under his hand, but was at last finished with great accuracy. The first canto opens a scene of lazy luxury, that fills the imagination.

He was now at ease, but was not long to enjoy it; for, by taking cold on the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which terminated in a fever, that put an end to his life, August 27, 1748. He was buried in the church of Richmond; and a monument has been erected to his memory in Westminster-abbey.

Thomson was of stature above the middle size, and 66 more fat than bard beseems;" of a dull countenance, and a gross, unanimated, uninviting appearance; silent in mingled company, but cheerful among select friends, and by his friends very tenderly and warmly beloved.

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He left behind him the tragedy of "Coriolanus," which was, by the zeal of his patron, Sir George Lyttelton, brought upon the stage for the benefit of his family, and recommended by a prologue, which Quin, who had long lived with Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in such a manner shewed him "to be," on that occasion, "no actor." The commencement of this benevolence is very honourable to Quin; who is reported to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest, by a very considerable present: and its continuance is honourable to both; for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation. By this tragedy a considerable sum was

raised, of which, part discharged his debts, and the rest was remitted to his sisters.

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.

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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, how he heard a lady remarking, that she could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was great lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously 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.

The "Seasons" is one of those rare and original productions, in which, at distant intervals in the progress of literature, genius appears to burst forth in distinct individuality of character,` in spite, it may be, of the bad taste or prevailing mediocrity of the period. There is in the human frame a perfect, but indefinable, correspondence which extends to every joint, to the very hair of the

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head: the artificial violation of this harmony is immediately perceptible. Something of this kind exists with respect to the productions of real genius. As models, they will be found exceedingly defective. They would mislead, as much as they defy imitation, But there is in them, as a whole, a certain homogeneousness of expression, which rescues even their faults from impropriety. They please or affect us, not so much by particular qualities of excellence, as by the force of character diffused through the production, and by that Promethean power which the poet appears to possess of making his words glow and breathe with instinctive life. Milton and Thomson, although immeasurably dissimilar, may yet be adduced as two remarkable instances of poets whose chief works have attained an almost equal degree of popularity, and have produced a powerful effect on English literature; and yet, in point of style and diction, they elude all attempts at successful imitation: the one, by a severe majesty of manner which ill befits an inferior subject, or the productions of an inferior mind; the other, the Johnson of poetry, has a gait of natural pomp, which it is mimicry to adopt; the moment it appears to be artificial, it becomes ridiculous.

The causes which have contributed to the universal popularity of this original poem, are, we do not scruple to say, not more its Merits, than its Subject and its Defects. How much is due to the Subject, might be presumed from the circumstance, that this alone of Thomson's poems has main

tained itself in public favour, although, in the opinion of competent critics, it is not his best. Few titles have been found less attractive than "The Poetical Works of James Thomson," at the very time that his "Seasons" are circulating in every form the press can give them. Dr. Johnson's sentence upon "Liberty" and "Britannia" has never been reversed (for once, as a critic, he was just): and even "the Castle of Indolence" is more praised than read. Thomson's subject was a happy one; but what rendered it particularly so, was, that when he wrote, it was a subject altogether open to a poet who wished to succeed by novelty. Spenser was obsolete; Milton had been generally neglected; Addison having then only recently done himself the honour of introducing the Paradise Lost to the notice of the public. With these great exceptions, there existed little descriptive poetry worthy of the name. The principal use which had been made of natural scenery, was, as an eternal storehouse of similes for the inditers of heroics, or of love elegies and madrigals. The absurdities of many of the English town-bred or scholastic verse-men, in what then passed for descriptive poetry, form a standing subject of ridicule. vain shall we look among the works of the best of English poets, from the time of Elizabeth to this period, for any traces of accurate observation, or genuine feeling in reference to the beauties of nature. "From Dryden to Thomson," a very competent authority has remarked, “there is scarcely a rural image drawn from life to be found in any of the English poets except Gay."

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Pope, who in his Windsor Forest seemed to have taken Denham as his model, as if ambitious of excelling in descriptive poetry, discovers much of the same French taste, the same want of native and appropriate feeling, which are chargeable on his predecessors. A poet then had only to copy the every-day beauties of nature, in the language of a genuine lover of nature, to be original. Thomson, partly from early habits, partly perhaps from accident, struck into this path. In his schoolboy days, with Virgil in his hand, he walked abroad, amid scenes sufficient to awaken all the enthusiasm he possessed, which was that of an artist. He saw, as Johnson remarks, every thing with an eye, though he does not appear to have felt every thing with the heart, of a poet. His subject admitted of being treated in that desultory manner which best suited the character of his mind. There was abundant scope for all the diffuseness of sentimental description, and for all the gorgeousness of colouring. Throughout the Seasons, it is to the senses, however, rather than to the heart, that the appeal is made. It is as much a painting as a poem.

As, when Thomson published his Winter, the subject had the advantage of novelty; so the Seasons still preserves its rank, as the first descriptive poem in the language. It is one among the English earliest favourites which serve to awaken a sensibility to the beauties of external nature. We read it with avidity, and perhaps with enthusiasm, at the period when our imagination first begins