The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell, That vice should triumph, virtue vice obey; This sprung some doubt of Providence's sway; His hopes no more a certain prospect boast, And all the tenor of his soul is lost. So, when a smooth expanse receives imprest Calm nature's image on its watery breast, But, if a stone the gentle sea divide, For yet by swains alone the world he knew, THOMSON'S Castle of Indolence, the latest of his productions, seems to have been a labour of love with the poet. The sketch of himself is interesting, although he tells us, that all except the first line was written by a friend : A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems, Here quaff'd, encircled with the joyous train, He loathed much to write, he cared to repeat. There is a great charm about this poem; its numbers seem to lull one into a dreamy sense of pleasure; note this stanza : A pleasing land of drowsy herd it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, I care not, Fortune, what you me Through which Aurora shows her bright'ning face: We should scarcely have expected that this lover of luxurious ease, who used to linger a-bed, sometimes, till two of the afternoon, could have given us such a burst of inspiration on early rising as Falsely luxurious! will not man, awake, For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise? To lie in dead oblivion, losing half The fleeting moments of too short a life? Or else to feverish vanity alive, Wilder'd and tossing through distempered dreams? And every blooming pleasure, wait without, To bless the wildly-devious morning walk? Like others of the illustrious brotherhood, our poet lived for the present, and seldom indulged any anxiety about the future; the consequence was, that his purse was not unfrequently exhausted. On a certain occasion he was surprised by an unexpected visit from Quin, the comedian, whom he had known only by reputation. Puzzled to think what could have induced such a visit, he pressed the question, when Quin replied, "Why, I will tell you. Soon after I had read your Seasons, I took it into my head, that as I had something to leave behind me when I died, I would make my will. Among the rest of my legatees, I set down the author of the Seasons for a hundred pounds: and this day, hearing that you were in this house, I thought I might as well have the pleasure of paying the money myself as order my executors to pay it, when perhaps you might have less need of it; and this, Mr. Thomson, is the object of my visit." The " poet of the Seasons" did much to improve the poetic taste of his day. Campbell justly remarks: "Habits of early admiration teach us all to look back upon this poet as the favourite companion of our solitary walks, and as the author who has first, or chiefly, reflected back to our minds a heightened and refined sensation of the delight which rural scenery affords us." Thomson's sketches are Claude-like,-full of pastoral beauty and sunshine, Here is a beautiful burst of song, descriptive of summer dawn :— The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews, At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east : White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step Brown night retires. Young day pours in apace, all the lawny prospect wide. And opens The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top, And from the bladed field the fearful hare And thick around the woodland hymns arise. |