Then, in Spring, page 15, I do not understand what is meant by birds "warbling the varied heart."

There is a striking inaccuracy in the very front and head of these charming poems-in the exordium of Spring. We are astonished that so nice an observer of nature should have permitted such an anachronism to remain, through all the editions he so carefully revised, viz. putting roses into the garland of an English Spring, when she first appears, and in their ripe luxuriance too!

"Veil'd in a shower

Of shadowing roses on our plains descend!"

A proper invocation for Summer, not for Spring. Milton more accurately distinguishes :

"Nor sight of vernal bloom, nor summer's rose."

Certainly the rose is summer's boast, nor ever ripens naturally in our climate till he has attained his strength.

There are some, but not very considerable alterations in the final edition of Spring from the first.

One fine passage, which I had wondered to see expunged, and which begins,-" These are

not idle philosophic dreams," I found judiciously removed into the poem Summer, only the first line changed, and supplied with two or three fine additional ones.

In the description of the eagle, on the 36th page of Spring, I miss, with regret, some lines which highly animated the passage in the earlier composition. The circumstance, whether true or fabulous, of the old eagle teaching the young ones to soar to the sun, forms a sublime picture in motion, which I am sorry to lose. Some expressions are finer in the altered passage of the last edition, and the local situation is more ascertained," but O! but O! the picture is forgot." Compare the two passages.

FIRST EDITION.

"High from the summit of a craggy cliff,
Hung o'er the green sea grudging at its base,
The royal eagle draws his young, resolv'd
To try them at the sun. Strong pounc'd and bright
As burnish'd day, they up the blue sky wind,
Leaving dull sight below, and with fix'd gaze
Drink in their native noon. The father king

Claps his glad pinions, and approves their birth."

LAST EDITION.

"High from the summit of a craggy cliff,
Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns
On utmost Kilda's shore, whose lonely race
Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds,
The royal eagle draws his vigorous young,
Strong pounc'd and ardent with paternal fire,
Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own.
He drives them from his fort, the towering seat
Through ages of his empire; which in peace
Unstain'd he holds, while many a league to sea
He wings his course, and preys in distant isles."

I do not like the expression," amazing frowns," and the mention of the Indian world is superfluous. I think the passages might be blended by the introduction of a few connecting half lines, so as to retain the excellencies of both-thus:

"High from the summit of a craggy cliff,
Hung o'er the ocean, such as sternly frowns
On utmost Kilda's shore, his vigorous young
The royal eagle draws, resolving straight
To try them at the sun. He marks their form,
Strong pounc'd and ardent with paternal fire,
Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own.
He drives them from his fort, the towering seat,
Through ages, of his empire. See they rise,
Wind up the clear blue sky, and with fix'd gaze

Drink in their native noon! The father king
Claps his glad pinions, and approves their birth.
Behold him then resume, in lonely state,
His promontory throne, whence mnay a league
He wings his course, and preys in distant isles."

The pruning hook and the chisel have each, in turn, been well employed, till the description of Hagley and its owners pours in new matter, and gives us a faithful picture of the scene. It supplies the place of a short and immaterial passage, which, in the last edition, is expunged.

For the glance of love, I think the epithet enchanting in the early edition, ill exchanged for smooth in the last. "Torrent-softness" is in both editions but the epithet is uncongenial to the substantive; surely,

"When on his heart the flood of softness pours,"

would have been better.

Nor can I at all like the change in the last edition, where the symptoms of beginning and progressive love are enumerated. Its object, in the earlier poem, is represented amiable, here a treacherous prostitute, and we find a vile prosaic line, unknown to the former:

"Prone into ruin fall his scorn'd affairs."

And the impassioned and devoted tenderness, so well described, suits not the total depravity of its object. The charming eulogium on virtuous love, and connubial bliss, remains in its primeval state, and closes that season.

Alterations crowd upon us in the poem Summer, and with very fine general effect, though there are expressions, and even successive lines expunged in the last edition, which I grieve to part with. For the ephemeral class of insects, the compound epithet " day-living race" is exchanged for the feebler and less appropriate, “ daily-race,” and this musical verse banished,

"The wild embroidery of the watery vale."

Perhaps it is not true that the lesser flies avoid encountering the bee;-else we should deplore the loss of lines which thus faithfully present him to the ear and eye:

"Careful still

To shun the mazes of the sounding bee,
As o'er the blooms he sweeps."

Thomson never lost his odd partiality for the inharmonious words thick and things; they occur perpetually in all the editions, and might generally have been exchanged to advantage.