[267] Ibid., October 30, 1712 (No. 523).
[268] Ibid., October 30, 1712 (No. 523); cf. “Guardian,” Nos. 22, 23, 28, 30, 32, 40.
[269] See further discussion under “Gardening.”
[270] “Liberty,” Part 3, ll. 514–26.
[271] Ibid., Part 4, ll. 348–62.
[272] “The Castle of Indolence,” canto ii, st. 3.
[273] “Spring,” ll. 529–55.
[274] “Summer,” ll. 140–59. Suggested probably by Mallet. See Letter, August 2, 1726: “Your hint of the sapphire, emerald, ruby, strikes my imagination with a pleasing taste, and shall not be neglected.”
[275] “Spring,” ll. 574–613.
[276] “Summer,” ll. 1116–68.
[277] “Spring,” ll. 614–30.
[278] Ibid., ll. 636–60.
[279] Ibid., ll. 690–701.
[280] “Winter,” ll. 245–56.
[281] “Spring,” ll. 21–25; “Winter,” ll. 144–47.
[282] “Spring,” ll. 770–85.
[283] “Summer,” ll. 371–422.
[284] “Spring,” ll. 808–20; “Summer,” ll. 506–15.
[285] “Spring,” ll. 362–71; “Summer,” ll. 489–93.
[286] “Spring,” ll. 336–73.
[287] “Autumn,” ll. 360–457; “Winter,” ll. 788–93.
[288] “Spring,” ll. 702–28.
[289] “Autumn,” ll. 1172–1207.
[290] “Spring,” ll. 394–442.
[291] Ibid., ll. 189, 388.
[292] “Winter,” ll. 1–14.
[293] “Summer,” ll. 1103–68.
[294] “Autumn,” ll. 311–48.
[295] “Winter,” ll. 72–201.
[296] See as illustrative, “Winter,” ll. 127, 738–41.
[297] “Summer,” l. 1704.
[298] “Autumn,” ll. 1088–1102.
[299] See as illustrative, “Spring,” ll. 30–31, 139–41, 145–51, 398–444; “Winter,” ll. 54–57, 77–80, 195–96, 202–3, etc.
[300] “Autumn,” ll. 710–31; cf. Wordsworth, “Prelude,” viii, 265.
[301] “Autumn,” ll. 151–52; “Summer,” ll. 47–66.
[302] “Spring,” ll. 189–202.
[303] “Summer,” ll. 1647–59.
[304] Ibid., ll. 1682–98.
[305] “Spring,” ll. 34–43.
[306] Ibid., ll. 44–47.
[307] “Autumn,” ll. 153–69.
[308] “Summer,” ll. 352–70.
[309] Ibid., ll. 371–442.
[310] “Spring,” ll. 589–608.
[311] “Spring,” ll. 494–509.
[312] “Spring,” ll. 107–13, 950–62; “Summer,” ll. 1406–41.
[313] W. D. McClintock, unpublished notes.
[314] “Summer,” ll. 819–29; “Autumn,” ll. 781–804; cf. Shairp, “Poetic Interpretation of Nature,” p. 191, for the geographical use of Nature in Milton.
[315] “Summer,” ll. 1161–68.
[316] Cf. Wordsworth, “To Joanna,” ll. 54–65.
[317] “Winter,” ll. 714–16; “Spring,” ll. 849–52.
[318] “Autumn,” ll. 773–76.
[319] “Winter,” ll. 116–17.
[320] In 1720 there appeared in the “Edinburgh Miscellany,” a poem entitled, “On a Country Life by a Student in the University.” The poem is interesting as being Thomson’s first poetical treatment of the theme which he was afterward to adopt. The verse is in somewhat stiff and formal heroic couplets, and the poem is marked by classicisms. But there are lines and phrases suggestive of Thomson’s later work and the plan and general tone are, as Sir Harris Nicholas has pointed out, strongly suggestive of “The Seasons.” The young poet’s love of country life is quite clearly genuine.
[321] Cf. also remarks in Preface to second, third, and fourth editions of “Winter”: “I know no subject more elevating, more amusing; more ready to awake the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment, than the works of Nature. Where can we meet with such variety, such beauty, such magnificence? All that enlarges and transports the soul? What more inspiring than a calm, wide survey of them?”
[322] “Spring,” ll. 868–74.
[323] “Autumn,” ll. 670–72. Cf. Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned,” st. 6.
[324] “Summer,” ll. 1380–82.
[325] “Autumn,” l. 1309.
[326] Compare Pope’s rhetorical statement of the same speculative conception.
[327] Since the publication of this study of Thomson I have read with much interest Leon Morel’s “James Thomson: Sa vie et ses œuvres,” 1895. Chaps. iii and iv of Part II deal fully with Thomson’s attitude toward external Nature and with his technical excellences as a descriptive poet.
[328] Dyer uses almost as many words ending in “y” as Ambrose Philips. “Stenchy,” “towery,” “framy,” “sleeky,” “thready,” “cropsy,” “spiry,” are illustrative.
[329] “The Fleece,” i, 193.
[330] In “Observations on the River Wye,” by William Gilpin, pp. 103–8, Dyer’s “Grongar Hill” is, however, criticized for not accurately representing distance. The grove must be distant if it can be rightfully called purple, but the castle beyond it “is touched with all the strength of a foreground; you see the very ivy creeping upon the walls.”
[331] “The Fleece,” i, 577.
[332] Ibid., ii, 55.
[333] Ibid., 310.
[334] Ibid., 518.
[335] Ibid., 241.
[336] “The Fleece,” i, 555.
[337] Ibid., 59.
[338] Ibid., 41.
[339] “The Country Walk,” ll. 86–99; 33–40.
[340] He calls the sun “Phoebus” and “Apollo;” he occasionally uses such words as “swain,” “bloomy,” “sylvan,” “verdant,” “flowery;” and he speaks of “the wanton zephyr;” and he refers to a grove as the “haunt of Phyllis.”
[341] “The Country Walk,” ll. 58–63.
[342] Cf. “Grongar Hill,” l. 137.
[343] Cf. “The Country Walk,” l. 120.
[344] Thomson to Mallet, September, 1726.
[345] Thomson’s letters to Mallet in 1726.
[346] Letter to Mallet, July 10, 1725.
[347] Ibid., August 2, 1726.
[348] Letters to Mallet, June 13 and July 10, 1726.
[349] Cf. “The Wanderer,” v, 237, 238 (roads); v, 253–68 (fields and bushes); v, 230–35 (sunset); v, 363–74 (the rainbow); iv, 59–63 (morning); iii, 15–27 (moonrise); v, 8, 15–20 (foliage and flowers); v, 203–10 (bean fields); i, 195–98 (winter landscape); iv, 85–96 (sunrise).
[350] In 1730 appeared a parody entitled “The Thresher’s Miscellany” by “Arthur Duck.”
[351] “The Chace,” ii, 79–82.
[352] “To the Right Honorable Lady Anne Coventry.”
[353] An excellent example is “Nancy of the Vale” which takes as its model,
but compares Nancy to the “wild-duck’s tender young,” to the water-lily on Avon’s side, her eyes to the azure plume of the halcyon, etc.
[354] “Rural Elegance,” st. 20.
[355] Ibid., st. 19.
[356] “Rural Elegance,” sts. 4, 5, 6, 8.
[357] Ibid., st. 16.
[358] “The Spleen,” ll. 646–87.
[359] Ibid., l. 681.
[360] “The Epistle of the Thistle.”
[361] “Contemplation.”
[362] See Hervey, “Meditations,” ii, 239; Fielding, “Tom Jones,” VII, chap. i.
[363] “To Thomson on Sophonisba.”
[364] “Night Thoughts,” v, 126–30.
[365] Ibid., 176.
[366] Ibid., 171.
[367] See “Night Thoughts,” vi, where there is an interesting statement of the theory afterward expounded in Coleridge’s “Ode to Dejection.” Compare Young’s,
with Coleridge’s,
In the same passage by Young is the line concerning the power of our senses that
from which Wordsworth took a line in “Tintern Abbey.” In Satire I, 249 there are some lines that sound absurdly like certain stanzas in “Peter Bell”:
The lines
come between the similar passages by Gay and Gray.
Cf. also the simile of the eagle and the serpent (“Vanquished Love,” Book II, 226), with Shelley’s “Revolt of Islam,” i, sts. 8–10.
[368] “Ode to Fear,” “Ode to Simplicity,” “An Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer,” “Ode to Pity.”
[369] “Ode to Fear,” “On the Poetical Character,” “Popular Superstitions,” st. 11, “An Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer.”
[370] Mason, “Memoirs of Gray,” p. 261.
[371] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book IV, 26 (1770).
[372] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book IV, 38–51 (1770); cf. “Hymn to the Naiads,” ll. 243–49; cf. Wordsworth, “Prelude,” Book I, 402, and many other passages concerning the silent power of Nature over him in his youth.
[373] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book I, 136–40 (1757).
[374] Ibid., 120 (1744).
[375] Ibid., 150 (1757).
[376] Ibid., 153–60 (1757).
[377] Ibid., 168–75 (1757); cf. Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey,” ll. 41–49.
[378] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 591–6O5 (1744). This “sacred order” of the universe is one of the points on which Wordsworth dwells, and he refers frequently to the tranquilizing, steadying effect which the contemplation of this order and harmony will have on the mind of man. See “Excursion,” Book IV, 1198–1219, 1254–65.
[379] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 615–33 (1744).
[380] “Odes,” Book I, Ode 14, st. 4–6; cf. Wordsworth’s statement that Nature reveals herself to the heart that “watches and receives.”
[381] “Odes,” Book I, Ode 5, st. 8.
[382] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book I, 670–75 (1757).
[383] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 484 (1757).
[384] Ibid., I, 576–89 (1757).
[385] Ibid., 432–37 (1757). Akenside’s presentation of this doctrine has led Gosse to call him a “sort of frozen Keats,” but Akenside’s pleasure in Nature was philosophical rather than sensuous. His scientific delight in the analyzed rainbow (“Pleasures of Imagination,” Book II, 103–20 [1744]) would have filled Keats with horror.
[386] “Sickness,” v, 5.
[387] “Hymn to May,” st. 20.
[388] “Sickness,” v, 17.
[389] Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement.”
[390] Wordsworth, “A Poet’s Epitaph,” st. 10.
[391] “On the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude.”
[392] “Couplet about Birds.”
[393] “All-beauteous Nature! by thy boundless charms,” “the vast, various Landscape,” “sight-refreshing green,” “the thousand-colored tulip,” are typical Thomsonian phrases.
are some of the characteristic instances of the echoes from Milton.
[394] “The Enthusiast.”
[395] Ibid.
[396] “Ode to Fancy.”
[397] “The Enthusiast.”
[398] “The Enthusiast.” Cf. Thomson, “Liberty,” ii, 1–26, for a similar eulogy of a past golden age, but without Warton’s modern application.
[399] “An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope.”
[400] Note such lines as
[401] See under “Travels.”
[402] “Hope.”
[403] “Vision of Fancy,” Elegy 3.
[404] Ibid.
[405] “Fable IV.”
[406] “The Bee Flower.”
[407] “To the Rev. Lamb.”
[408] “Fable IV.”
[409] “Autumnal Elegy.”
[410] “Fable X.”
[411] “Inscription on the Door of a Study.”
[412] “The Immensity of the Supreme Being.”
[413] Ibid., l. 56. Cf. also the similar lines in “Hymn to the Supreme Being,” st. 16. It was apparently a favorite image. See Browning’s reference to it in his poem on Smart.
[414] “Almada Hill,” l. 330.
[415] “The Sorceress,” st. 4.
[416] “Elegy,” st. 4.
[417] “Syr Martyn,” ii, 31.
[418] “Pollio,” st. 3.
[419] “Eskdale Braes,” st. 1.
[420] See Bailey Saunders, “Life and Letters of James Macpherson,” p. 14.
[421] “Carric-Thura.”
[422] “Carthon.”
[423] Dr. Blair has a significant comment on the truth in the poems of Ossian. “The introduction of foreign images betrays a poet copying not from nature, but from other writers. Hence so many lions and tigers, and eagles and serpents which we meet with in the similes of modern poets; as if these animals had acquired some right to a place in poetical comparisons for ever, because employed by ancient authors. They employed them with propriety, as objects generally known in their country; but they are absurdly used for illustration by us, who know them only at second-hand, or by description.”
[424] Blair’s “Critical Dissertation,” in Tauchnitz ed. of the “Ossian Poems.”
[425] See “Child of Elle,” “Edom o’ Gordon,” “Hardyknute,” and others.
[426] “Robin and Makyne.”
[427] “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet.”
[428] “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.”
[429] “Adam Bell.”