mere purpose of selfish enjoyment. That host of gay and idle creatures, who pass through life only to glitter in the circles of fashion, to seek admiration for personal attractions and accomplishments-for dressing, playing, dancing, or riding-whose life is but the life of a butterfly when it should be the life of a man, would speedily disperse, and be no more seen. That life would be shrunk from as a thing odious and criminal, because useless; when faculties, wealth, and fame are put into their hands, and a world is laid before them in which men are to be saved and exalted; misery, crime, shame, despair, and death prevented; and all the hopes and capacities for good in the human soul are to be made easy to the multitude. To live for these objects is to be a hero or a heroine, and any man or woman may be that; to live through this world of opportunities given but once, and to neglect them, is the most fearful fate that can befal a creature of eternal responsibilities. But poets and preachers have proclaimed this great truth for ages; the charge now lies at the door of the educators, and they alone can impress effectually on the world its highest and most inalienable duty, that of living for the good of others.

Amongst those who have used the voice of poetry given them of God to rouse their fellow-men to a life of beneficence, none have done it more zealously or more eloquently than Thomson. For this we pass over here the mere charms of his poetic achievements; over those great pictures which he has painted of the world, and its elements of frosts, tempests, plagues, earthquakes; of the views of active life at home and abroad; the hunter's perils and the hunter's carouse,

"In ghostly halls of grey renown;"

of man roaming the forests of the tropics, or climbing the cliffs of the lonely Hebrides; to notice in this brief article those bursts of eloquent fire in which he calls to godlike deeds,—those of mercy and of goodness. In this respect, as well as in that of mere poetical beauty, his poem of the Castle of Indolence is pre-eminent. Thomson suffered from the seductions of the vile wizard of Indolence, and in his first canto he paints most effectively the horrors of that vice; in the second canto he shows that though he had fallen into the net of sloth, it had not entirely conquered, and it could not corrupt him. He calls with the energy of a martyr on his fellow-men to assume the privileges and glories of men. The Castle of Indolence is as felicitous in its versification as in its sentiments; it is full of harmony, and the spirit of picturesque beauty pervades every line;

there is a manliness of sentiment about it that is worthy of true genius. Such a stanza as this is the seed of independence to the minds of thousands:

"I care not, Fortune! what you me deny :
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her bright'ning face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace

The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve;
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,

And I their toys to the great children leave:

Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave."

The address of the bard of active virtue is worthy of being listened to in every age.

"Ye hapless race!

Dire labouring here to smother Reason's ray,
That lights our Maker's image in our face,
And gives us wide o'er earth unquestion'd sway:
What is the adored Supreme Perfection, say?
What but eternal, never-resting soul,
Almighty power, and all-directing day;

By whom each atom stirs, the planets roll:

Who fills, surrounds, informs, and agitates the whole.

"Come, to the beaming God your hearts unfold!
Draw from its fountain life! 'Tis thence, alone

We can excel. Up from unfeeling mould

To seraphs burning round the ALMIGHTY's throne,
Life rising still on life, in brighter tone,
Perfection forms, and with perfection bliss.
In universal nature this clear shown

Not needeth proof; to prove it were, I wis,

To prove the beauteous world excels the brute abyss.

"It was not by vile loitering in ease,

That Greece obtained the brighter palm of art;
That soft, yet ardent Athens learn'd to please,
To keen the wit, and to sublime the heart,

In all supreme, complete in every part!

It was not thence majestic Rome arose,

And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart:
For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows:
Renown is not the child of indolent repose.

"Had unambitious mortals minded nought,
But in loose joy their time to wear away;
Had they alone the lap of dalliance sought,
Pleased on her pillow their dull heads to lay;
Rude nature's state had been our state to-day;
No cities here their towery fronts had raised,
No arts had made us opulent and gay;

With brother brutes the human race had grazed;

None e'er had soared to fame, none honour'd been, none praised.

"Great Homer's song had never fired the breast

To thirst of glory and heroic deeds;

Sweet Maro's Muse, sunk in inglorious rest,
Had silent slept amid the Mincian reeds;
The wits of modern times had told their beads,

And monkish legends been their only strain;
Our Milton's Eden had lain wrapp'd in weeds;

Our Shakspeare strolled and laugh'd with Warwick swains;
Ne had my master, Spenser, charm'd his Mulla's plains.

"Dumb, too, had been the sage historic muse,
And perished all the sons of ancient fame;
Those starry lights of virtue that diffuse
Through the dark depths of time their vivid flame,
Had all been lost with such as have no name.
Who then had scorn'd his care for others' good?
Who then had toil'd rapacious men to tame?
Who in the public breach devoted stood,

And for his country's cause been prodigal of blood?

"Heavens! can you then thus waste in shameful wise
Your few important days of trial here ?

Heirs of eternity! yborn to rise

Through endless states of being, still more near

To bliss approaching and perfection clear;

Can you renounce a fortune so sublime,

Such glorious hopes, your backward steps to steer,

And roll with vilest brutes through mud and slime?

No! no!-your heaven-touch'd hearts disdain the sordid crime!"

It is a pleasure to find that the spot where these noble sentiments were penned is still preserved sacred to the memory of the poet of truth and virtue. As far as the restless and rapid change of property would permit so near London, the residence of Thomson has been kept from destruction: changed it is, it is true, but that change has been made with a veneration for the muse in the heart of the new inhabitant. The house of Thomson, in what is called Kew-foot-lane at Richmond, as shown in the woodcut at the head of this article, was a simple cottage; behind this lay his garden, and in front he looked down to the Thames, and on the fine landscape beyond. The cottage now appears to be gone, and in the place stands the goodly villa of the Earl of Shaftesbury; the cottage, however, is not really gone, it is only swallowed up in the larger house of the present time. After Thomson's death his cottage was purchased by George Ross, Esq., who, out of veneration for his memory, forbore to pull it down, but enlarged and improved it at the expense of 9,000l. The walls of the cottage were left, though its roof was taken off, and the walls continued upwards to their present height. Thus, what was Thomson's cottage forms now the entrance hall to Lord Shaftesbury's house. The part of the hall on the left hand was the room where Thomson used to sit, and here is preserved a plain mahogany Pembroke table, with a scroll of white wood let into its surface, on which is inlaid, in black letters, this piece of information:

F. B."

"On this table James Thomson constantly wrote. It was therefore purchased of his servant, who also gave these brass hooks, on which his hat and cane were hung in this his sitting room. These initials, F. B., are those of the Hon. Frances Boscawen, the widow of Admiral Boscawen, who came into possession of the property after the death of Mr. Ross, whose name, however, still attaches to it, being called Rossdale, or more commonly, Rosedale, House. Mrs. Boscawen it was who repaired the poet's favourite seat in the garden, and placed there the table on which he wrote his poems; she it was too, no doubt, who hung the inscriptions there, her initials being again found appended to one of them. Her son, Lord Falmouth, sold the place. No brass hooks are now to be seen, that I could discover or learn anything of.

The garden of Thomson, which lay behind the house, has been preserved, in the same manner and to the same extent as his house; the garden and its trees remain, but these now form only part of the present grounds, as the cottage forms only part of the present house. Mr. Ross, when he purchased the cottage and some adjoining grounds, and came to live here after Thomson, not only enlarged the house, but threw down the partition fence, and enlarged the grounds to their present extent. A pleasanter lawn and shrubberies are rarely to be seen; the turf, old and mossy, speaks of long duration and great care; the trees, dispersed beautifully upon it, are of the finest growth and of the greatest beauty. In no part of England are there so many foreign trees as in the grounds of gentlemen's villas near London; in many of them the cedars of Lebanon are of a growth and majesty which probably Lebanon itself cannot now show. In these grounds are some fine specimens, and one of especial and surpassing loveliness; it is the pinus picea, or silver cedar. The growth is broad, like that of the cedar of Lebanon, though its boughs do not throw themselves out in that exact horizontal direction that those of the cedar of Lebanon do; they sweep down to the ground in a style of exquisite grace. Heavy, full of life, rich in hue as masses of chased silver, their effect with the young cones sitting birdlike on them resembles that of some tree of heaven, or of some garden of poetic romance. Besides this superb tree, standing on its ample portion of lawn, there are here the evergreen ilex, hickory, white sassafras, scarlet and Ragland oaks, the tulip-tree, the catalpa, the tupelo, the black American ash, etc. The effect of their large growth, their varied hues and foliage, their fine branches sweeping over the soft velvet turf, is charming; for trees display the effects of breeding and culture quite as much as horses, dogs, or men.

A large elm not far from the house is pointed out as the one under which Thomson's alcove stood; this alcove has, however, been removed to the extremity of the grounds,and stands now under a large Spanish chestnut-tree in the shrubbery. It is a simple wooden construction, with a plain back and two outward sloping sides, a bench running round it within, a roof and boarded floor, so as to be readily removable altogether. It is kept well painted of a dark green, and in it stands an old small walnut table with a drawer which belonged to Thomson. On the front of the alcove overhead is painted, on a white oval tablet—

"Here Thomson sang The Seasons

and their change."

Within the alcove hang three loose boards, on which are painted the following inscriptions:

"Hail, Nature's Foet, whom she taught alone

To sing her works in numbers like her own.
Sweet as the thrush that warbles in the dale,
And soft as Philomela's tender tale;
She lent her pencil, too, of wondrous power,
To catch the rainbow, and to form the flower
Of many mingling hues; and, smiling, said-
But first with laurels crowned her favourite's head-

"Here Thomson dwelt.

He, curious bard, examined every drop

That glistens on the thorn; each leaf surveyed

That Autumn from the rustling forest shakes,

And marked its shape; and traced in the rude wind

Its eddying motion. Nature in his hand

A pencil, dipped in her own colours, placed,
With which he ever faithful copies drew,
Each feature in proportion just."

On a brass tablet in the top of the table in the alcove is inscribed "This table was the property of James Thomson, and always stood in this seat."

Such is the state of the former residence of James Thomson at Richmond. Here, no doubt, he was visited by many of his literary cotemporaries, though it does not appear that Pope, who was so near a neighbour, was of this number. Poets, with advancing years, grow exclusive. Wordsworth, in his old age, said that he read no new poets, but left them to their cotemporaries; so, in the correspondence of Pope, you find no further mention of Thomson, than that "Thomson and some other young men have published lately some creditable things;" and Gray, writing to one of his friends, says"Thomson has just published a poem called 'The Castle of Indolence,' which contains some good stanzas."

The view down to the Thames, and over the country beyond, which he enjoyed, is now much obstructed by the walls, including part of the royal property, on which the Queen has erected her laundry-sending, it seems, all the royal linen, from Windsor, the Isle of Wight, and elsewhere, to be washed and got up here, sufficiently, as one would think, near enough to the smoke of London.