THOMSON'S SEASONS is as eminently a religious, as it is a defcriptive poem. Thoroughly impreffed with sentiments of veneration for the author of that affemblage of order and beauty which it was his province to paint, he takes every proper occafion to excite fimilar emotions in the breasts of his readers. Entirely free from the gloom of superstition and the narrowness of bigotry, he every where represents the Deity as the kind and beneficent parent of all his works, always watchful over their best interests, and from seeming evil ftill educing the greatest pos fible good to all his creatures. In every appearance of nature he beholds the operation of a divine hand; and regards, according to his own emphatical phrafe, each change throughout the revolving year as but the "varied GOD." This fpirit, which breaks forth at intervals in each divifion of his poem, fhines full and con-. centred in that noble bymn which crowns the work. This piece, the fublimeft production of its kind since the days of Milton, should be confidered as the winding up of all the variety of matter and design contained in the preceding parts; and thus is not only admirable as a feparate compofition, but is contrived with mafterly skill to strengthen the unity and connexion of the GREAT WHOLE. THUS is planned and constructed a Poem, which, founded as it is upon the unfading beauties of Nature, will live as long as the language in which it is written fhall be read. If the perufal of it be in any respect rendered more interefting or instructive by this imperfect Effay, the purpose of the writer will be fully answered. THE |
