has, for a while, borne away by the warmth of fancy, wandered through the flowery wilds of description, he suddenly checks himself, and returns to the toils of the husbandman; so THOMSON, in the midst of his delightful lessons of morality, and affecting relations, recurs to a view of that state of the season which introduced the digression.

It is an attention to this leading idea, that in this piece there is a progressive series of descriptions, all tending to a certain point, and all parts of a general plan, which alone can enable us to range through the vast variety and quick succession of objects presented in it, with any clear conception of the writer's method, or true judgment concerning what may be regarded as forwarding his main purpose, or as merely ornamental deviation. The particular elucidation of this point will constitute the principal part of the present Essay.

Although each of the SEASONS appears to have been intended as a complete piece, and contains within itself the natural order of beginning, middle and termination, yet, as they were at length collected and modelled by their author, they have all a mutual relation to each other, and concur in forming a more comprehensive whole. The annual space in which the earth performs its revolution round the sun is so strongly marked by nature for a perfect period, that all mankind have agreed in forming their computations of time upon it. In all the temperate climates of the globe, the four seasons are so many progressive stages in this circuit, which like the acts in a well-constructed drama, gradually disclose, ripen, and bring to an end the various business transacted on the great theatre of Nature. The striking analogy which this period with its several divisions bears to the course of human existence, has been remarked and pursued by writers of all ages and countries.

Spring has been represented as the youth of the year....the season of pleasing hope, lively energy, and rapid increase. Summer has been resembled to perfect manhood....the season of steady warmth, confirmed strength, and unremitting vigour. Autumn, which, while it bestows the rich products of full maturity, is yet ever hastening to decline, has been aptly compared to that period, when the man, mellowed by age, yields the most valuable fruits of experience and wisdom, but daily exhibits increasing symptoms of decay. The cold, cheerless, and sluggish Winter has almost without a metaphor been termed the decrepid and hoary old age of the year. Thus the history of the year, pursued through its changing seasons, is that of an individual, whose existence is marked by a progressive course from its origin to its termination. It is thus represented by our Poet; this idea preserves an unity and connection through his whole work; and the accurate observer will remark a beautiful chain of circumstances in his description, by which the birth, vigour, decline, and extinction of the vital principle of the year are pictured in the most lively manner.

This order and gradation of the whole runs, as has been already hinted, through each division of the poem. Every season has its incipient, confirmed, and receding state, of which its historian ought to give distinct views, arranged according to the succession in which they appear. Each, too, like the prismatic colours, is indistinguishably blended in its origin and termination with that which precedes, and which follows it; and it may be expected from the pencil of an artist to hit off these mingled shades so as to produce a pleasing and picturesque effect. Our Poet has not been inattentive to these circumstances in the conduct of his plan. His SPRING begins with a view of the season as yet unconfirmed, and partaking of

the roughness of Winter;* and it is not till after several steps in gradual progression, that it breaks forth in all its ornaments, as the favourite of Love and Pleasure. His AUTUMN, after a rich prospect of its bounties and splendours, gently fades into "the sere, "the yellow leaf," and with the lengthened night, the clouded sun, and the rising storm, sinks into the arms of Winter. It is remarkable, that in order to produce something of a similar effect in his SUMMER, a season which, on account of its uniformity of character, does not admit of any strongly-marked gradations, he has comprised the whole of his description within the limits of a single day, pursuing the course of the sun from its rising to its setting. A Summer's day is, in reality, a just model of the entire season. Its beginning is moist and temperate; its middle sultry and parching; its close, soft and refreshing. By thus exhibiting all the vicissitudes of Summer under one point of view, they are rendered much more striking than could have been done in a series of feebly contrasted and scarcely distinguishable periods.

With this idea of the general plan of the whole work, and of its several parts, we proceed to take a view of the various subjects composing the descriptive series of which it principally consists.

Every grand and beautiful appearance in nature, that distinguishes one portion of the annual circuit from another, is a proper source of materials for the Poet of the Seasons. Of these, some are obvious to the common observer, and require only justness and elegance of taste for the selection: others discover

* A descriptive piece, in which this very interval of time is represented, with all the accuracy of a naturalist, and vivid colouring of a poet, has lately appeared in a poem of Mr. Warton's entitled, "The First of April."

themselves only to the mind opened and enlarged by science and philosophy. All the knowledge we acquire concerning natural objects by such a train of observation and reasoning as merits the appellation of science, is comprehended under the two divisions of Natural Philosophy and Natural History. Both of these may be employed to advantage in descriptive poetry: for although it be true, that poetical composition, being rather calculated for amusement than instruction, and addressing itself to the many who feel, rather than to the few who reason, is improperly occupied about the abstruse and argumentative parts of a science; yet, to reject those grand and beautiful ideas which a philosophical view of nature offers to the mind, merely because they are above the comprehension of vulgar readers, is surely an unnecessary degradation of this noble art. Still more narrow and unreasonable is that critical precept, which, in conformity to the received notion that fiction is the soul of poetry, obliges the poet to adopt ancient errors in preference to modern truths; and this even where truth has the advantage in point of poetical effect. In fact, modern philosophy is as much superior to the ancient in sublimity as in solidity; and the most vivid imagination cannot paint to itself scenes of grandeur equal to those which cool science and demonstration offer to the enlightened mind. Objects so vast and magnificent as planets rolling with even pace through their orbits, comets rushing along their devious track, light springing from its inexhausted source, mighty rivers formed in their subterranean beds, do not require, or even admit, a heightening from the fancy. The most faithful pencil here produces the noblest pictures; and THOMSOм, by strictly adhering to the character of the Poet of Nature, has treated all these topics with a true sublimity, which a writer of less knowledge and accuracy could never have attained.

The strict propriety with which subjects from astronomy and the other parts of Natural Philosophy are introduced into a poem, describing the changes of the Seasons, need not be insisted on, since it is obvious that the primary cause of all these changes is to be sought in principles derived from these sciences. They are the ground-work of the whole; and establish that connected series of cause and effect, upon which all those appearances in nature depend, from whence the descriptive poet draws his materials.

Natural History, in its most extensive signification, includes every observation relative to the distinctions, resemblances, and changes of all the bodies, both animate and inanimate, which nature offers to us. These observations, however, deserve to be considered as part of a science only when they refer to some general truth, and form a link of that vast chain which connects all created being in one grand system. It was my attempt, in an Essay lately published, to shew how necessary a more accurate and scientific survey of natural objects than has usually been taken, was to the avoiding the common defects, and attaining the highest beauties of descriptive poetry; and some of the most striking examples of excellence arising from this source were extracted from the poem now before us. It will be unnecessary here to recapitulate the substance of these remarks, or to mark out singly the several passages of our author which display his talents for description to the greatest advantage. Our present design rather requires such a general view of the materials he has collected, and the method in which he has arranged them, as may shew in what degree they forward and coincide with the plan of his work.

The correspondence between certain changes in the

*

Essay on the Application of Natural History to Poetry.