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among select friends, and by his friends very ten. derly and warmly beloved.

He left behind him the tragedy of Coriolanus,' which was, by the zeal of his patron Sir George Lyttelton, brought upon the stage for the benefit of his family, and recommended by a prologue, which Quin, who had long lived with Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in such a manner as showed him to be,' on that occasion, no actor.' The commencement of this benevolence is very honourable to Quin; who is reported to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest, by a very considerable present: and its continuance is honourable to both; for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation. By this tragedy a considerable sum was raised, of which, part discharged his debts, and the rest was remitted to his sisters.

The benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but not active: he would give on all occasions what assistance his purse would supply; but the offices of intervention or solicitation he could not conquer his sluggishness sufficiently to perform*.

Among his peculiarities was a very unskilful and inarticulate manner of pronouncing any lofty or so. lemn composition. He was once reading to Dod. ington, who, being himself a reader eminently elegant, was so much provoked by his odd utterance, that he snatched the paper from his hands, and told him that he did not understand his own verses.

The biographer of Thomson has remarked, that an

As for the distinguishing qualities of his mind and heart, they are better represented in his writings, than they can be by the pen of a biographer: there, his love of mankind, of his country, and his friends; his devotion to the Supreme Being; and his humanity and benevolence, shine out in every page.

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author's life is best read in his works: his observation was not well timed. Savage, who lived much with Thomson, once told me, how he heard a lady remarking that she could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was a great lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent;' but, said Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was perhaps never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that comes within his reach. Yet Savage always spoke with the most eager praise of his social qualities, his warmth and constancy of friendship, and his adherence to his first acquaintance when the advancement of his reputation had left them behind him.

As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode of thinking and of expressing his thoughts is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius: he looks round on nature and on life with the eye which nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes, in every thing presented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can 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 splendor of Summer, the tranquil. lity 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 combine; to arrange his discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his contemplation.

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 invest them with splendor, 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.

The highest praise which he has received ought not to be suppressed: it is said by Lord Lyttelton, in the prologue to his posthumous play, that his works contained

No line which, dying, he could wish to blet.'

SPRING.

ARGUMENT.

The subject proposed. Inscribed to the Countess of Hartford. The season is described as it affects the various parts of nature, ascending from the lower to the higher; with digressions arising from the subject. Its influence on inanimate matter. On vegetables. On brute animals. And last, on man. Concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind.

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