delight
to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast and
attends to the minute. The reader of the "Seasons" wonders that he never
saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what
Thomson impresses. His is one of the works in which blank verse seems
properly used. Thomson's wide expansion of general views, and his
enumeration of circumstantial varieties, would have been obstructed and
embarrassed by the frequent intersections of the sense, which are the
necessary effects of rhyme. His descriptions of extended scenes and
general effects bring before us the whole magnificence of Nature,
whether pleasing or dreadful. The gaiety of Spring, the splendour of
Summer, the tranquillity of Autumn, and the horror of Winter, take
in their turns possession of the mind. The poet leads us through
the appearances of things as they are successively varied by the
vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us so much of his own
enthusiasm that our thoughts expand with his imagery and kindle with his
sentiments. Nor is the naturalist without his part in the entertainment,
for he is assisted to recollect and to combine, to arrange his
discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his contemplation. The great
defect of the "Seasons" is want of method; but for this I know not that
there was any remedy. Of many appearances subsisting all at once, no
rule can be given why one should be mentioned before another; yet the
memory wants the help of order, and the curiosity is not excited by
suspense or expectation. His diction is in the highest degree florid and
luxuriant, such as may be said to be to his images and thoughts "both
their lustre and their shade;" such as invests them with splendour,
through which, perhaps, they are not always easily discerned. It is too
exuberant, and sometimes may be charged with filling the ear more than
the mind.

These poems, with which I was acquainted at their first appearance, I
have since found altered and enlarged by subsequent revisals, as
the author supposed his judgment to grow more exact, and as books or
conversation extended his knowledge and opened his prospects. They are,
I think, improved in general; yet I know not whether they have not lost
part of what Temple calls their "race," a word which, applied to wines
in its primitive sense, means the flavour of the soil.

"Liberty," when it first appeared, I tried to read, and soon desisted.
I have never tried again, an