See yon twa elms that grow up side by side, Till wide their spreading branches are increas'd, Sic as stand single (a state sae liked by you), Jenny. I've done. I yield dear lassie, I maun yield; Lies dern'd within my breast this mony a day. PATIE AND PEGGY. Patie. By the delicious warmness of thy mouth And rowing' eye, which smiling tells the truth, You're made for love, and why should ye deny? But ken ye, lad, gin we confess o'er soon, Patie. But when they hing o'er lang upon the tree, 5 And I have tholed and wooed a lang half-year. Peggy. Then dinna pu' me; gently thus I fa' Into my Patie's arms for good and a'. But stint your wishes to this kind embrace, 6 And mint nae farther till we've got the grace. Patie. O charming armfu'! Hence, ye cares away. Sun, gallop down the westling skies, [From The Tea-Table Miscellany.] THROUGH THE Wood, Laddie. O Sandy, why leaves thou thy Nelly to mourn? When naething could please me, Now dowie1 I sigh on the bank of the burn, Though woods now are bonny, and mornings are clear, And primroses springing, Yet nane of them pleases my eye or my ear, When through the wood, laddie, ye dinna appear. That I am forsaken some spare no to tell; Baith evening and morning; Their jeering aft gaes to my heart wi' a knell, Then stay, my dear Sandie, nae langer away, But quick as an arrow, Haste here to thy marrow2, Wha's living in languor till that happy day, When through the wood, laddie, we'll dance, sing, and play. 2 sweetheart. 1 melancholy. AN THOU WERE MY AIN THING. An thou were my ain thing, I would love thee, I would love thee; An thou were my ain thing How dearly I would love thee. Like bees that suck the morning dew, Sae lang's I had the use of light How fair and ruddy is my Jean! I'ld grasp thee to this breast of mine, Around my stronger limbs should twine, Formed handy to defend thee. Time's on the wing and will not stay, In shining youth let's make our hay; Since love admits of no delay, O let na scorn undo thee. While love does at his altar stand An thou were my ain thing, I would love thee, I would love thee; An thou were my ain thing, How dearly I would love thee. 1 mouth. JAMES THOMSON. [JAMES THOMSON was born at Ednam in Roxburghshire on the 11th of September, 1700, and died at Kew on the 27th of August, 1748. His first published work, Winter, appeared in 1726. The next year Summer, Britannia, and a few minor poems followed. Spring was not published till 1728, and Autumn in 1730 completed The Seasons. Sophonisba, the first of several dramas, appeared in the same year as Spring. The first three parts or cantos of Liberty were given to the world in 1735, the two last in 1737. The Castle of Indolence appeared in 1746, two years before Thomson's death.] No competent criticism of any school has ever denied Thomson's claim to a place, high if not of the highest, among poets of the second order. His immense and enduring popularity would settle the question, if it had ever been seriously debated. For the orbis terrarum may indeed judge without hesitation on such a point, when its judgment is ratified beforehand by many generations. Popularity which outlasts changes of manners and fashions is a testimony to worth which cannot be left out of the account, and Thomson's popularity is eminently of this kind. Neither the somewhat indiscriminate admiration of the romantic style, of which Percy set the fashion, nor the naturalism of Cowper, nor the great revolution championed in various ways by Scott, by the Lakists, and by Byron, nor the still more complete revolution of Shelley and Keats, availed to shake the hold of The Seasons on the popular mind. Every one knows Coleridge's remark on seeing a dogs-eared copy on an inn window-sill. During the last century the reading of poetry, except that of contemporary authors, has somewhat gone out of fashion, yet no one who does read The Seasons, much more The Castle of Indolence, fails to admit their charm. It would hardly be too much to say that, making allowance for the time over which his influence has extended, no poet has given the special pleasure which poetry is capable of giving to so large a number of persons in so large a measure as Thomson. A critical examination of the characteristics of his poetry enables us at once to justify and explain this widespread popularity. Like many of his contemporaries, Thomson is a very unequal poet. Every one who has really endeavoured to read his favourite Liberty must endorse Johnson's contemptuous verdict on it. It is not only not good as a whole, but (which is more remarkable) it is scarcely even good in parts. It is with considerable difficulty that one is able to pick out a few lines here and there where the admirable descriptive faculty of the writer has had room to make itself felt. Most of the minor poems (it is true there are not many of them) are also quite devoid of poetical merit. The graceful 'Tell me, thou soul of her I love' is perhaps the only exception to the rule worth mentioning, and certainly the only one worth quoting. It is curious too that on the few occasions on which Thomson attempted the heroic couplet, the special and favourite metre of his time, he produced very bad work. Blank verse and the Spenserian stanza he understood admirably, and his blank verse in especial cannot receive too much commendation. With that of Milton, and that of the present Poet Laureate, it must rank as one of the chief original models of the metre to be found in English poetry. Nothing again can be more exquisite than the opening stanzas of The Castle of Indolence in respect of metrical proficiency. Now this excellence of form, whatever some critics may think, is a very important element in enduring popularity, because it is not liable to danger from changes of fashion. The qualities which strike the ear pleasantly remain very much the same at all times, unless—and sometimes even when-the language employed has become hopelessly dead. We have at this moment (with the good leave of certain persons of distinction) hardly the faintest idea how the opening of the De Rerum Natura sounded when Lucretius read it, and still less of what the choruses of the Agamemnon conveyed to the ears of an Athenian audience. But the abiding charm of their form is not lost for us. How much more must this be the case in such work as Thomson's, when the language has undergone merely unimportant modifications. But the metrical charm of Thomson is not his only or indeed his chief |