258 
RURAL HOURS. 
One never thinks of gleaning without remembering Ruth. 
How wholly beautiful is the naiTative of sacred history in which 
we meet her ! One of the most pleasing pictures of the ancient 
world pi'eserved to our day, it is at the same time delightful as a 
composition. Compare it for a moment with the celebrated epi- 
sode in the “ Seasons,” and mark how far above the modern poet 
stands the ancient Hebrew writer. Undoubtedly, Thomson’s 
imitation is an elegant, graceful, polished pastoral, in channingly 
flo^ving verse, but, as Palemon himself expresses it, the tale 
is rather “romantic.” Lavinia, though “beauty’s self,” and 
charmingly modest, is yet, alas ! rather doll-like ; one doubts if 
she really sulfered very much, with that “ smiling patience ” in 
her look, and those “ polished limbs,” “ veiled in a simple robe.” 
And Palemon, “ pride of swains,” “ who led the rural life in all 
its joy and elegance,” “ amusing his fancy with autumnal scenes” — 
we have always had certain misgivings that he was quite a com- 
monplace young squire. It is unwise to be very critical in read- 
ing, for one loses much pleasure and instruction by being over-nice 
and fault-finding in these as in other matters ; but really, it was 
such a bold step in Thomson to remind one of Ruth, that he 
himself is to blame if the comparison inevitably suggests itself, 
and as ine^ntably injures his pretty little English lass. We never 
look into the Seasons, without wishing that Crahbe had written 
the gleaning passages. 
As for Ruth, the real Ruth, her history is all pure simplicity, 
nature and truth, in every line. Let us please ourselves by dwell- 
ing on it a moment. Let us see Naomi, with her husband and 
sons, driven by famine into the country of the Moabites ; let us 
hear that the two young men married there, and that, at the end 
