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The dews of the evening most carefully shun,
They are the tears of the sky for the loss of the Sun.

After the transgression of Adam, Milton, with other appearances of sympathizing Nature, thus marks the immediate consequence,

Sky lowered, and muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completion of the mortal sin.

The associating link is the same in each instance;dew or rain, not distinguishable from the liquid substance of tears, are employed as indications of sorrow. A flash of surprise is the effect in the former case, a flash of surprise and nothing more; for the nature of things does not sustain the combination. In the latter, the effects of the act, of which there is this immediate consequence and visible sign, are so momentous, that the mind acknowledges the justice and reasonableness of the sympathy in Nature so manifested; and the sky weeps drops of water as if with human eyes, as «< Earth had, before, trembled from her entrails, and Nature given a second groan. »

Awe-stricken as I am by contemplating the operations of the mind of this truly divine Poet, I scarcely dare venture to add that «An Address to an Infant,>> which the reader will find under the Class of Fancy in the present edition, exhibits something of this communion and interchange of instruments and functions

between the two powers; and is, accordingly, placed last in the class, as a preparation for that of Imagination

which follows.

Finally, I will refer to Cotton's « Ode upon Winter," an admirable composition, though stained with some peculiarities of the age in which he lived, for a general illustration of the characteristics of Fancy. The middle part of this ode contains a most lively description of the entrance of Winter, with his retinue, as « A palsied King,» and yet a military Monarch,-advancing for conquest with his Army; the several bodies of which, and their arms and equipments, are described with a rapidity of detail, and a profusion of fanciful comparisons, which indicate on the part of the Poet extreme activity of intellect, and a correspondent hurry of delightful feeling. Winter retires from the Foe into his fortress, where

a magazine
Of sovereign juice is cellared in;
Liquor that will the siege maintain
Should Phobus ne'er return again.

Though myself a water-drinker, I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing what follows, as an instance still more happy of Fancy employed in the treatment of feeling than, in its preceding passages, the Poem supplies of her management of forms.

'Tis that, that gives the Poet rage,
And thaws the gelly'd blood of Age;
Matures the Young, restores the Old,
And makes the fainting Coward bold.

It lays the careful bead to rest,
Calms palpitations in the breast,
Renders our lives' misfortune sweet;

Then let the chill Sirocco blow,
And gird us round with hills of snow,
Or else go whistle to the shore,
And make the hollow mountains roar

Whilst we together jovial sit

Careless, and crown'd with mirth and wit;
Where, though bleak winds confine us home,
Our fancies round the world shall roam.

We'll think of all the Friends we know,
And drink to all worth drinking to;
When having drunk all thine and mine,
We rather shall want healths than wine.

But where Friends fail us, we 'll supply
Our friendships with our charity;
Men that remote in sorrows live,
Shall by our lusty Brimmers thrive.
We'll drink the Wanting into Wealth,
And those that languish into health,
The Afflicted into joy; th' Opprest
Into security and rest.

The Worthy in disgrace shall find
Favour return again more kind,
And in restraint who stifled lie,
Shall taste the air of liberty.

The Brave shall triumph in succeSS,
The Lovers shall have Mistresses,
Poor unregarded Virtue, praise,
And the neglected Poet, Bays.

Thus shall our healths do others good,
Whilst we ourselves do all we would ;
For, freed from envy and from care,

What would we be but what we are?

It remains that I should express my regret at the necessity of separating my compositions from some beautiful Poems of Mr Coleridge, with which they have been long associated in publication. The feelings with tified; its end is answered, and the time is come when which that joint publication was made, have been graconsiderations of general propriety dictate the separation. Three short pieces (now first published) are the work of a Female Friend; and the Reader, to whom they may be acceptable, is indebted to me for his pleasure; if any one regard them with dislike, or be disposed to condemn them, let the censure fall upon him, who, trusting in his own sense of their merit and their fitness for the place which they occupy, extorted them from the Authoress.

ESSAY SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE PREFACE.

WITH the young of both Sexes, Poetry is, like love, a passion; but, for much the greater part of those who have been proud of its power over their minds, a necessity soon arises of breaking the pleasing bondage; or it relaxes of itself;-the thoughts being occupied in domestic cares, or the time engrossed by business. Poetry then becomes only an occasional recreation; while to those whose existence passes away in a course of fashionable pleasure, it is a species of luxurious amusement. In middle and declining age, a scattered number of serious persons resort to poetry, as to religion, for a protection against the pressure of trivial employments, and as a consolation for the afflictions of life. And, lastly, there are many, who, having been enamoured of this art in their youth, have found leisure, after youth was spent, to cultivate general literature; in which poetry has continued to be comprehended as a study.

Into the above Classes the Readers of poetry may be divided; Critics abound in them all; but from the last

to forget the world, and all its vexations and anxieties.
Having obtained this wish, and so much more, it is na
tural that they should make report as they have felt.
If Men of mature age, through want of practice, be
thus easily beguiled into admiration of absurdities,
extravagances, and misplaced ornaments, thinking it
proper that their understandings should enjoy a ho-
liday, while they are unbending their minds with verse,
it may be expected that such Readers will resemble
their former selves also in strength of prejudice, and an
inaptitude to be moved by the unostentatious beauties
of a pure style. In the higher poetry, an enlightened
Critic chiefly looks for a reflection of the wisdom of
the heart and the grandeur of the imagination. Wher-
ever these appear, simplicity accompanies them; Magni-
ficence herself, when legitimate, depending upon a sim-
plicity of her own, to regulate her ornaments. But it
is a well-known property of human nature,
estimates are ever governed by comparisons, of which
we are conscious with various degrees of distinctness.
Is it not, then, inevitable ( confining these observations
to the effects of style merely) that an eye, accustomed
to the glaring hues of diction by which such Readers
are caught and excited, will for the most part be rather
repelled than attracted by an original Work, the co-
louring of which is disposed according to a pure and
refined scheme of harmony? It is in the fine arts as in
the affairs of life, no man can serve (i. e. obey with
zeal and fidelity) two Masters.

that our

only can opinions be collected of absolute value, and | escape from the burthen of business, and with a wish worthy to be depended upon, as prophetic of the destiny of a new work. The young, who in nothing can escape delusion, are especially subject to it in their intercourse with poetry. The cause, not so obvious as the fact is unquestionable, is the same as that from which erroneous judgments in this art, in the minds of men of all ages, chiefly proceed; but upon Youth it operates with peculiar force. The appropriate business of poetry (which, nevertheless, if genuine, is as permanent as pure science) her appropriate employment, her privilege and her duty, is to treat of things not as they are, but as they appear; not as they exist in themselves, but as they seem to exist to the senses and to the passions. What a world of delusion does this acknowledged principle prepare for the inexperienced! what temptations to go astray are here held forth for them whose thoughts have been little disciplined by the understanding, and whose feelings revolt from the sway of reason! When a juvenile Reader is in the height of his rapture with some vicious passage, should experience throw in doubts, or common-sense suggest suspicions, a lurking consciousness that the realities of the Muse are but shows, and that her liveliest excitements are raised by transient shocks of conflicting feeling and successive assemblages of contradictory thoughts-is ever at hand to justify extravagance, and to sanction absurdity. But, it may be asked, as these illusions are unavoidable, and, no doubt, eminently useful to the mind as a process, what good can be gained by making observations, the tendency of which is to diminish the confidence of youth in its feelings, and thus to abridge its innocent and even pro-it fitable pleasures? The reproach implied in the question could not be warded off, if Youth were incapable of being delighted with what is truly excellent; or, if these errors always terminated of themselves in due season. But, with the majority, though their force be abated, they continue through life. Moreover, the fire of youth is too vivacious an element to be extinguished or damped by a philosophical remark; and, while there is no danger that what has been said will be injurious or painful to the ardent and the confident, it may prove beneficial to those who, being enthusiastic, are, at the same time, modest and ingenuous. The intimation may unite with their own misgivings to regulate their sensibility, and to bring in, sooner than it would otherwise have arrived, a more discreet and sound judgment.

If it should excite wonder that men of ability, in later life, whose understandings have been rendered acute by practice in affairs, should be so easily and so far imposed upon when they happen to take up a new work in verse, this appears to be the cause;-that, having discontinued their attention to poetry, whatever progress may have been made in other departments of knowledge, they have not, as to this art, advanced true discernment beyond the age of youth. If, then, a new poem falls in their way, whose attractions are of that kind which would have enraptured them during the beat of youth, the judgment not being improved to a degree that they shall be disgusted, they are dazzled; and prize and cherish the faults for having had power to make the present time vanish before them, and to throw the mind hack, as by enchantment, into the happiest wason of life. As they read, powers seem to he revived, passions are regenerated, and pleasures restored. The Book was probably taken up after an

As Poetry is most just to its own divine origin when administers the comforts and breathes the spirit of religion, they who have learned to perceive this truth, and who betake themselves to reading verse for sacred purposes, must be preserved from numerous illusions to which the two Classes of Readers, whom we have been considering, are liable. But, as the mind grows serious from the weight of life, the range of its passions is contracted accordingly; and its sympathies become so exclusive, that many species of high excellence wholly escape, or but languidly excite, its notice. Besides, Men who read from religious or moral inclinations, even when the subject is of that kind which they approve, are beset with misconceptions and mistakes peculiar to themselves. Attaching so much importance to the truths which interest them, they are prone to over-rate the Authors by whom these truths are expressed and enforced. They come prepared to impart so much passion to the Poet's language, that they remain unconscious how little, in fact, they receive from it. And, on the other hand, religious faith is to him who holds it so momentous a thing, and error appears to be attended with such tremendous consequences, that, if opinions touching upon religion occur which the Reader condemns, he not only cannot sympathise with them, however animated the expression, but there is, for the most part, an end put to all satisfaction and enjoyment. Love, if it before existed, is converted into dislike; and the heart of the Reader is set against the Author and his book.-To these excesses, they, who from their professions ought to be the most guarded against them, are perhaps the most liable; I mean those sects whose religion, being from the calculating understanding, is cold and formal. For when Christianity, the religion of humility, is founded upon proudest faculty of our nature, what can be expected

the

but contradictions? Accordingly, believers of this cast false principles; who, should they generalise rightly are at one time contemptuous; at another, being to a certain point, are sure to suffer for it in the end; troubled as they are and must be with inward mis--who, if they stumble upon a sound rule, are fettered givings, they are jealous and suspicious;-and at all by misapplying it, or by straining it too far; being inseasons, they are under temptation to supply, by the capable of perceiving when it ought to yield to one of heat with which they defend their tenets, the anima-higher order. In it are found Critics too petulant to be tion which is wanting to the constitution of the reli- passive to a genuine Poet, and too feeble to grapple gion itself. with him; Men, who take upon them to report of the course which he holds whom they are utterly unable to accompany,-confounded if he turn quick upon the wing, dismayed if he soar steadily « into the region ;»

in whose minds all healthy action is languid,-who therefore feed as the many direct them, or, with the many, are greedy after vicious provocatives;-Judges, whose censure is auspicious, and whose praise ominous! In this class meet together the two extremes of best and worst.

Faith was given to man that his affections, detached from the treasures of time, might be inclined to settle upon those of eternity:-the elevation of his nature, which this habit produces on earth, being to him a pre-Men of palsied imaginations and indurated hearts; sumptive evidence of a future state of existence; and giving him a title to partake of its holiness. The religious man values what he sees chiefly as an «< imperfect shadowing forth » of what he is incapable of, seeing. The concerns of religion refer to indefinite objects, and are too weighty for the mind to support them without relieving itself by resting a great part of the burthen upon words and symbols. The commerce between Man and his Maker cannot be carried on but by a process where much is represented in little, and the Infinite Being accommodates himself to a finite capacity. In all this may be perceived the affinity between religion and poetry;-between religion-making up the deficiencies of reason by faith; and poetry-passionate for the instruction of reason; between religion-whose element is infinitude, and whose ultimate trust is the supreme of things, submitting herself to circumscription and reconciled to substitutions; and poetry-larity, and have passed away, leaving scarcely a trace ethereal and transcendent, yet incapable to sustain her existence without sensuous incarnation. In this community of nature may be perceived also the lurking incitements of kindred error;-so that we shall find that no poetry has been more subject to distortion, than that species, the argument and scope of which is religious; and no lovers of the art have gone farther astray than the pious and the devout.

Whither then shall we turn for that union of qualifications which must necessarily exist before the decisions of a critic can be of absolute value? For a mind at once poetical and philosophical; for a critic whose affections are as free and kindly as the spirit of society, and whose understanding is severe as that of dispassionate government? Where are we to look for that initiatory composure of mind which no selfishness can disturb? For a natural sensibility that has been tutored into correctness without losing any thing of its quickness; and for active faculties capable of answering the demands which an Author of original imagination shall make upon them,-associated with a judgment that cannot be duped into admiration by aught that is unworthy of it?-Among those and those only, who, never having suffered their youthful love of poetry to remit much of its force, have applied to the consideration of the laws of this art the best power of their understandings. At the same time it must be observedthat, as this Class comprehends the only judgments which are trust-worthy, so does it include the most erroneous and perverse. For to be mis-taught is worse than to be untaught; and no perverseness equals that which is supported by system, no errors are so difficult to root out as those which the understanding has pledged its credit to uphold. In this Class are contained Censors, who, if they be pleased with what is good, are pleased with it only by imperfect glimpses, and upon

The observations presented in the foregoing series are of too ungracious a nature to have been made without reluctance; and, were it only on this account, I would invite the reader to try them by the test of comprehensive experience. If the number of Judges who can be confidently relied upon be in reality so small, it ought to follow that partial notice only, or neglect, perhaps long continued, or attention wholly inadequate to their merits-must have been the fate of most works in the higher departments of poetry; and that, on the other hand, numerous productions have blazed into popu

behind them:-it will be further found, that when Authors have, at length, raised themselves into general admiration and maintained their ground, errors and prejudices have prevailed concerning their genius and their works, which the few who are conscious of those errors and prejudices would deplore; if they were not recompensed by perceiving that there are select Spirits for whom it is ordained that their fame shall be in the world an existence like that of Virtue, which owes its being to the struggles it makes, and its vigour to the enemies whom it provokes;-a vivacious quality, ever doomed to meet with opposition, and still triumphing over it; and, from the nature of its dominion, incapable of being brought to the sad conclusion of Alexander, when he wept that there were no more worlds for him

to conquer.

Let us take a hasty retrospect of the poetical literature of this Country for the greater part of the last two Centuries, and see if the facts support these inferences.

Who is there that can now endure to read the << Crea│tion » of Dubartas? Yet all Europe once resounded with his praise; he was caressed by Kings; and, when his Poem was translated into our language, the Faery Queen faded before it. The name of Spenser, whose genius is of a higher order than even that of Ariosto, is at this day scarcely known beyond the limits of the British Isles. And if the value of his works is to be estimated from the attention now paid to them by his Countrymen, compared with that which they bestow on those of some other writers, it must be pronounced small indeed.

The laurel meed of mighty Conquerors
And Poets sage—

are his own words; but his wisdom has, in this particu-
lar, been his worst enemy; while its opposite, whether

in the shape of folly or madness; has been their best friend. But he was a great power; and bears a high name: the laurel has been awarded to him.

9

he has made them, heterogeneous as they often are, constitute a unity of their own, and contribute all to one great end, is not less admirable than his imagination, his invention, and his intuitive knowledge of human Nature!

might say, an established opinion, that Shakspeare is justly praised when he is pronounced to be « a wild irregular genius, in whom great faults are compensated A Dramatic Author, if he write for the Stage, must by great beauties.» How long may it be before this adapt himself to the taste of the Audience, or they will misconception passes away, and it becomes universally not endure him; accordingly the mighty genius of Shak- acknowledged that the judgment of Shakspeare in the speare was listened to. The people were delighted; but | selection of his materials, and in the manner in which I am not sufficiently versed in Stage antiquities to determine whether they did not flock as eagerly to the representation of many pieces of contemporary Authors, wholly undeserving to appear upon the same boards. Had there been a formal contest for superiority among dramatic Writers, that Shakspeare, like his predecessors There is extant a small Volume of miscellaneous Sophocles and Euripides, would have often been subject Poems in which Shakspeare expresses his own feelings to the mortification of seeing the prize adjudged to sorry in his own Person. It is not difficult to conceive that competitors, becomes too probable, when we reflect that the Editor, George Steevens, should have been insenthe admirers of Settle and Shadwell were, in a later age, sible to the beauties of one portion of that Volume, as numerous, and reckoned as respectable in point of the Sonnets; though there is not a part of the writings talent, as those of Dryden. At all events, that Shakspeare of this Poet where is found, in an equal compass, a stooped to accommodate himself to the People, is suffi- greater number of exquisite feelings felicitously exciently apparent; and one of the most striking proofs pressed. But, from regard to the Critic's own credit, he of his almost omnipotent genius, is, that he could turn would not have ventured to talk of an act of parto such glorious purpose those materials which the pre-liament not being strong enough to compel the perusal possessions of the age compelled him to make use of. Yet even this marvellous skill appears not to have been enough to prevent his rivals from having some advantage over him in public estimation; else how can we account for passages and scenes that exist in his works, unless upon a supposition that some of the grossest of them, a fact which in my own mind I have no doubt of, were foisted in by the Players, for the gratification of the many?

But that his Works, whatever might be their reception on the stage, made little impression upon the ruling Intellects of the time, may be inferred from the fact that Lord Bacon, in his multifarious writings, nowhere either quotes or alludes to him.'- Ilis dramatic excellence enabled him to resume possession of the stage after the Restoration; but Dryden tells us that in his time two of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were acted for one of Shakspeare. And so faint and limited was the perception of the poetic beauties of his dramas in the time of Pope, that, in his Edition of the Plays, with a view of rendering to the general Reader a necessary service, he printed between inverted commas those passages which he thought most worthy of notice.

of these, or any production of Shakspeare, if he had not known that the people of England were ignorant of the treasures contained in those little pieces; and if he had not, moreover, shared the too common propensity of human nature to exult over a supposed fall into the mire of a genius whom he had been compelled to regard with admiration, as an inmate of the celestial regions,-«there sitting where he durst not soar.>>

Nine years before the death of Shakspeare, Milton was born; and early in life he published several small poems, which, though on their first appearance they were praised by a few of the judicious, were afterwards neglected to that degree, that Pope, in his youth, could pilfer from them without danger of detection.Whether these poems are at this day justly appreciated I will not undertake to decide: nor would it imply a severe reflection upon the mass of Readers to suppose the contrary; seeing that a Man of the acknowledged genius of Voss, the German Poet, could suffer their spirit to evaporate; and could change their character, as is done in the translation made by him of the most popular of those pieces. At all events, it is certain that these Poems of Milton are now much read, and loudly praised; yet were they little heard of till more than 150 years after their publication; and of the Sonnets, Dr Johnson, as appears from Boswell's Life of him, was in the habit of thinking and speaking as contemptuously as Steevens wrote upon those of Shakspeare.

At this day, the French Critics have abated nothing of their aversion to this darling of our Nation: « the English, with their Buffon de Shakspeare,» is as familiar an expression among them as in the time of Voltaire. Baron Grimm is the only French writer who seems to have perceived his infinite superiority to the first names About the time when the Pindaric Odes of Cowley of the French Theatre; an advantage which the Parisian and his imitators, and the productions of that class of Critic owed to his German blood and German educa- curious thinkers whom Dr Johnson has strangely styled tion. The most enlightened Italians, though well ac- Metaphysical Poets, were beginning to lose something quainted with our language, are wholly incompetent to of that extravagant admiration which they had excited, measure the proportions of Shakspeare. The Germans the Paradise Lost made its appearance. « Fit audience only, of foreign nations, are approaching towards a find though few,» was the petition addressed by the knowledge and feeling of what he is. In some respects Poet to his inspiring Muse. I have said elsewhere that they have acquired a superiority over the fellow-coun- he gained more than he asked; this I believe to be true; trymen of the Poet: for among us it is a current, I

The learned Hakewill (a third edition of whose book bears date 1635 writing to refute the error touching Nature's perpetual and universal divay, cites triumphandy the names of Ariosto, Tasso, Bartas, and Spenser, as instanca that poetic genius had not degeserated, but he makes no mention of Shakspeare.

This flippant insensibility was publicly reprehended by Mr Coleridge in a course of Lectures upon Poetry given by him at the Royal Institution. For the various merits of thought and language in Shakspeare & Sonnets see Numbers 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 54, 64, 66, 68, 73, 76, 86, 91, 92, 93, 97, 98, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 129, and many others.

but Dr Johnson has fallen into a gross mistake when he attempts to prove, by the sale of the work, that Milton's Countrymen were «just to it» upon its first appearance. Thirteen hundred Copies were sold in two years; an uncommon example, he asserts, of the prevalence of genius in opposition to so much recent enmity as Milton's public conduct had excited. But, be it remembered that, if Milton's political and religious opinions, and the manner in which he announced them, had raised him many enemies, they had procured him numerous friends; who, as all personal danger was passed away at the time of publication, would be eager to procure the master-work of a Man whom they revered, and whom they would be proud of praising. The demand did not immediately increase; «< for,» says Dr Johnson, << many more Readers» (he means Persons in the habit of reading poetry) « than were supplied at first the Nation did not afford.» How careless must a writer be who can make this assertion in the face of so

many existing title-pages to belie it! Turning to my own shelves, I find the folio of Cowley, 7th Edition, 1681. A book near it is Flatman's Poems, 4th Edition, 1686. Waller, 5th Edition, same date. The Poems of Norris of Bemerton not long after went, I believe, through nine Editions. What further demand there might be for these works I do not know, but I well remember, that 25 years ago, the Booksellers' stalls in London swarmed with the folios of Cowley. This is not mentioned in disparagement of that able writer and amiable Man; but merely to shew-that, if Milton's work was not more read, it was not because readers did not exist at the time. The early Editions of the Paradise Lost were printed in a shape which allowed them to be sold at a low price, yet only 3000 copies of the Work were sold in 11 years; and the Nation, says Dr Johnson, had been satisfied from 1623 to 1644, that is 41 years, with only two Editions of the Works of Shakspeare; which probably did not together make 1000 Copies; facts adduced by the critic to prove the « paucity of Readers.»> -There were Readers in multitudes; but their money went for other purposes, as their admiration was fixed elsewhere. We are authorized, then, to affirm, that the reception of the Paradise Lost, and the slow progress of its fame, are proofs as striking as can be desired that the positions which I am attempting to establish are not erroneous.'-How amusing to slape to one's self such a critique as a Wit of Charles's days, or a Lord of the Miscellanies or trading Journalist of King William's time, would have brought forth, if he had set his faculties industriously to work upon this Poem, every where impregnated with original excellence!

So strange indeed are the obliquities of admiration, that they whose opinions are much influenced by authority will often be tempted to think that there are no fixed principles in human nature for this art to rest upon. I have been honoured by being permitted to peruse in MS. a tract composed between the period of the Revolution and the close of that Century. It is the Work of an English Peer of high accomplishments, its

Hughes is express upon this subject: in his dedication of Spenser's Works to Lord Somers, be writes thus. It was your Lordship's encouraging a beautiful Edition of Paradise Lost that first brought that incomparable Poem to be generally known and esteemed.»

This opinion seems actually to have been entertained by Adam Smith, the worst critic, David Hume not excepted, that Scotland, a soil to which this sort of weed seems natural, has produced.

object to form the character and direct the studies of his Son. Perhaps nowhere does a more beautiful treatise of the kind exist. The good sense and wisdom of the thoughts, the delicacy of the feelings, and the charm of the style, are, throughout, equally conspicuous. Yet the Author, selecting among the Poets of his own Country those whom he deems most worthy of his son's perusal, particularises only Lord Rochester, Sir John Denham, and Cowley. Writing about the same time, Shaftesbury, an Author at present unjustly depreciated, describes the English Muses as only yet lisping in their Cradles.

The arts by which Pope, soon afterwards, contrived to procure to himself a more general and a higher reputation than perhaps any English Poet ever attained during his life-time, are known to the judicious. And as well known is it to them, that the undue exertion of these arts is the cause why Pope has for some time held a rank in literature, to which, if he had not been seduced by an over-love of immediate popularity, and had confided more in his native genius, he never could have descended. He bewitched the nation by his me lody, and dazzled it by his polished style, and was himself blinded by his own success. Having wandered from humanity in his Eclogues with boyish inexperience, the praise, which these compositions obtained, tempted him into a belief that Nature was not to be trusted, at least in pastoral Poetry. To prove this by example, he put his friend Gay upon writing those Eclogues which the Author intended to be burlesque. The Instigator of the work, and his Admirers, could perceive in them nothing but what was ridiculous. Nevertheless, though these Poems contain some detestable passages, the effect, as Dr Johnson well observes, « of reality and truth became conspicuous even when the intention was to shew them groveling and degraded.» These Pastorals, ludicrous to those who prided themselves upon their refinement, in spite of those disgusting passages, « became popular, and were read with delight, as just representations of rural manners and occupations,>>

Something less than 60 years after the publication of the Paradise Lost appeared Thomson's Winter; which was speedily followed by his other Seasons. It is a work of inspiration; much of it is written from himself, and nobly from himself. How was it received? «It was no sooner read,» says one of his contemporary Biographers, «than universally admired: those only excepted who had not been used to feel, or to look for any thing in poetry, beyond a point of satirical or epigrammatic wit, a smart antithesis richly trimmed with rhyme, or the softness of an elegiac complaint. To such his manly classical spirit could not readily commend itself; till, after a more attentive perusal, they had got the better of their prejudices, and either acquired or affected a truer taste. A few others stood aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and resigned themselves to an absolute despair of ever seeing any thing new and original. These were somewhat mortified to find their notions disturbed by the appearance of a poet, who seemed to owe nothing but to nature and his own genius. But, in a short time, the applause became unanimous; every one wondering how so many pictures, and pictures so familiar, should have moved them but faintly to what they felt in his descriptions. His digressions too, the overflowings of a tender benevolent heart, charmed the

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