NA TURE-POETR Y. 
71 
altogether for our poet’s good. Thomson had vigour enough 
and to spare ; but he sadly lacked taste, and was deficient in 
repose. By association with Pope and his disciples, Thomson’s 
taste was much modified ; his feelings were toned down a little, 
and his language and expression were largely improved. These 
influences we feel as soon as we come to the third of “ The 
Seasons ” in order of composition, “ Spring,” from which the 
lovely invocation has been cited. 
This improvement went on most in the beneficial air and 
society of Richmond, where Pope and Thomson were near 
neighbours ; and it was chiefly shown in “ Autumn,” the last 
written of “ The Seasons,” which was not produced till its comple- 
tion was made the occasion of a collected edition of the whole 
series. The following closing lines, which have been before 
referred to, are well worthy of attention, as showing the poet’s 
life-long love of Nature, and containing reminiscences of the 
famous close of the second “ Georgic” of his master, Virgil : — 
“ O Nature all-sufficient ! over all ! 
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works. 
Snatch me to heaven, — thy rolling wonders there, 
World beyond world, in inhnite extent 
Profusely scattered o’er the blue immense. 
Shew me : their periods, motions, and their laws 
Give me to scan. Through the disclosing deep 
Light to my blind way, — the mineral strata there. 
Thrust blooming thence the vegetable world. 
O’er that the rising system, more complex. 
Of animals, and higher still, the mind. 
The varied scheme of quick-compounded thought. 
And where the mixing passions endless shift. 
These ever open to my ravished eye, — 
A search the flight of time can ne’er exhaust. 
But if to that unequal, if the blood. 
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid 
That best ambition, under closing shades 
Inglorious lay me by the lowly brook. 
And whisper to my dreams. From thee begin. 
Dwell all on thee, with thee conclude my song. 
And let me never, never stray from thee ! ” 
We can well admit that a poem which closes with such 
strains as these was well worthy to inaugurate the new school 
of those who painted Nature for her own sake. The poem indeed 
came out at an appropriate time. It was while Pope, with 
his exquisite rapier-thrusts, was putting to death the swarming 
hosts of Dunces, that there appeared the poem that put an end to 
the reign of his own classical verse, and heralded the dawn of 
what may be called the Romantic school of English poetry. 
O: this new school Thomson now became the recognised chief; 
and to him we owe the re-introduction ^f that poetry of Nature 
which, through Cowper, Burns, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, 
Tennyson, and other poets, has gone on gathering force from 
that time down to our own. 
W. J. C. Miller. 
{To be- concluded.) 
