poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, arę of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius: he looks round on nature and on life with the eye which naturę bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes, in every thing 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. The reader of the 'Seasons' wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson impresses. His is one of the works in which blank verse seems properly used. Thomson's wide expansion of general views, and his enumeration of circumstantial varieties, would have been obstructed and embarrassed by the frequent intersections of the sense, which are the necessary effects of rhyme." His descriptions of extended scenes and general effects, bring before us the whole magnificence of nature, whether pleasing or dreadful. The gaiety of Spring, the splendor of Summer, the tranquillity of Autumn, and the horror of Winter, take in their turns possession of the mind. The poet leads us through the appearances of things, as they are successively varied by the vicissitudes of the year, 4 Xiv LIFE OF THOMSON. and imparts to us so much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts expand with his imagery, and kindle with his sentiments. Nor is the naturalist without his part in the entertainment; for he is assisted to recollect and combine; to arrange his discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his contemplation. His diction is in the highest degree 'florid and luxuriant, such as may be said to be to his images and thoughts' both their lustre and their shade ;' such as invest them with splendor, through which perhaps they are not always easily discerned. It is too exuberant, and sometimes may be charged with filling the ear more than the mind. The highest praise which he has received ought not to be suppressed: it is said by Lord Lyttelton, in the prologue to his posthumous play, that his works contained No line which, dying, he could wish to blot'. |