is interesting to all alike." Mr. Dennis's assertion that The Seasons "was to be found in every cottage, and passages from the poem were familiar to every school-boy," " is borne out by the facts that in 1761 Michael Bruce "employed himself at leisure hours in transcribing large portions of Milton and of Thomson," 3 that Burns declared his fellow-countryman to be one of his "favourite authors," 4 and that a certain H. I. Johns, who was born in 1780, "while quite a lad...committed to memory nearly the whole of Thomson's Seasons," for "Thomson was his idol, and to his impassioned and glowing descriptions of Nature he ascribed, in no small degree, his love of the country and his taste for elevating studies." It is accordingly no more than the truth to say, with Mr. Seccombe, "From 1750 to 1850 Thomson was in England the poet, par excellence, not of the eclectic and literary few, but of the large and increasing cultivated middle class"; " or with Mr. Saintsbury, "No poet has given the special pleasure which poetry is capable of giving to so large a number of persons in so large a measure as Thomson."7 6 Such a popularity as this must have had far-reaching effects, which can be estimated only in a general way and many of which are hardly to be traced. In the field of poetry this influence was all the more marked because The Seasons appeared before either blankverse or descriptive pieces had established themselves. Had it been published twenty-five years later, its vogue might possibly have been as great but its influence on literature would not have been a tithe of what it was. Furthermore, to quote again from Mr. Saintsbury, Thomson "has the peculiar merit of choosing a subject which appeals to and is comprehensible by everybody; which no one can scorn as trivial and yet which no one can feel to be too fine or too esoteric for him. And though he treats this in the true poetical spirit of making the common as though it were uncommon, he does not make it too uncommon for the general taste to relish." In conse 1 Lectures on the English Poets, 1818 (Works, 1902, V. 87). About the same time one William Wight prophesied, in his lines for the anniversary of Thomson's birth (Cottage Poems, Edin., 1820, pp. 8–9), that the "warblings" of his "heaven-taught lyre" would "but with Nature's self expire." 2 Age of Pope (1894), 91. 'Memoir, in Works (ed. Grosart, Edin., 1865), 16–17. 'Letter to John Murdoch, Jan. 15, 1783. 'W. H. K. Wright, West-Country Poets (1896), 275. So late as 1827 Henry Neele declared in his Lectures on English Poetry (Literary Remains, N. Y., 1829, p. 123), "Thomson is the first of our descriptive poets; I had almost said, the first in the world." quence he was eagerly read by the simple cottager, the prosperous merchant, the fashionable lady, and the college don, while poets of all kinds paid tribute to him, the sophisticated and artificial Pope, the spontaneous Burns, the delicate Collins, and the massive Wordsworth. It may be interesting and not altogether profitless to speculate as to what would have been the development of blank verse without The Seasons. No later work could have taken its place, since both in subject-matter and in treatment it pleased all sorts and conditions of men better than any other poem of its century did, and since, aside from Paradise Lost, the only other unrimed work that enjoyed an extensive popularity was the Night Thoughts, which did not begin to appear till 1742, and in which even at this late time Young might not have relinquished his lifelong devotion to the couplet had it not been for the influence of the Scottish poet. Of course Thomson did not work alone. Enthusiasm for Paradise Lost, which was increasing rapidly between 1712 and 1745, could not fail to affect poetry, and Thomson's immediate predecessors had done no slight service in familiarizing both writers and readers with the new measure. Twenty-five years earlier such a work as Winter could hardly have been composed at all, nor would the English public have been ready to receive it. The probabilities are, therefore, that without The Seasons unrimed poems would have increased slowly in number and that now and then one of length would, like Cyder, have achieved some popularity. Yet it is hard to tell how far-reaching would have been the effect if the general use of blank verse had been delayed twenty years. How is it that Thomson came to do what none of his contemporaries seemed capable of? The explanation is probably that Winter, which determined the character of all the "Seasons," was a Scottish work, was hardly more an expression of the literary England of its day or a product of the normal evolution of English poetry than was Leaves of Grass one hundred and twenty-five years later. It is Scottish throughout, it was written by a Scot, it was suggested by Scottish verses, it pictures Scottish scenes.1 Like the American work, it was the outcome of a different environment, of a somewhat different race and literary tradition, from that which found expression in the 1 While composing the poem Thomson wrote to his friend Cranston (September, 1725?): "There [in Scotland] I walk in spirit, and disport in its beloved gloom. This country I am in, is not very entertaining; no variety but that of woods, and them we have in abundance; but where is the living stream? the airy mountain? and the hanging rock? with twenty other things that elegantly please the lover of nature?" (Poetical Works, 1847, vol. i, p. xxii). London literature of its time. Thomson had been reared in a wild Scottish country. He had, to be sure, spent ten years at the University of Edinburgh; but the northern capital was then separated from the southern by a long, arduous journey and by marked divergences in almost every aspect of life and thought. "Broad Scots," which Thomson never lost, was then universal in Edinburgh; men were less formal and finished but sturdier as well as more natural than in London; and pieces like the Gentle Shepherd and the winter poems of Riccaltoun, Thomson, and Armstrong (all written between 1724 and 1726) show, when contrasted with the satires of Pope, Swift, and Young, or with the lighter verse of Prior and Gay, that poetry was closer to life in the northern metropolis than in the southern. Since the days of the Stuarts, English literature had been drawing more and more away from the people. By attaching itself to the court circle and, like the court, becoming dominated by artificial French standards, it had to a great extent come to be the diversion of a leisured coterie that set an exaggerated value upon regularity, precision, elegance, and wit. These qualities, it goes without saying, did not then, as they do not now, particularly interest the average reader, who, though he may well have enjoyed the clever satire and the shrewd, tersely-expressed observations on life that mark neoclassic verse, nevertheless missed many things which his forefathers had found in poetry. That such was the true state of affairs is shown by the eagerness with which he turned to the periodicals, sentimental drama, and fiction of the day, to the redactions of old romances, and to Milton. The attitude of the people is strikingly illustrated in the enthusiasm with which they greeted The Seasons. Here at last was contemporary poetry adapted to their taste, something that appealed to their imagination, their love of the real country, as well as to their national pride and their sentimentality. Hitherto there had been a great gulf not only between blank verse and the fashionable poetry of the day, but between both kinds of verse and the taste of the large body of readers. Something had been done towards filling this gulf, but the process promised to be a slow one; when suddenly an outsider, following his natural bent with little realization of its divergence from the habit of his new neighbors, bridged the chasm. But though scarcely more of a revolutionist than Johnson, he loved his ease and in general, even on most literary subjects, thought much like other men, the bard "more fat than bard beseems" did in some matters raise a banner of mild revolt. He looked forward to finding at Hagley, his friend Lyttelton's estate, "the muses of the great simple country, not the little, fine-lady for muses of Richmond Hill." To the second edition of Winter he added a vigorous preface assailing the literature of his time as a "wintry world of letters, ... the reigning fopperies of a tasteless age" made up of "forced unaffecting fancies, little glittering prettinesses, mixed turns of wit and expression, which are as widely different from native poetry as buffoonery is from the perfection of human thinking." He urged poetry to "exchange her low, venal, trifling, subjects for such as are fair, useful, and magnificent," and to "execute these so as at once to please, instruct, surprise, and astonish.” This "choosing of great and serious subjects" was, he thought, a first step towards a much-needed "revival of poetry," and in his opinion nature afforded the best of themes because of its "magnificence” and "inspiring" qualities, because it "enlarges and transports the soul." Hence, he concluded, "the best . . . Poets have been passionately fond of retirement, and solitude. The wild romantic country was their delight." 2 These were vigorous words to pen when Pope, Swift, and Gay were at the height of their powers. They were probably called forth by adverse criticisms of the first edition of Winter; for there is every indication that Thomson had no idea of reforming English taste when he wrote the poem, since he said of it, "Being only a present amusement, it is ten to one but I drop it whenever another fancy comes across." 3 In this same preface he spoke of nature's putting on "the crimson robes of the morning, the strong effulgence of noon, the sober suit of the evening, or the deep sables of blackness and tempest." Clearly, a poet who flamed thus in the cooler element of prose loved the florid and exuberant, the grand and vague. No wonder he was fond of Hakluyt's Voyages, the Faerie Queene, and of works which "up the lofty diapason roll," or that he desired his "numbers" and his theme to be "wildly great." He had a strong and instinctive dislike for limitations of almost every kind. His fervent imagination was not definite, like Dante's; it delighted, as did Milton's, in large, general effects. It demanded a wide sweep. Such a line as is typical of him. 5 Infinite splendour! wide-investing all' 1 Letter to Lyttelton, July, 1743, Works (1847), vol. i, p. lxxxvii. 2 I quote from the reprint in J. L. Robertson's admirable Oxford edition of Thomson (pp. 240-41), to which all my references are made. The italics are mine. Letter to Cranston, September, 1725?, Works (1847), vol. i, p. xxiii. • See his letter to Mallet, Aug. 9, 1745 (Philobiblon Soc., Miscellanies, 1857–8, iv. 39, first pagination). 7 Autumn, 1210. Miss Reynolds has an excellent paragraph on Thomson's "dislike of boundaries," in her Nature in English Poetry (1909), 92–3. It was inevitable that a poet with these tastes should be deeply stirred by the most sublime and sonorous of English poets. Thomson has high praise for Milton in the first edition of Winter: Great Homer too appears, of daring Wing! Parent of Song! and equal, by his Side, The British Muse, join'd Hand in Hand, they walk, In the second of the "Seasons," Summer, he expressed his feelings. with still greater warmth: And every greatly amiable Muse Of elder Ages in thy Milton met! His was the treasure of Two Thousand Years, Of blowing Eden fair; soft as the Talk Of our grand Parents, and as Heaven sublime." Thomson also wrote a preface to the Areopagitica, imitated both Allegro and Penseroso, referred to their author several times in his letters, and borrowed not only words and phrases but whole passages from him.3 Since nearly half of these numerous borrowings are from the minor poems, they reveal a close acquaintance, very unusual at the time, with the shorter as well as the longer works; and, as some of them occur in Thomson's juvenilia, it is clear that his familiarity with Milton dates from an early and impressionable age. The language and style of The Seasons also, as one would expect, give abundant evidence of admiration for Paradise Lost. They do more: they indicate an essential kinship between the two poets on many vital matters. For example, the author of The Seasons liked the grand style and strove to write in it. Part of his admiration for Paradise Lost must have been due to its lofty aloofness of expression, to the organ tone which he apparently tried to catch in the orotund and often splendidly impressive climaxes to which he was fond of working up. Milton's largeness of utterance will be heard in single lines, like Had slumbered on the vast Atlantic deep; or in such passages as these: 1 Lines 289-92. ? Quoted from the first edition (1727), pages 47-8; the passage corresponds to lines 1567-71 of the latest text. * See below, Appendix A. For passages in Thomson's letters which refer to Milton, see Macaulay's Thomson, 24 (“Evil is their good," cf. P. L., iv. 110), 54 (Milton's |
