́est of poets, a more assiduous attention. I am unfeignedly willing to acknowledge, that by the circumscription to which I must submit, more will be lost to my own private satisfaction, than to the information, or entertainment of the publick. Notes, indeed, to the works of true poets, are principally useful when they illustrate facts, which, by a long lapse of time may not be generally known; to such facts there is hardly one allusion in the Seasons; their authour judiciously, never refers you, but to celebrated persons or events. His sentiments, and descriptions are (what poetry should ever be) always perspicuous. The mind is rather distracted than delighted by the poet, whose thoughts, and pictures must be illustrated by frequent annotations:Such a poet is but a Tyro in the divine art; indeed, he deserves not the honourable and distinguishing name, : SUMMER. AMONG the many futile, absurd, and ungenerous passages in JOHNSON'S lives of the poets, is the following remark on the SEASONS." 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.”—I must beg leave to assert that what I have now quoted, is absolute nonsense. Therefore, as it is not entitled to a particular refutation, let it be refuted by the poem which now engages my attention; and which is longer by several hundred lines than the other Seasons. It has all the order, and method that any sensible, and liberal critic; that any reader, except a dry, formal pedant, could wish. The poet surveys, paints, and enforces with a glowing, and animated pencil, with an affecting, and sublime morality, and religion, a Summer's morning, noon, evening, and night, as they succeed one another, in the course of nature (for surely, surely, the many appearances, in any season, do not subsist all at ence). If this is not method, I know not what is. The most admired poems have their episodes, which, by no means, destroy, or confuse, the order of the principal fable. His description of noon is expanded with an interesting picture of the torrid zone, to which he devotes 460 lines. The rich, and ardent colouring of this picture, is congenial with the climate which it represents. If these lines are a digression, they are naturally connected with the main subject; they never lose sight of it; therefore they keep it continually in the mind of the reader. For his moral, and pious apostrophes, originating from his immediate object; for his charming episodes, derived from the same sources, he cannot be reasonably taxed with a neglect of regularity. To point out the particular beauties of his CELADON, and AMELIA; of his DAMON, and MUSIDORA, would be, to affront the good sense, and good sentiments of my readers. They are beautiful tributes to virtue, to piety; to our best affections. They alone evince the falsehood, and the folly of another strange observation of our arbitrary critick ;-" That it does not appear that " he had much sense of the pathetick."-The person who wrote this of THOMSON, must either have lost all remembrance of his authour, when he wrote it; or his own mind must have been ill adapted to sympathize with pathetick writing. The pathetick is one of the leading characteristicks of the Seasons; it inspired the life, and the numbers of this glorious CALEDONIAN poet. What feeling soul can read that letter from bim to his sister, for which we are obliged to Mr. BOSWELL, and to Dr. JOHNSON, without tears! It is of infinitely more value than the life in which it is inserted. I would not do the least deliberate injustice to JOHNSON; he remarks THOMSON'S want of the pathetick (but he remarks it, in general terms, and without restriction) where he is criticising his tragedies. But even when applied to them, the remark is not just. I do not say that he does not often in his dramas throw out a strain of studied eloquence, and declamation, which would have been better substituted by the simple, and concise language of nature;-yet they are in several places, strongly marked with the pathetick :-the whole tenour of his EDWARD and ELEONORA (the acting of which play was prevented by ministerial resentment, and injustice) is eminently pathetick. After having described Summer, and its effects in our fortunate island, he very forcibly, and I think, with great regularity, expatiates on those inestimable blessings which are peculiarly enjoyed by the the inhabitants of BRITAIN: he then pays his tribute of judiciously distinguished eulogy (and certainly with no incoherent deviation from his ruling objects) to those illustrious characters, who have distinguished, and elevated the annals of this country: and he closes the season with a peroration to philosophy, the noble instructor, and guide of life;;—a peroration which is characterized with elegance, and with a fine enthusiasm. All this I beg leave to call regularity, and a beautiful method. What our formidable critick means by telling us that in reading the Seasons, "Memory wants the help of order, and the curiosity is "not excited by suspense or expectation," it is difficult to say. It is so unsubstantial and random a censure that it may be applied, with equal propriety, to the best poem of VIRGIL, or of POPE. To excite that eager, and anxious curiosity, suspense, and expectation, which it is incumbent on the writer of a novel, or of a drama, to raise, did not enter into the plan of the Seasons; yet in reading them, every mind that has a genuine taste for poetry is always warmly interested, and affected, as it goes along; it proceeds with a delightful expectation;-for it expects to meet with most excellent poetry; and it is never disappointed;-with poetry which flows in a natural and easy succession of sentiments, and imagery; by THOMSON lecta potenter erat res; therefore, Nec facundia deserit hunc, nec lucidus ordo. Horace's Art of Poetry; v. 40. According to the edict of JOHNSON, "The diction of THOMSON "is too exuberant, and sometimes may be charged with filling the ear ❝more than the mind." I should be sorry to lose a single expression of that most amiable, and immortal poet; there is not a feeble, not a superfluous word in the Seasons; not a word which does not contribute to inform the mind, to enrich the fancy, or to improve the heart. I have taken this opportunity, with pleasure, to vindicate, in some degree, the transcendent merit, and fame of one of our first poets, from the arbitrary censures of a rude, vulgar, and dogmatical chair. For the liberty which I have taken with a critick, who could never have been deemed an oracle but through the infatuation of prescription, I foresee the strictures with which I am to be assailed, by the stupidity of prejudice, and by the servility of fashion, and imitation, with a calm, and consequently, with a proper contempt. V. 32. "With what an awful world-revolving power," &c. This passage includes a beautiful theology; the first general, and the subsequent immediate, and still active providence of the Deity. Y. 71 V. 71. "To lie in dead oblivion"- —a fine incentive to vigilance; to a moral and intellectual œconomy of time. I lay a particular stress on those passages which inculcate virtue, and piety; from the practice of them alone flows our genuine happiness-and while we practice them, we have lenitives for the worst calamities. V. 285. "Full nature swarms with life." V. 519. Pope's Essay on Man; Ep. 1. v. 233* "These are the haunts of meditation !". Here in forty-two verses are magnificently displayed the great fa culties, and talents of a great poet ;-invention; high moral enthu siasm, and rapture. I cannot deny to myself the pleasure of quoting similar, and very beautiful passage from MILTON; Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, Sole, or responsive each to other's note, Singing their great Creator! oft, in bands, While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk, Paradise Lost; B. iv. 6778 : A shepherd in the AMINTA of TASSO, indulges a strain of senti→ ment, and imagery, congenial with that of THOMSON, and MILTON, to which I now refer. The reader will be pleased to accept it, from my translation of that Italian poem : Together oft we cultivate the muses; And with their scenes enrich our simple life. Oft do the muses, on a beauteous eve, The sky serene, and drowsy nature hushed, And raise our humble minds above their stretch, Amyntas of TASSO; act ist. scene ad, V. 821. V. 821. "Nor less thy world, COLUMBUS," &c. Striking pic tures of the vast American rivers. V. 1070. "Savaged by woe:"-V. 1092. "Lurid grove." Words made by THOMSON. This species of coining offends a mere philologist, when it does not violate the genius of our language; but when it conveys vigorous sense, or sentiment, it gives no offence to a mind susceptible of poetical pleasure. V. 1364. "The clouds, those beauteous robes of heaven, "Incessant rolled into romantic shapes; "The dream of waking fancy! These last expressions very happily convey a very happy thought. "O THOU! by whose almighty nod". V. 1592. An address to the Supreme Being, worthy of a poet, a patriot, and a christian. V. 1620. "For ever running an enchanted round," &c. This passage of seventeen lines, would have sufficient energy to reclaim vice; to banish extravagant luxury, and to substitute virtuous conomy, and universal, and active benevolence in it's place, if inveterate habit, operating on the selfish depravity of human nature, could be subdued by the power of numbers. AUTUMN. Our best judgement, or our unsupported fancy, among these four beautiful Poems, may have supposed a superiour excellence of one to another; though, perhaps, that superiour excellence, cannot, with justice, be determined. The Winter of our authour has, I think, been commonly preferred to his other Seasons; I am not without my respect for publick opinion; though it is frequently, at least for a time, but mere opinion. I own that, after the most careful perusal of these poems, (and they may be read, with a most lively, and animated pleasure, every revolving year) I never could find that any one of them was eminently, or at all distinguished above the rest, by genius, and composition. It is probable that the Winter of THOMSON has I always |