The Press.
London, England, 1855-06-09 00:00:00

TliFl PRESS.

to be bilious and jaundiced—everything dis-
agrees with him, and he disagrees with every-
body; and it is only as a nuisance which
offends one's sense of propriety and calls for
abatement that his book claims so much of
our space as wo have devoted to it.

Poetical Works of James Thomson. Two Vols.
Annotation Edition of the English Poets.
Edited by Robert Bell. London :J. W.
Parker and Son.
THE genial season—what Horace Walpole
called " the tempestuousness of an English
" summer "—is at hand. The time for water
parties up the river, sketching in the albums
of the charming fair, catching cold and pic-
turesque effects, and dinners of affected
elegance and real expense at the Richmond
hotels, is now at baud. There are various
interesting questions of a critical character
connected with that straggling town of Rich.
Mond. " Shall we patronise the Castle or
the Star and Garter?" presents a perplexing
dilemma; and then, in the half-hour before
dinner, if you want an festlietical subject,
nothing better can be started than, " Was
Thomson a poet ?" for with the. locality and
its scenery his name is identified.
We seldom saunter about Richmond with-
out thinking of hint. He lived in its vicinity
at the close of his life, and we might suppose
that he had specially studied its scenery for
certain descriptions in the " Seasons," though
the fact is not so. Its rich and mossy land-
scapes ; its winding river ; its umbrageous
groves; its stately though formal old man-
sions, with their painted gates and quaint
stone piers ; and the lazy air of society in that
quarter, always bring Thomson, his habits,
and his writings, vividly to our mind.
Owing to the peculiar disposition of the soil
at Richmond, what a Ruskinite would call the
" cloudscapes " in that locality, whether seen
on a starry night or on a fine day in sprin,,
are particularly fine ; for the amplitude of the
horizon, with its variety of lights, gives effects
of contrasted colour not often witnessed in
our scenery of the home counties. In the
opening passage of " Spring" Thomson says :
And see where surly Winter passes off,
Far to the north, and calls his NOWA blasts.
Any one who in the early days of April has
stood on the Terrace at Richmond-park, and
seen a spring shower carried by a south-
western breeze across the large plain around
Twickenham, cannot fail to appreciate the
vivid force of these two lines. In scenery and
society around Richmond the natural and
artificial are curiously blended. Patrician
families of high pretensions inhabit pic-
turesque demesnes. Rich traders, happy
horticulturists, gloat over their coffers and
their greenhouses. The glories of Nature are
in that district rather encroached upon by the
genteel ; the beautiful park is environed by
pretentious paddocks ; Combe Wood has its
smirking cottages ornees ; and the Alpine
region of Kingston-hill is reclaimed by
Chancery barristers and thriving innkeepers.
The beauties of the country and the life of
towns, the sentiment of the soul and the
acquirements of the intellect—in short the
idiosyncracy of Thomson—are forced upon us
as we steal along, and forget, while crying
" How charming I " that we shall probably be
late for the train. And thus we are arrived at
the question, which we have often heard eagerly
discussed, " But was Thomson a poet ? "
We have not two opinions on that subject,
and it is one of the few literary questions on
which the reflections of advanced years sup-
port the prepossessions of youth. Thomson
Unquestionably was a poet of a very high order,
limited in his range, but original in his walk,
and on the whole deserving of his extensive
fame. He wrote of nature, and his descrip-
tions have charmed generations differing from
each other in all social, religious, and political
opinions. lie described the external world
chiefly from an insular point of view; but
wherever the English tongue is cultivated
thoughtful minds recur with eagernetfs to the
author of the " Seasons." In truth there was
in Thomson a great affluence of qualities to
support the poetical character. He had a
potiarkapc power of diction, glowing, copious,

b 9

and ornate. His mind was well stocked with
acquired knowledge. He had a pure heart,
an elevated soul, and an aspiration to excel
in deeds of high intellectual emprise. These
qualities should carry a literary spirit very
high ; but Thomson had something more
besides, and in that " something more " may
be discerned his special originality.

The distinctive and permanent merit of
Thomson, considered cr►tically, is his union of
a metaphysical intellect with a sanguine glow
of genial enthusicutin and intense enjoyment
of nature. A thoughtful Scotch intellect and
a sentimental English character are found in
Thomson. He is more discursive, argumenta-
tive, and ethical than the English poets who
have won their laurels on moral themes
Cosmopolite philosophy in his works is con-
stantly blended with descriptions of those
landscapes which all the Cockneys can admire.
Yet in his love of liberty there is nothing sour,
insipid, or malignant. His spirit of freedom
is classical, and is not the inspiration of an
" anti-everything-established" kind of mind.
A thinker as well as a describer, a being social
Us well as imaginative, is realised to us in his
works. Hence his poetry has been so much
enjoyed by self-educated minds, and by the
great crowd of well-meaning persons, who
cannot ascend to the high abstractions of
Coleridge and Shelley, and to whoiu the Greek
classics are as a terra incognita. His genuine
love of nature supports him triumphantly in
spite of the cumbrous, quaint, and antiquated
rhetoric of his muse. He studied his subject
closely and variously ; he chose it carefully ;
he wrote upon it leisurely; and he had his
reward in identifying himself with it perma-
nently.
It is upon this latter point that the edition
of his works by Mr. Bell is of such interest.
It would be difficult in the whole library of
English poetry to find two volumes that differ
so much in merit as the first and second
volumes of Thomson's works as here presented
to us. Mr. Bell says, with perfect truth :

The reader who now opens these poems for the first
time will be struck by the remarkable contrast in manner,
taste, and metrical structure between the early and the later
pieces ; while to the reader who has hitherto formed his
opinion of Thomson upon the " Seasons " alone, this con•
treat will appear still more extraordinary. it is difficult to
believe that the two volumes are the productions of the
same writer ; and if the care, of Thomson's reputation, by
the exercise of a controlling discretion, were within the
legitimate province of an editor, there would be no
hesitation in rejecting nearly the whole of the first
volume.

The first volume is chiefly occupied with
his complimentary effusions (for which he
wanted tact, subtlety, and sportive vivacity of
fancy), and with his tedious rhetorical rhapsody
on " Liberty," with its versified and cold com-
monplaces on stilts about Greece, Rome,
ancient and modern Italy, and Britain. He
might just as well have taken the encyclopae-
dias for a subject, if such imposing compila•
tions had then been in fashion. His own
moral enthusiasm induced the poet to think
that he could communicate his feelings to the
world. But he wanted subject. "To the
Memory of Sir Isaac Newton," "To the Me-
mory of Lord Talbot," " Britannia,"—these
were themes on which Thomson was wordy,
insipid, and utterly without effect. But how
different was the case when he described the
verdant mead. the shady prove, the corn-field
with the gleaners, the winter landscape,
and the vicissitudes of nature. Not less
different was it, also, when in the " Castle
of Indolence " he wrote from himself, and
infused much of his own psychology into that
harmonious effusion of a contemplative spirit
and indolent idealism. The second of these
volumes is based upon reality, while the
first is merely rhetorical—sounding verse
without striking thoughts—ambitious efforts
without actual impulses. The lesson taught
to writers by the difference of merit between
these two volumes could scarcely he ez•
aggerated.
Mr. Bell has collected many particulars
about Thomson's habit o
s f life. Thomson
completed the poem of " Winter " at s
on
the publisher at Charing-
cross; andof ii
bMrli.aßneql, as if emulous of rivalling
Mr. Peter Cunningham, tells us, in a nate :
Minim was succeeded in his business by Egerton, who
;emoted to the house now is the occupation et Ins slimes-

550

sore, Messrs. Parker, Furnival, and Parker. The house
in which Milian lived is that now occupied by Grove, the
fishmonger.
We have said that it was not until after his
successes that he went to reside near Rich-
mond. These particulars about him have
present interest :

Jn May, 1738, Thomson removed to Richmond, being in
such easy circumstances as enabled him to enjoy the
luxury of a country residence. He established himself iu a
cottage in Kew-foot-lane, looking down upon the Thames,
and commanding the distant landscape, with a pretty
garden behind. This cottage has long since been ab-
sorbed in a handsome villa, of which what was once the
poet's sitting-room now forms the principal part of the
entrance-hall. His writing-table, with an inscription, is
still shown, and the alcove in the garden, removed to the
extremity of the grounds, under the spreading branches of
a chestnut-tree, has been carefully preserved, with poetical
tributes hanging on the walls, and a tablet to inform the
pilgrim that "here Thomson sang the seasons and their
change ; " which is not quite correct, as the " Seasons "
were published six years before he went to live at
Richmond.

He had resided at Barnet in the earlier por-
tion of his life ; and some parts of the scenery
there are not unlike Richmond. Mr. Bell
supplies a note to the foregoing passage
telling us of the present noble owner of the
poet's residence :

After Thomson's death the cottage was purchased by
George Ross, Esq., who enlarged both house and grounds ;
it afterwards passed into the hands of the Hon. Frances
Boscawen, who put up the inscriptions relating to the
poet. It is now the property of the Earl of Shaftesbury,
and is called Rosedale-house—originally Rosedale, after
Thomson's successor.

Mr. Bell does not remark that in the glow-
ing panegyric on the British worthies
(" Summer ") Thomson has the following lines
on the author of the " Characteristics " :
The generous Ashley thine, the friend of man;
Who scanned his nature with a brother's eye,
His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim,
To touch the finer movements of the mind,

And with the moral beauty charm the heart.
The attributes hero given to the represen-
tative of the Ashleys are not extinct in that
race. Some more ana of Thomson's habits
are supplied by Mr. Bell :

He had always been a great walker, and frequently
walked from London to Richmond. Mallet lived at the
water-side village of Strand-on the-Green, which once
reckoned Joe Miller amongst its celebrities. This was
one of Thomson's resting points. Another hall-way
house was a little hostelrie called the l)ove Coffee-house,
on the bank of the river, close to Hammersmith, where,
according to local tradition, he had caught some of his
wintry inspirations while he was writing the " Seasons."
And he adds a note describing the present
Dove Coffee house :
The l)ove Coffee-hones is still in existence. It stands
between the Upper and Lower Malls, and is approachable
only on foot by a narrow path winding through a cluster of
houses. A small terrace at the back, upon which some
tables are placed, roofed over by trained lime-trees, com-
mands extensive views of two reaches of the stream, and
the opposite shore is so flat and monotonous, that the place
affords a favorable position for studying the chilliest and
most mournful, though not the most picturesque aspects of
the winter season.

There has seldom been a work so highly
corrected as the " Seasons," and Mr. Bell
has profusely annotated it and given speci-
mens of the differences between the first and
later editions. Thus in " Summer," upon the
diamond and the effect of light, we read the
following passage :

The lively diamond drinks thy purest rays,
Collected light, compact ; that, polished bright,
And all its native lustre let abroad,
Dares, as it sparkles on the fair one's breast,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.
Originally the passage closed thus :
And all its native lustre let abroad,
Shines proudly on the bosoms of the fair.
Certainly that passage was much improved,
and as good alterations can be seen in other
places. The topic mooted in the following
note will probably be discussed in the forth-
coming edition of Pope by Mr Croker :
Before Mr. Mitford came into possession of the volume
containing Pope's alterations, it was already known
through Warton's notes that Pope had made many correc-
tions in the " Seasons ; " but we had no knowledge of their
extent or minuteness until Mr. Mitford communicated to
the world his discovery of the copy of the poem in which
they were actually made. That the alterations are Pope's
admits of no reasonable doubt. Independenly of Mr.
Mitford's opinion on that point, which is entitled to be
received with respect, all the circumstances concur in lead-
ing us to the same conclusion. The interleaved copy
evidently belonged to Thomson, whose careful emenda-
tions, incorporated in subsequent editions, are marked in
its pages. It is certain that he did not seriously set about
the task of revising the " Seasons " till two years after he
want to reside at Richmond I and that Pope was his frequent