There is no mystery in the matter. Thomson--a great poet--poured his
genius over a subject of universal interest; and "The Seasons" from that
hour to this--then, now, and for ever--have been, are, and will be
loved, and admired by all the world. All over Scotland "The Seasons" is
a household book. Let the taste and feeling shown by the Collectors of
Elegant Extracts be poor as possible; yet Thomson's countrymen, high and
low, rich and poor, have all along not only gloried in his illustrious
fame, but have made a very manual of his great work. It lies in many
thousand cottages. We have ourselves seen it in the shepherd's shieling,
and in the woodsman's bower--small, yellow-leaved, tatter'd, mean,
miserable, calf-skin-bound, smoked, _stinking_ copies--let us not fear
to utter the word, ugly but true--yet perused, pored, and pondered over
by those humble dwellers, by the winter ingle or on the summer brae,
perhaps with as enlightened--certainly with as imagination-overmastering
a delight as ever enchained the spirits of the high-born and
highly-taught to their splendid copies lying on richly-carved tables,
and bound in crimson silk or velvet, in which the genius of painting
strives to embody that of poetry, and the printer's art to lend its
beauty to the very shape of the words in which the bard's immortal
spirit is enshrined. "The art of seeing" has flourished for many
centuries in Scotland. Men, women, and children, all look up to her
loveful blue or wrathful black skies, with a weather-wisdom that keeps
growing from the cradle to the grave. Say not that 'tis alone

"The poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, and hears Him in the wind!"

In Scriptural language, loftier even than that, the same imagery is
applied to the sights seen by the true believer. Who is it "that maketh
the clouds His chariot?" The Scottish peasantry--Highland and
Lowland--look much and often on nature thus; and they live in the heart
of the knowledge and of the religion of nature. Therefore do they love
Thomson as an inspired bard--only a little lower than the Prophets. In
like manner have the people of Scotland--from time immemorial--enjoyed
the use of their ears. Even persons somewhat hard of hearing, are not
deaf to her waterfalls. In the sublime invocation to Winter, which we
have quoted--we hear Thomson recording his own worship of nature in his
boyish days, when he roamed among the hills of his father's parish, far
awa