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Sect. V.] Descriptive Poetry. m 



SECTION V„ 



DESCRIPTIVE POETRY. 



In Descriptive poetry the last age may lay claim 

 to the character of distinguished excellence. It 

 not only produced more in quantity, but also 

 much af a superior quality to that of which any 

 preceding period can boast. The tale of The 

 Hermit, by Dr. Parnell, deserves high praise for 

 justness of sentiment, and delicacy and liveliness 

 of colouring. The Windsor Forest of Pope also 

 belongs to the same class ; and for variety and ele- 

 gance of description, and particularly for a happy 

 interchange of the descriptive, the narrative, and 

 the moral, possesses great merit. But the work 

 entitled to the highest place in this department of 

 ■poetry, is the Seasons, by Thomson*. This wri- 

 ter may be said to have created a new species of 

 poetry. " His mode of thinking and of express- 

 ing his thoughts is original. His blank verse is 

 not the blank verse of Milton, or of any preceding 

 poet. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of 

 his own growth, without transcription, without 

 imitation. He thinks in a peculiar strain ; and he 

 thinks always as a man of genius. He looks round 

 on nature and life with the eye which nature be- 



* James Thomson was born in 1700,. and received his educa- 

 tion at the university of Edinburgh. His Winter was published 

 about the year 1726; \\\s Summer '\\\ 1727; his Spring \n 1728.; 

 and \m Autumn in 1730. This ilkistrious poet died ija 1748. 



