COUNTRY LIFE. 127 



lived in the country, and sung of it. Even when English 

 poetry took ours for its model, Pope celebrated Windsor 

 Forest, and wrote pastorals : if his style was not rural, 

 his subjects were. Before him Spenser and Shakespeare 

 wrote admirable rustic poetry ; the song of the lark and 

 nightingale still resounds, after the lapse of centuries, in 

 Juliet's impassioned farewell to Eomeo. Milton the 

 sectarian Milton employed his finest verse in a descrip- 

 tion of the first garden, and in the midst of revolutions 

 and business his fancy carried- him towards the ideal 

 fields of Paradise Lost. 



But it was principally after theEevolution of 1 688, when 

 England, now free, began to be herself, that all her writers 

 became deeply impressed with the love of country life. 

 It was then that Gray and Thomson appeared ; the first 

 in his celebrated Elegies, and among others his " Country 

 Churchyard," the other in his poem of the Seasons, strik- 

 ing in delightful sounds this favourite chord of the British 

 lyre. The Seasons abound with admirable description ; 

 it is sufficient to instance the hay-making harvest and 

 sheep-shearing, the latter being already in Thomson's time 

 a great business in England; and among the pleasures 

 of the country, his account of trout-fishing. The angler, 

 at the present day, may find in this little descriptive 

 picture his favourite art fully detailed. The feeling 

 is everywhere lively and spontaneous enthusiasm, real 

 and deep, for the beauties of nature and the sweets of 

 labour. To these Thomson joins that quiet high reli- 

 gious feeling which almost always accompanies a soli- 

 tary and laborious life, in the presence of the never- 

 ending wonders of the vegetable creation. It pervades 

 the whole poem, especially in the concluding part, where 

 he likens the awakening of the human soul after death 

 to nature after winter. 



