rest was remitted to his sisters, whom, however removed from them by place or condition, he regarded with great tenderness, as will appear by the following letter, which I 'communicate with much pleasure, as it gives nre at once an opportunity of recording the fraternal kindness of Thomson, and reflecting on the friendly assistance of Mr. Boswell, from whom I received it. "MY DEAR SISTER, “Hagley in Worcestershire, October the 4th, 1747. "I thought you had known me better than to interpret my silence into a decay of affection, especially as your behaviour has always been such as rather to increase than diminish it. Don't imagine, because I am a bad correspondent, that I can ever prove an unkind friend and brother. I must do myself the justice to tell you, that my affections are naturally very fixed and constant; and if I had ever reason of complaint against you (of which by the by I have not the least shadow), I am conscious of so many defects in myself, as dispose me to be not a little charitable and forgiving. "It gives me the truest heart-felt satisfaction to hear you have a good, kind husband, and are in easy, contented circumstances; but were they otherwise, that would only awaken and heighten my tenderness towards you. As our good and tender-hearted parents did not live to receive any material testimonies of that highest human gratitude I owed them (than which nothing could have given me equal pleasure), the only return I can make them now is by kindness to those they left behind them. Would to God poor Lizy had lived longer, to have been a farther witness of the truth of what I say, and that I might have had the pleasure of seeing once more a sister who so truly deserved my esteem and love! But she is happy, while we must toil a little longer here below: let us however do it cheerfully and gratefully, supported by the pleasing hope of meeting yet again on a safer shore where to recollect the storms and difficulties of life will not perhaps be inconsistent with that blissful state. You did right to call your daughter by her name for you must needs have had a particular tender friendship for one another, endeared as you were by nature, by having passed the affectionate years of your youth together; and by that great softener and engager of hearts, mutual hardship. That it was in my power to ease it a little, I account one of the most exquisite pleasures of my life. But enough of this melancholy, though not unpleasing strain. I esteem you for your sensible and disinterested advice to Mr. Bell, as you will see by my letter to him; as I approve entirely of his marrying again, you may readily ask me why I don't marry at all. My circumstances have hitherto been so variable and uncertain in this fluctuating world, as induce to keep me from engaging in such a state: and now, though they are more settled, and of late (which you will be glad to hear) considerably improved, I begin to think myself too far advanced in life for such youthful undertakings, not to mention some other petty reasons that are apt to startle the delicacy of difficult old bachelors. I am however not a little suspicious that, was I to pay a visit to Scotland (which I have some thoughts of doing soon), I might possibly be tempted to think of a thing not easily repaired if done amiss. I have always been of opinion, that none make better wives than the ladies of Scotland; and yet, who more forsaken than they, while the gentlemen are continually running abroad all the world over? Some of them, it is true, are wise enough to return for a wife. You see I am beginning to make interest already with the Scots ladies. But no more of this infectious subject.-Pray let me hear from you now and then; and though I am not a regular correspondent, yet perhaps I may mend in that respect. Remember me kindly to your husband, and believe me to be The benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but not active; he would give on all occasions what assistance his purse would supply; but the offices of intervention or solicitation he could not conquer his sluggishness sufficiently to perform. The affairs of others, however, were not more neglected than his own. He had often felt the inconveniencies of idleness, but he never cured it; and was so conscious of his own character that he talked of writing an Eastern Tale of the Man who loved to be in Distress. Among his peculiarities was a very unskilful and inarticulate manner of pronouncing any lofty or solemn composition. He was once reading to Dodington, who, being himself a reader eminently elegant, was so much provoked by his odd utterance, that .he snatched the paper from his hands, and told him that he did not understand his own verses. The biographer of Thomson has remarked, that an author's life is best read in his works: his observation was not well-timed. Savage, who lived much with Thomson, once told me, he heard a lady remarking that she could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was a "great lover, a great swimmer, and rigourously abstinent;" but, said Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was perhaps never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that comes within his reach. Yet Savage always spoke with the most eager praise of his social qualities, his warmth and constancy of friendship, and his adherence to his first acquaintance when the advancement of his reputation had left them behind him. As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. 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. The reader of the Seasons wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson impresses. Thomson's wide His is one of the works in which blank verse seems properly used. expansion of general views, and his enumeration of circumstantial varieties, would have been obstructed and embarrassed by the frequent intersection of the sense, which are the necessary effects of rhyme. His descriptions of extended scenes and general effects bring before us the whole magnificence of Nature, whether pleasing or dreadful. The gaiety of Spring, the splendour of Summer, the tranquillity of Autumn, and the horrour of Winter, take in their turns possession of the mind. The poet leads us through the appearances of things as they are successively varied by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us so much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts expand with his imagery, and kindle with his sentiments. Nor is the naturalist without his part in the entertainment; for he is assisted to recollect and to combine, to range his discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his contemplation. The great defect of the Seasons is want of method; but for this I know not that there was any remedy. Of many appearances subsisting all at once, no rule can be given why one should be mentioned before another; yet the memory wants the help of order, and the curiosity is not excited by suspense or expectation. His diction is in the highest degree florid and luxuriant, such as may be said to be to his images and thoughts "both their lustre and their shade;" such as invest them with splendour, through which perhaps they are not always easily discerned. It is too exuberant, and sometimes may be charged with filling the ear more than the mind. These poems with which I was acquainted at their first appearance, I have since found altered and enlarged by subsequent revisals, as the author supposed his judgement to grow more exact, and as books or conversation extended his knowledge and opened his prospects. They are, I think, improved in general; yet I know not whether they have not lost part of what Temple calls their "race;" a word which, applied to wines in its primitive sense, means the flavour of the soil. Liberty, when it first appeared, I tried to read, and soon desisted. I have never tried again, and therefore will not hazard either praise or censure. The highest praise which he has received ought not to be suppressed; it is said by lord Lyttleton, in the prologue to his posthumous play, that his works contained No line which, dying, he could wish to blot. THE SEASONS, SPRING, 1728. Et nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos, Nunc frondent sylvæ, nunc formosissimus annus. Virg. ARGUMENT. THE subject proposed. Inscribed to the countess of Hertford. The season is described as it affects the various parts of Nature, ascending from the lower to the higher; with digressions arising from the subject. Its influence on inanimate matter, on vegetables, on brute animals, and, last, on man; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind. COME, gentle Spring, ethereal Mildness, come, And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend. O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts With unaffected grace, or walk the plain With innocence and meditation join'd In soft assemblage, listen to my song, Which thy own Season paints; when Nature all Is blooming and benevolent, like thee. And see where surly Winter passes off, Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts: His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale; While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch, Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling year is unconfirm'd, And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day delightless: so that scarce The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulpht To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath, And sing their wild notes to the listening wasto. At last from Aries rolls the bounteous Sun, And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more Th' expansive atmosphere is cramp'd with cold; But, full of life and vivifying soul, [thin, Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them Fleecy and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven. Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfin'd, With measur'd step; and liberal throws the grain Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious man Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough; And o'er your hills, and long withdrawing vales, Let Autumn spread his treasures to the Sun, Luxuriant and unbounded: as the Sea, 1 Far through his azure turbulent domain, Nor only through the lenient air this change, From the moist meadow to the wither'd hill, Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs, And swells, and deepens, to the cherish'd eye. The hawthorn whitens: and the juicy groves Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees, Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd, In full luxuriance to the sighing gales; Where the deer rustle through the twining brake, And the birds sing conceal'd. At once array'd In all the colours of the flushing year, By Nature's swift and secret-working hand, The garden glows, and fills the liberal air With lavish fragrance; while the promis'd fruit Lies yet a little embryo, unperceiv'd Within its crimson folds. Now from the town Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps, Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields, Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk; Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains, And see the country, far diffus'd around, [drops One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower If, brush'd from Russian wilds, a cutting gale ! Be patient, swains; these cruel-seeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repress'd Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharg'd with That, o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne, [rain, In endless train, would quench the summer-blaze, And, cheerless, drown the crude unripened year. The north-east spends his rage; he now shut up Within his iron cave, th' effusive south Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise, Scarce staining ether; but by swift degrees, In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails Along the loaded sky, and mingled deep Sits on th' horizon round a settled gloom: Not such as wintery-storms on mortals shed, Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind, And full of every hope and every joy, The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze Into a perfect calm'; that not a breath Is heard to quiver through the closing woods, Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves Of aspin tall. Th' uncurling floods, diffus'd In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse Forgetful of their course. "Tis silence all," And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye The falling verdure. Hush'd in short suspense, The plumy people streak their wings with oil, To throw the lucid moisture trickling off; And wait th' approaching sign to strike, at once, Into the general choir. Ev'n mountains, vales, And forests seem, impatient, to demand The promis'd sweetness. Man superior walks Amid the glad creation, musing praise, And looking lively gratitude. At last, The clouds consign their treasures to the fields; And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow, In large effusion, o'er the freshen'd world. The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard, By such as wander through the forest walks, Beneath th' unbrageous multitude of leaves. But who can hold the shade, while Heaven descends In universal bounty, shedding herbs, And fruits and flowers, on Nature's ample lap? Swift fancy fir'd anticipates their growth; And, while the milky nutriment distils, Beholds the kindling country colour round. Thus all day long the full-distended clouds Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd earth Is deep-enrich'd with vegetable life; Till, in the western sky, the downward Sun Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam. The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes Th' illumin'd mountain, through the forest streams, Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist, Far smoking o'er th' interminable plain, In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems. Moist,bright,and green,the landscapelaughs around. Full swell the woods; their very music wakes, Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks Increas'd, the distant bleatings of the hills, And hollow lows responsive from the vales, Whenee blending all the sweeten'd zephyr springs. Mean time refracted from yon eastern cloud, Bestriding Earth, the grand ethereal bow Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds, In fair proportion running from the red, To where the violet fades into the sky. Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clands Form, fronting on the Sun, thy showery prisny And to the sage-instructed eye unfold |