one to the general. He has the peculiar merit of choosing a sub-
ject which appeals to and is comprehensible by everybody; which
no one can scorn as trivial and yet which no one can feel to be
too fine or too esoteric for him. And though he treats this in the
true poetical spirit of making the common as though it were un-
common, he does not make it too uncommon for the general taste
to relish. No spread of culture, no pressure of fashion, will ever
make The Witch of Atlas genuinely popular. No degeneracy of
education or of fashion, short of an absolute return to barbarism,
can prevent The Seasons from attracting admiration as soon as
they are read or heard. They are not perhaps in any single point
possessed of the qualities of the highest poetry. But such poetry
as they do possess is perfectly genuine and singularly suitable for
its purpose.
Literal accuracy and poetical truth are blended in
Thomson's descriptions in a way rarely to be found. Every one
feels that he has seen what Thomson has put into words for him:
every one also feels that Thomson has added a charm for him to
the scene when he shall happen to see it again. Although his
style is too often deformed by the prevalent Latinisms in language
and construction, his reader soon feels that he is after all inde-
pendent of them. They are not a crutch to him, hardly even a
staff, whereby he hopes to climb Parnassus, but a mere clouded
cane which, as he mistakenly thinks, is an appropriate ornament.
His single phrases, by which a poet is perhaps most safely to be
judged, stamp him at once to all who have eyes to see and ears
to hear. It is bad enough no doubt that any man of Thomson's
genius should give us the words—

'See where the winding vale its lavish stores
Irriguous spreads,'

in which the whole poetical capital is to be found in the use of the fine word 'irriguous,' and the artificial derangement of the epithets, but that this is a mere accident of his time must strike every one who turns the page and finds

"The yellow wallflower stained with iron-brown.'

Here there is not a single violence done to language or arrangement, and yet the effect is as good as it can be. Even where the words are unnecessarily grandiose, and the images not such as in strict nature or art would present themselves, the stamp of

poetry is usually on them in a wholly reconciling degree, as in the lines

son.

'On utmost Kilda's shore whose lonely race

Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds.'

Passing from isolated phrases to longer passages, we may point out that the power of composition which Thomson's landscapes display is very remarkable. Owing to this faculty, no poet perhaps is seen to such advantage in extracts of moderate length as ThomHis narrative episodes, which used to be the most popular, are perhaps not so good as some of the descriptive passages, because instead of being painted in with lasting colours they show too often the mere varnish of the sensibility of the time which has now ceased to appear sensible. To the charge of mannerism he must indeed plead guilty. A poet who caps the climax of three several descriptive passages with three such lines as

'And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave,'

'And Mecca saddens at the long delay,'

'And Thule bellows through her utmost isles,'

all within the compass of half a dozen pages, may be accused with some justice of taking too literally the legendary advice to 'stick to the coo.' But this, and the occasional ponderosity of his language, are almost the only charges of any weight that can fairly be brought against The Seasons.

The Castle of Indolence is even better. The second book does not indeed deserve quite so much praise as the first, being written evidently with less relish, and containing a good deal of otiose and conventional matter. But the first book is not only Thomson's best work, but is one of the very best things of its kind to be found either in English or in any other literature. For it possesses, what The Seasons almost of necessity lack, a coherent plan and scheme which are fully and successfully carried out. It is quite complete in itself, and needs no sequel as a work of art. Nor does it need any internal addition. The picture of the castle and its demesne, with the portraits of the chief sojourners, are quite sufficient for the canvas, and few persons will find any fault with the manner in which they are put upon it. Although the archaisms are not always used quite according to knowledge, the slips in this respect are neither in nature nor degree sufficient to interfere with the enjoyment of the piece. The four final stanzas, which are attributed to Armstrong, are perhaps not wholly in character; but even

this is a point on which it is difficult to pronounce decidedly, and with hardly another detail of the book can any fault be found. The opening stanzas, the speech of Indolence, the striking passage where 'the shepherd of the Hebrid Isles' appears, and that describing the fancies that visit the inmates during their sleep, could not be better. How far the occasional touches of burlesque injure the claims of the piece to high poetical rank, is a very intricate question of poetical criticism upon which there is no need to enter here. It is sufficient to say that of the peculiar faculty which we have claimed for Thomson, the faculty of exhibiting specially poetical quality in a form capable of being enjoyed by everybody, there are few better examples in our language than The Castle of Indolence.

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

A SNOW SCENE

[From Winter.]

The keener tempests come: and fuming dun
From all the livid east, or piercing north,
Thick clouds ascend-in whose capacious womb
A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed.
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;

And the sky saddens with the gathered storm.
Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,

At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes

Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields

Put on their winter-robe of purest white.

'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low, the woods

Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor
Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is

Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the black heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.

THE SHEEP-WASHING.

[From Summer.]

Or rushing thence, in one diffusive band,
They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog
Compelled, to where the mazy-running brook
Forms a deep pool; this bank abrupt and high,
And that, fair-spreading in a pebbled shore.
Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil,
The clamour much, of men, and boys, and dogs,
Ere the soft fearful people to the flood
Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain,
On some impatient seizing, hurls them in:
Emboldened then, nor hesitating more,

Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave,
And panting labour to the farthest shore.
Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece
Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt
The trout is banished by the sordid stream,

Heavy and dripping, to the breezy brow

Slow move the harmless race; where, as they spread
Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,
Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild
Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints
The country fill-and, tossed from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed,