"It is enough," in the words of Voltaire," to think one perceives some errors in this great genius; and it is a sort of consolation to a mind so bounded and limited as mine, to be persuaded, that the greatest men are sometimes deceived like the vulgar."

It would be unpardonable to conclude these remarks on descriptive poesy, without taking notice of the SEASONS of Thomson, who had peculiar and powerful talents for this species of composition. Let the reader, therefore, pardon a digression, if such it be, on his merits and character,

Thomson was blessed with a strong and copious fancy; he hath enriched poetry with a variety of new and original images, which he painted from nature itself, and from his own actual observations: his descriptions have, therefore, a distinctness and truth, which are utterly wanting to those of poets who have only copied from each other, and have never looked abroad on the objects themselves. Thomson was accustomed to wander away into

the

the country for days, and for weeks, attentive to "each rural sight, each rural sound;" while many a poet, who has dwelt for years in the Strand, has attempted to describe fields and rivers, and generally succeeded accordingly. Hence that nauseous repetition of the same circumstances; hence that disgusting impropriety of introducing what may be called a set of hereditary images, without proper regard to the age, or climate, or occasion, in which they were formerly used. Though the diction of the SEASONS is sometimes harsh and inharmo-/ nious, and sometimes turgid and obscure, and though, in many instances, the numbers are not sufficiently diversified by different pauses, yet is this poem, on the whole, from the numberless strokes of nature in which it abounds, one of the most captivating and amusing in our language; and which, as its beauties are not of a transitory kind, as depending on particular customs and manners, will ever be perused with delight. The scenes of Thomson are frequently as wild and romantic as those of Salvator Rosa, varied with precipices and torrents, and "castled cliffs," and deep vallies, with piny

piny mountains, and the gloomiest caverns. Innumerable are the little circumstances in his descriptions, totally unobserved by all his predecessors. What poet hath ever taken notice of the leaf, that, towards the end of autumn,

Incessant rustles from the mournful grove,*
Oft startling such as, studious, walk below,
And slowly circles through the waving air?

Or who, in speaking of a summer evening, hath ever mentioned

The quail that clamours for his running mate?

Or the following natural image at the same time of the year?

Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,
A whitening shower of vegetable down

Amusive floats.+

In what other poet do we find the silence and expectation that precedes an April shower insisted on, as in ver. 165 of SPRING? Or where,

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*Ver. 1004.

+ Ver. 1657.

The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard,
By such as wander through the forest walks,
Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.*

How full, particular, and picturesque, is this assemblage of circumstances that attend a very keen frost in a night of winter!

Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects

A double noise; while at his evening watch
The village dog deters the nightly thief;

The heifer lows; the distant water-fall

Swells in the breeze; and with the hasty tread
Of traveller, the hollow-sounding plain
Shakes from afar.t

In no one subject are common writers more confused and unmeaning, than in their descriptions of rivers, which are generally said only to wind and to murmur, while their qualities and courses are seldom accurately marked. Examine the exactness of the ensuing description, and consider what a perfect idea it communicates to the mind.

Around th' adjoining brook, that purls along

The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock,

Now

* Ver. 176.

+ Winter, ver. 731,

Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool,
Now starting to a sudden stream, and now
Gently diffus'd into a limpid plain;

A various groupe the herds and flocks compose,
Rural confusion.*

A groupe worthy the pencil of Giacomo da Bassano, and so minutely delineated, that he might have worked from this sketch:

On the grassy bank

Some ruminating lie; while others stand
Half in the flood, and often bending sip
The circling surface. -

He adds, that the ox, in the middle of them,

From his sides

The troublous insects lashes, to his sides
Returning still.+

A natural circumstance, that, to the best of my remembrance, hath escaped even the natural Theocritus. Nor do I recollect that any poet hath been struck with the murmurs of the numberless insects that swarm abroad at

*Summer, ver. 479.

+ Summer, ver. 485. et seq.

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