390 A Winter Evening with Ike Poets. [ APRIL, 



At first heard solemn o'er the verge of Heaven, 

 The tempest growls : but as it nearer comes, 

 And rolls its awful burden on the wind, &c. 



Summer, b. 1135. 



Now take a picture of the returning calm : 



As from the face of Heaven, the scattered clouds 

 Tumultuous rove, the interminable sky 

 Sublimer swells, and o'er the world expands 

 A purer azure. Through the lightened air 

 A higher lustre and a clearer calm 



Diffusive tremble : 



* * * * 



Tis beauty all, and grateful song around 

 Joined to the low of kine, and numerous bleet 

 Of flocks thick-nibbling through the clover'd vale. 



b. 1234. 



English poetry does not contain two pictures of greater truth and 

 beauty than these. The first has the wild and tempestuous colouring of 

 Salvator Rosa, and the second, the delicate tints of Claude. We hear 

 the thunder " rolling its awful burden" upon the bosom of the hurri- 

 cane, and in a few minutes the shadows are gone and the grass is 

 glittering with the rain, and the kine are lowing in the meadows. 

 How poor and spiritless, compared to the landscapes of Thomson, are 

 the graceful etchings of Goldsmith. If the ' ' Deserted Village" had been 

 written in blank verse, it would never have attained a tithe of its present 

 popularity. Goldsmith was the Gainsborough of poets. That delightful 

 artist was accustomed to select the most simple features of nature, a 

 thatched cottage with a back-ground of beautiful and luxuriant trees, 

 with a cart winding up the green sequestered lane, and a little urchin 

 by the side of an old gray horse there was a subject for Gainsborough. 

 He had absolutely no invention, he copied nature, as boys do maps, 

 over a tracing glass. A similar character may be given of Goldsmith ; 

 the finest image in the " Deserted Village" was taken from Young's 

 Night Thoughts." 



We have been scarcely able to write these last lines by the decaying 

 light of our lamp, and we are therefore compelled to break off abruptly, 

 but we shall devqte an early winter evening to the continuation of our 

 thoughts upon Thomson and his illustrious companions. 



W. R. A. 



