enthusiastic and so catholic! Wherever a sun shines, or a green field expands, or a mountain checks, to glorify the landscape, there Thomson is at home; and Nova Zembla and Cathay, California and Japan, are alike to his all-embracing genius. "The Castle of Indolence," more thoroughly complete, more delicately finished, and aspiring to a certain plot and story, displays more of the artist, with very little less of the poet, than the "Seasons." It is, certainly, the sweetest piece of poetic seduction in the world. No hymn to Sleep ever was so soft-no "dream within a dream," of rest beyond the dreaming land, was ever so subtle. "Britannia," "To the Memory of Lord Talbot," and "To the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton," are three strains of kindred although various merit. All have much volubility of language, sustained pomp, and occasional beauties. The third alone we think entirely worthy of Thomson. It ranks along with the second sermon of Dr Chalmers's Astronomical Discourses, as one of the most glowing panegyrics passed upon that great man, who reminds us always, in his simplicity and his achievements, of the first rude shape of the telescope-at once so plain, and yet shewing and prophesying so much. The greatest sentence in this poem is "Have ye not listen'd while he bound the Suns And Planets to their spheres ?" Yet it yields to a line in the "Seasons," where he calls "Mother severe of infinite delights." "Liberty" exhibits Thomson in a false position. He was not the man to sing of that "Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye." He was too lazy and too luxurious. We see him sweating レー at the work, in a hot summer day, with his coat off, and occasionally napping in the course of his lucubrations. And yet, clumsy and tedious as portions of this poem are, it has noble passages, and its paintings of historical events are often in spirit and in language worthy of the themes and of the bard. Let none sneer at "Liberty" till they have read it; and if, during the operation, they may sometimes sleep, yet assuredly at the close of it they will be ashamed any longer to sneer. We regret that the plan of our publication does not permit us to give any specimens of Thomson's letters. They shew him in a new aspect,-as the affectionate brother, the steadfast friend, the acute observer of human nature-in short, the "fine fat fellow" that he was, no less certainly than one of our most genuine and popular poets. |