They things terrestrial worship as divine; His hopes, immortal, blow them by as dust That dims his sight, and shortens his survey, Which longs, in infinite, to lose all bound. Titles and honours (if they prove his fate) He lays aside to find his dignity; No dignity they find in aught besides. They triumph in externals (which conceal Man's real glory), proud of an eclipse: Himself too much he prizes to be proud, And nothing thinks so great in man as man. Too dear he holds his interest to neglect Another's welfare, or his right invade: Their interest, like a lion, lives on prey. They kindle at the shadow of a wrong; Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on heaven, Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe.
Nought but what wounds his virtue wounds his peace. A covered heart their character defends; A covered heart denies him half his praise. With nakedness his innocence agrees, While their broad foliage testifies their fall. Their no-joys end where his full feast begins; His joys create, theirs murder future bliss. To triumph in existence his alone; And his alone triumphantly to think His true existence is not yet begun. His glorious course was yesterday complete; Death then was welcome, yet life still is sweet.
Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer: Next day the fatal precedent will plead; Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. If not so frequent, would not this be strange? That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, 'That all men are about to live,' For ever on the brink of being born: All pay themselves the compliment to think They one day shall not drivel, and their pride On this reversion takes up ready praise; At least their own; their future selves applaud; How excellent that life they ne'er will lead ! Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's vails; That lodged in Fate's to wisdom they consign; The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone. 'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool, And scarce in human wisdom to do more. All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage. When young, indeed, In full content we sometimes nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish, As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same. And why because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread: But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where past the shaft no trace is found, As from the wing no scar the sky retains, The parted wave no furrow from the keel, So dies in human hearts the thought of death: E'en with the tender tear which nature sheds O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
[From the Love of Fame.]
Not all on books their criticism waste; The genius of a dish some justly taste, And eat their way to fame! with anxious thought The salmon is refused, the turbot bought. Impatient Art rebukes the sun's delay, And bids December yield the fruits of May. Their various cares in one great point combine The business of their lives, that is, to dine; Half of their precious day they give the feast, And to a kind digestion spare the rest. Apicius here, the taster of the town, Feeds twice a-week, to settle their renown.
These worthies of the palate guard with care In those choice books their panegyrics read, The sacred annals of their bills of fare; And scorn the creatures that for hunger feed; If man, by feeding well, commences great, Much more the worm, to whom that man is meat.
Belus with solid glory will be crowned; He buys no phantom, no vain empty sound, But builds himself a name; and to be great, Sinks in a quarry an immense estate; In cost and grandeur Chandos he'll outdo; And, Burlington, thy taste is not so true; The pile is finished, every toil is past, And full perfection is arrived at last;
When lo my lord to some small corner runs, And leaves state-rooms to strangers and to duns. The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay, Provides a home, from which to run away. In Britain what is many a lordly seat, But a discharge in full for an estate?
Some for renown on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote. To patch-work learned quotations are allied; Both strive to make our poverty our pride.
Let high birth triumph! what can be more great! Nothing-but merit in a low estate.
To Virtue's humblest son let none prefer Vice, though descended from the Conqueror. Shall men, like figures, pass for high or base, Slight or important only by their place? Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title, lies. They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt instead of their discharge.
[The Emptiness of Riches.]
Can gold calm passion, or make reason shine! Can we dig pence or wisdom from the mine? Wisdom to gold prefer, for 'tis much less To make our fortune than our happiness: That happiness which great ones often see, With rage and wonder, in a low degree, Themselves unblessed. The poor are only poor. But what are they who droop amid their store! Nothing is meaner than a wretch of state. The happy only are the truly great. Peasants enjoy like appetites with kings, And those best satisfied with cheapest things. Could both our Indies buy but one new sense, Our would be due to large expense; Since not, those pomps which to the great belong, Are but poor arts to mark them from the throng. See how they beg an alms of Flattery: They languish! oh, support them with a lie! A decent competence we fully taste;
It strikes our sense, and gives a constant feast;
the Cheviots. Here the young poet spent his boyish years. The gift of poesy came early, and some lines written by him at the age of fourteen, show how soon his manner was formed:-
Now I surveyed my native faculties, And traced my actions to their teeming source: Now I explored the universal frame, Gazed nature through, and with interior light Conversed with angels and unbodied saints That tread the courts of the Eternal King! Gladly I would declare in lofty strains The power of Godhead to the sons of men, But thought is lost in its immensity: Imagination wastes its strength in vain, And fancy tires and turns within itself, Struck with the amazing depths of Deity! Ah! my Lord God! in vain a tender youth, Unskilled in arts of deep philosophy, Attempts to search the bulky mass of matter, To trace the rules of motion, and pursue The phantom Time, too subtle for his grasp: Yet may I from thy most apparent works Form some idea of their wondrous Author.1
In his eighteenth year, Thomson was sent to Edin- burgh college. His father died, and the poet pro- ceeded to London to push his fortune. His college friend Mallet procured him the situation of tutor to the son of Lord Binning, and being shown some of his descriptions of Winter,' advised him to connect them into one regular poem. This was done, and 'Winter' was published in March 1726, the poet having received only three guineas for the copy- right. A second and a third edition appeared the same year. Summer' appeared in 1727. In 1728 he issued proposals for publishing, by subscription, the 'Four Seasons;' the number of subscribers, at a guinea each copy, was 387; but many took more The than one, and Pope (to whom Thomson had been introduced by Mallet) took three copies. tragedy of Sophonisba was next produced; and in 1731 the poet accompanied the son of Sir Charles Talbot, afterwards lord chancellor, in the capacity of tutor or travelling companion, to the continent. They visited France, Switzerland, and Italy, and it is easy to conceive with what pleasure Thomson must have passed or sojourned among scenes which he had often viewed in imagination. In November of the same year the poet was at Rome, and no doubt indulged the wish expressed in one of his letters, to see the fields where Virgil gathered his immortal honey, and tread the same ground where men have thought and acted so greatly. On his re- turn next year he published his poem of Liberty, and obtained the sinecure situation of Secretary of Briefs in the Court of Chancery, which he held till the death of Lord Talbot, the chancellor. The succeed-
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 colour, which we recognise 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 1 This curious fragment was first published in 1841, in a life first love remains unaltered; and Thomson is still the poet with whom some of our best and purest of Thomson by Mr Allan Cunningham, prefixed to an illusassociations are indissolubly joined. In the Seasonstrated edition of the 'Seasons."
over the alterations in the 'Seasons,' which Thomson only strikes us by its unwieldy difference from the had been more or less engaged upon for about six-common costume of expression.' Cowper avoided teen years, he would have seen the gradual improve- this want of keeping between his style and his subment of his taste, as well as imagination. So far as jects, adapting one to the other with inimitable ease, the art of the poet is concerned, the last corrected grace, and variety; yet only rising in one or two edition is a new work. The power of Thomson, instances to the higher flights of Thomson. however, lay not in his art, but in the exuberance of In 1843, a Poem to the Memory of Mr Congreve, his genius, which sometimes required to be dis- Inscribed to her Grace Henrietta, Duchess of Marl ciplined and controlled. The poetic glow is spread borough, was reprinted for the Percy Society (under over all. He never slackens in his enthusiasm, nor the care of Mr Peter Cunningham) as a genuine tires of pointing out the phenomena of nature which, though unacknowledged production of Thomson, indolent as he was, he had surveyed under every first published in 1729. We have no doubt of the aspect, till he had become familiar with all. Among genuineness of this poem as the work of Thomson. the mountains, vales, and forests, he seems to realise It possesses all the characteristics of his style-its his own wordsexaggeration, enthusiasm, and the peculiar rhythm of his blank verse. The poet's praise of Congreve is excessive, and must have been designed rather to gratify the Duchess of Marlborough than to record Thomson's own deliberate convictions. Jeremy Collier would have started with amazement from such a tribute as the following:
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 everything 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 hapless 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 genuine impulses under which he wrote he has expressed in one noble stanza of the Castle of Indolence :'-
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 brightening face;
What art thou, Death! by mankind poorly feared, Yet period of their ills. On thy near shore Trembling they stand, and see through dreaded mists The eternal port, irresolute to leave This various misery, these air-fed dreams Which men call life and fame. Mistaken minds! "Tis reason's prime aspiring, greatly just; In quest of nobler worlds; to try the deeps 'Tis happiness supreme, to venture forth Of dark futurity, with heaven our guide, The unerring Hand that led us safe through time: That planted in the soul this powerful hope, This infinite ambition of new life, And endless joys, still rising, ever new.
These Congreve tastes, safe on the ethereal coast, Joined to the numberless immortal quire Of spirits blest. High-seated among these, He sees the public fathers of mankind, Who drew the sword or planned the holy scheme, The greatly good, those universal minds,
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve: For liberty and right; to check the rage Of blood-stained tyranny, and save a world. Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, Such, high-born Marlbro', be thy sire divine And I their toys to the great children leave; With wonder named; fair freedom's champion he, Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave. By heaven approved, a conqueror without guilt; 'The love of nature,' says Coleridge, 'seems to have And such on earth his friend, and joined on high led Thomson to a cheerful religion; and a gloomy By deathless love, Godolphin's patriot worth, religion to have led Cowper to a love of nature. The Just to his country's fame, yet of her wealth one would carry his fellow-men along with him into With honour frugal; above interest great. nature; the other flies to nature from his fellow- Hail men immortal! social virtues hail! men. In chastity of diction, however, and the har- First heirs of praise! But I, with weak essay, mony of blank verse, Cowper leaves Thomson im- Wrong the superior theme; while heavenly choirs, measurably below him; yet, I still feel the latter to In strains high warbled to celestial harps, have been the born poet.' The ardour and fulness Resound your names; and Congreve's added voice of Thomson's descriptions distinguish them from In heaven exalts what he admired below. those of Cowper, who was naturally less enthusias-With these he mixes, now no more to swerve tic, 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 foxhunters' 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 narrations or courtesies of life, the same diction ceases to seem the mantle of inspiration, and
From reason's purest law; no more to please, Borne by the torrent down a sensual age. Pardon, loved shade, that I with friendly blame, Slight note thy error; not to wrong thy worth, Or shade thy memory (far from my soul Be that base aim), but haply to deter, From flattering the gross vulgar, future pens Powerful like thine in every grace, and skilled To win the listening soul with virtuous charms.
The gentle and benevolent nature of Thomson is seen in this slight shade of censure. He, too, flattered the 'gross vulgar,' but it was with adulation, not licentiousness.
We subjoin a few of the detached pictures and descriptions in the 'Seasons,' and part of the Castle of Indolence.'
The north-east spends his rage; he now, shut up Within his iron cave, the 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 either, but by swift degrees, In heaps on heaps the doubled vapour sails Along the loaded sky, and, mingling deep, Sits on the horizon round, a settled gloom; Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed, Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind, And full of every hope, of 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 aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffused 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. Hushed in short suspense, The plumy people streak their wings with oil, To throw the lucid moisture trickling off, And wait the approaching sign, to strike at once Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales, And forests, seem impatient to demand The promised 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 freshened world. The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard By such as wander through the forest-walks, Beneath the umbrageous multitude of leaves.
[Birds Pairing in Spring.]
To the deep woods They haste away, all as their fancy leads, Pleasure, or food, or secret safety, prompts; That nature's great command may be obeyed: Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive Indulged in vain. Some to the holly hedge Nestling repair, and to the thicket some; Some to the rude protection of the thorn Commit their feeble offspring; the cleft tree Offers its kind concealment to a few, Their food its insects, and its moss their nests : Others apart, far in the grassy dale
Or roughening waste their humble texture weave: But most in woodland solitudes delight, In unfrequented glooms or shaggy banks, Steep, and divided by a babbling brook, Whose murmurs soothe them all the live-long day,
When by kind duty fixed. Among the roots Of hazel pendent o'er the plaintive stream, They frame the first foundation of their domes, Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid, And bound with clay together. Now 'tis nought But restless hurry through the busy air, Beat by unnumbered wings. The swallow sweeps The slimy pool, to build his hanging house Intent: and often from the careless back Of herds and flocks a thousand tugging bills Steal hair and wool; and oft, when unobserved, Pluck from the barn a straw; till soft and warm, Clean and complete, their habitation grows. As thus the patient dam assiduous sits, Not to be tempted from her tender task Or by sharp hunger or by smooth delight,
Though the whole loosened spring around her
Her sympathising lover takes his stand High on the opponent bank, and ceaseless sings The tedious time away; or else supplies Her place a moment, while she sudden flits To pick the scanty meal. The appointed time With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young, Warmed and expanded into perfect life, Their brittle bondage break, and come to light; A helpless family! demanding food With constant clamour: O what passions then, What melting sentiments of kindly care, On the new parent seize! away they fly Affectionate, and, undesiring, bear
The most delicious morsel to their young, Which, equally distributed, again
The search begins. Even so a gentle pair, By fortune sunk, but formed of generous mould, And charmed with cares beyond the vulgar breast, In some lone cot amid the distant woods, Sustained alone by providential heaven, Oft as they, weeping, eye their infant train, Check their own appetites, and give them all.
Nor toil alone they scorn; exalting love, By the great Father of the spring inspired, Gives instant courage to the fearful race, And to the simple art. With stealthy wing, Should some rude foot their woody haunts molest, Amid the neighbouring bush they silent drop, And whirring thence, as if alarmed, deceive The unfeeling school boy. Hence around the head Of wandering swain the white-winged plover wheels Her sounding flight, and then directly on, In long excursion, skims the level lawn To tempt him from her nest.
O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless waste The heath-hen flutters: pious fraud! to lead The hot-pursuing spaniel far astray.
[A Summer Morning.]
With quickened step
Brown night retires: young day pours in apace, And opens all the lawny prospect wide. The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn. Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine; And from the bladed field the fearful hare Limps awkward; while along the forest glade The wild-deer trip, and often turning gaze At early passenger. Music awakes The native voice of undissembled joy; And thick around the woodland hymns arise. Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells; And from the crowded fold, in order, drives His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn.
Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees, Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train, In all their pomp attend his setting throne. Air, earth, and ocean smile immense. And now, As if his weary chariot sought the bowers Of Amphitrite, and her tending nymphs, (So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orb; Now half immersed; and now a golden curve Gives one bright glance, then total disappears. Confessed from yonder slow-extinguished clouds, All ether softening, sober evening takes Her wonted station in the middle air; A thousand shadows at her beck.
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