original." This is no small praise. His descriptions, varying and rising with his subject, are at times magnificent; at other times, they display all the minute accuracy only to be obtained by familiar observation. No one but an angler could have described with so felicitous correctness the fly-fisher's sport in the first Season. There breathes throughout his poem the enthusiasm of the poet of nature: and if we cannot allow that the reader of the Seasons "wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shows him," unless it be a reader unaccustomed to hold converse with the beautiful in the material world, yet he derives a high and more genuine gratification, in finding the scenes he loves described so well.

James Thomson was born at Ednam, in the shire of Roxburg, in 1700. Winter was published in 1726; Summer and Spring in the following years; and Autumn, with his collected works, in 1730. The incidents of his life consisted of the patronage he succeeded in obtaining, and the disappointments he had to encounter. His mother lived to see her son rising into eminence. Through the friendship of Lord Lyttelton, he was established in ease, if not in affluence, when taking cold on the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which, with some careless exasperation, terminated fatally, August 27, 1748. A tablet has been recently placed on the wall of Richmond Church, by the exertions of Mr. Park, in conjunction with Lord Buchan, to denote the place of his interment.

ON CROWNING HIS BUST WITH BAYS.

WHILE virgin Spring, by Eden's flood,
Unfolds her tender mantle green,

Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes Eolian strains between;

While summer with a matron grace
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade,

Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade:

While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his aged head,
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed:

While maniac Winter rages o'er

The hills whence classic Yarrow flows, Rousing the turbid torrent's roar,

Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows:

So long, sweet poet of the year!

Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;

While Scotia, with exulting tear,

Proclaims that THOMSON was her son.

B

BURNS.

The morning dews, and gather in their prime Fresh blooming flowers, to grace thy braided hair.

SPRING.

PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, LONDON.

JAN 1,1825.