A COUNTRY WALK

18. Augusta. London. See note on Mac-Flecknoe, 1. 64. 153. Abergasney. "The name of a seat belonging to the author's brother." Chalmers. 155. Clio. Not the Muse. A lady whom Dyer painted and who wrote a poem to him printed in the collection of his poems.

JAMES THOMSON

(1700-1748)

Thomson was born at Ednam in Roxburghshire, Scotland. He was educated at Edinburgh University, but left there without a degree, and went, in 1725, to London. There, in 1726, he published Winter, which was immediately successful, and brought him literary friends at once. In 1727 he produced Summer; Spring, in 1728; and Autumn, with which the others were republished in one volume, in 1730. He travelled on the Continent as governor to the son of the SolicitorGeneral, during the years 1730-1731. The Seasons brought him prompt celebrity and recognition, and on his return to London he found continued patronage and encouragement. He became one of the group about the Prince of Wales, and soon settled at Richmond, to remain there almost continuously until his death. He published Liberty, a long political poem, 1734-1736. Beginning with Sophonisba in 1729, he produced plays at intervals up to his death. But if everything he wrote between the Seasons and The Castle of Indolence (1728) were lost, it would not affect his present reputation, or his influence at any time. Everything else was, in fact, unimportant even during his life, and is now almost forgotten. But the importance of these two works in the eighteenth century can hardly be overestimated. They were the first really strong and effective checks upon the domination of the classic school. Their verse-form is in itself a declaration of independence, and their subject-matter is a still stronger one.

The text used here is that of the Aldine edition, edited by the Rev. D. C. Tovey. (London, 1897.)

THE SEASONS

Although The Seasons were complete, in their first form, before Thomson's thirtieth year, he never at any time produced anything else of their type and quality. They would have been a good work in any period, but in the early Georgian era they were remarkable. In a time when for years almost the only life represented in literature had been the social life of the city, and of the upper classes in the city, Thomson devoted more than five thousand lines of poetry to the detailed account of country scenes of all kinds, and of the poorer, the working, classes in the country. His preparation, in both feeling and knowledge, had been his early life in Scotland. He had brought with him to England a faithful mental record of the physical moods of his own country and an understanding knowledge of the conditions and life of the working people. In many points the poems are rather Scotch than English. This is especially true of Winter, which was published within a year of Thomson's leaving Scotland, and represents his return in thought to his native scenes. There is no continuity of plan in the poems, and the excerpts given here contain descriptions that can very well be isolated.

Spring.

22. It was an old belief that the bittern made its peculiar booming cry with its bill inserted in the mud or in a reed. 26-27. The sun passes from the sign of Aries, or the Ram, into Taurus, the Bull, about thirty days after the vernal equinox. 41. incumbent. Thomson was not free from the use of pedantic, unsuggestive Latin words, which the classic taste of the time encouraged. See the clumsy use of innumerous, Summer, 1. 395; contiguous, Winter, 1. 86. 55-56. Maro. Vergil; Publius Vergilius Maro. The poems referred to are the Georgics and Eclogues. 60-66. Probably the poet has the story of Cincinnatus in mind. 68. Cf. Beattie's Minstrel, 1. 186. 70-77. pomp of life. The extravagant habits of the early eighteenth-century life had encouraged the importation of foreign luxuries of all kinds. Many of them had become fads, and were much affected. Thomson suggests that England continue to import luxuries, but in turn supply the necessaries of life to the whole world. exhaustless granary of a world. This sort of extravagance of expression had belonged to the Restoration period, but at this time

was passing away. 108. Augusta. See note on Dryden's MacFlecknoe, 1. 64.

Summer.

216-219. The sunflower. 232. vacant. Unoccupied. 378. people. The use of the word to mean animals comes through its application in different translations of the Scriptures. -See Murray's New English Dictionary. Cf. Proverbs xxx. 25, "The ants are a people not strong." 395. innumerous. See note on Spring, l. 41. Winter.

5-6. kindred glooms; congenial horrors. It is customary to consider these the expression of a melancholy mood of Thomson caused by his circumstances at the time. This is not necessarily the case; the interpretation is not borne out by the context. The winter scenes were congenial even in the "cheerful morn of life." Thomson spent his early life not far from the Cheviot Hills. The severer and grander elements of the landscape here appealed to his sense of sublimity and to the sterner qualities of his Scotch nature. The solemn thought and heavenly musing belong to an exaltation of soul, not to a mood of personal despondency. 87. people. See note on Summer, 1. 378. 246-256. redbreast. The English robin redbreast has a special place in English poetry because of its companionable qualities, and because of its sometimes remaining about houses or barns through the winter. 322 ff. The real compassion of this appeal could not be matched in eighteenth-century literature up to this time, or for many years after. The usual attitude toward the poor or suffering classes was one of indifference. 359 ff. the generous band. This refers to the Jail Committee appointed by Parliament in 1729 at the instance of General Oglethorpe (afterward the founder of the Georgia colony), who was chairman of the committee. The conditions of the debtors' prisons were an outrage, and the committee investigated and improved, to some extent, Marshalsea and the Fleet. This passage was not in the first edition, as the dates given will show.

A HYMN

This was printed with the first collection of the four Seasons, in 1730. It is a summing up of the religion of Thomson's nature-interpretation if it may be termed so. Thomson, in fact, rarely in

terprets nature at all. His handling is almost entirely objective. He sees nature in a definite relation to man, and usually in a practical relation. Spring is the seed-time and Autumn is the harvest time, and all the beauty or fruition is inter-related with the life of man. Thomson is as much a lover of human life as he is a lover of outdoor nature. But this Hymn shows more of mystery in his feeling for nature than The Seasons do.

CASTLE OF INDOLENCE

This was not published until 1748, but Thomson had been at work on it many years before. It is in two cantos, containing together 158 stanzas. The first canto is the most completely poetic production, if we except Collins's work, to be found in the eighteenth century up to its time, or for years before 1700. It is suggestive where the classic writers are definite; imaginative, where they are merely intellectual. It differs from the typical pseudo-classic production in being really a creative work, instead of only a critical or discursive one. It really has atmosphere and a suggestion beyond the defining power of words. Moreover, the conception, the mood, and the verse are so perfectly agreed as to make the result an exquisite work of art. The second canto, however, is a sort of eighteenth-century reaction on the first. In it the beautiful creation of the first part is all destroyed by the righteous hand of industry. It is as if Thomson felt that he had made his own besetting sin too attractive, and corrected himself by giving a didactic end to the poem. The unity of the work is injured also. Even the second part has some beautiful passages, however. The archaic diction, as well as the form, of the Faerie Queene, is imitated. 8. withouten. Obsolete even in Thomson's time. 18. ne. Nor. 21. kest. Cast. M. E. 36. yblent. In O. E. ge- was usually prefixed to the past participle. The g was early palatalized, however, and in M. E. the syllable was not only pronounced, but written, y or i. This was dropped before the end of the sixteenth century. 46. drowsy-hed. Drowsy-hood. The suffix is from the O. E. hâd, condition. M. E. hâd, hêde. 360. hight. Called. O. E. hâtan, pret. hêt.

RULE, BRITANNIA

From The Masque of Alfred, the joint work of Thomson and Mallet, first presented in 1740, before the Prince of Wales. Some

question has always been raised as to the authorship of Rule, Britannia since Alfred was written in collaboration; but the song was printed as Thomson's during Mallet's life, and Mallet did not dispute that it had been written by Thomson.

WILLIAM COLLINS

(1721-1759)

Collins was the son of a hatter in Chichester. He was afflicted during the greater part of his life with a peculiar inertness and lack of decision that seriously hampered him. After leaving Oxford, he looked at several professions, but undertook none. He was visionary, full of projects never carried out, and yet with much activity in pursuit of his own tastes, as for Greek literature, Gothic remains, and Elizabethan poetry. During the years of his writing, he spent the most of his time about London, making many literary friends there. After 1750 his mind weakened. His condition became steadily worse, until it settled into a form of madness, and for the last five or six years of his life he was lost to the world.

His whole output of poetry is meagre, consisting of less than two thousand lines in all. It consists of two collections, the Persian Eclogues in 1742, and the Odes in 1746 (dated 1747), and a few other poems published separately. Mr. Gosse says in his History of Eighteenth Century Literature, “It may perhaps be allowed an almost infallible criterion of a man's taste for the highest forms of poetic art to inquire whether he has or has not a genuine love for the poems of William Collins." Other poets in the eighteenth century achieved great precision in the expression of intellectual results. That is one of their claims to distinction. But Collins has something far rarer, precision in imaginative and emotional expression. With ́ this precision he has also the greatest delicacy and suggestiveness of both thought and manner. Much of his work is simply the poetic rendering of the understanding and love of beauty. The didactic element is lacking. There are almost no theses to be drawn from his poetry. But it is the embodiment of an appreciative recognition of beauty.

The text of these poems is that of the Aldine edition, edited by W. Moy Thomas. (London, 1901.)