THOMSON'S LANDSCAPE 93 



the year. He knew well the ' deep morass ' and 

 ' shaking wilderness,' where many of them ' rise high 

 among the hills/ and whence they assumed their 

 ' mossy-tinctured ' hue. He traces them as they ' roll 

 o'er their rocky channel ' until they at last lose them- 

 selves in ' the ample river ' Tweed. 1 He describes 

 them as they appear at sheep-washing time, and dwells 

 on their delights for boys as bathing-places. But it 

 is their wilder moods that live most vividly in his 



memory, when 



'From the hills 



O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts, 

 A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once.' 2 



It is worthy of remark, however, that even though 

 nature is his theme, the poet writes rather as an in- 

 terested spectator than as an earnest votary. He 

 reveals no passion for the landscapes he depicts. He 

 never appears as if himself a portion of the scene, 

 alive with sympathy in all the varying moods of 

 nature. His verse has no flashes of inspiration, such 

 as contact with storm and spate drew from Burns. It 

 was already, however, a great achievement that Thom- 

 son broke through the conventionalities of the time, 

 and led his countrymen once more to the green fields, 

 the moors, and the woodlands. 



In the successive poems which when placed together 

 made the Seasons, published in 1730, Thomson con- 

 tinued to draw on his recollections of the Scottish 

 Border for the descriptions of landscape that form so 

 fundamental a part of his theme. It is interesting to 

 note that even after he had been five years in the south 



1 Autumn, 476. 2 Spring, 381, 400, 402; Summer, 13. 



