صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Befides these, and his tragedy of Sophonisba, written and acted with applause in the year 1729, Mr. Thomson had, in 1727, published his poem to the Memory of Sir Ifaac Newton, then lately deceafed,

" unobserved by all his predecessors. What poet hath ever taken "notice of the leaf, that towards the end of the autumn,

"Inceffant ruffles from the mournful grove,
"Oft' ftartling such as, studious, walk below,

"And flowly circles thro' the waving air?

"Or who, in speaking of a summer evening, hath ever men. " tioned,

"The quail that clamours for his running mate?

"Or the following natural image, at the same time of the "year?

"Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,
"A whitening shower of vegetable down
"Amusive floats.

"Where do we find the filence and expectation that precedes "an April shower infifted on, as in ver. 165. of Spring? or "where

"The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard
"By fuch as wander thro' the forest walks,

"Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.

"How full, particular, and picturesque, is this assemblage "of circumstances that attend a very keen froft in a night "of winter!

"Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects
"A double noife; while at his evening watch
"The village dog deters the nightly thief:
"The heifer lows; the diftant water-fail

"Swells in the breeze; and with the hasty tread
"Of traveller, the hollow founding plain
"Shakes from afar.

"In no one subject are common poets more confused and "unmeaning, than in their description of rivers, which are "generally faid only to wind and to murmur, while their quali"ties and courses are seldom accurately marked examine the "exactness of the enfuing defcription, and confider what a per"fect idea it communicates to the mind:

containing a deserved encomium of that incomparable man, with an account of his chief discoveries; fublimely poetical, and yet so just, that an ingenious foreigner, the Count Algarotti, takes a line of it for

"Around th' adjoining brook, that puris along
"The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock,
"Now scarcely moving thro' a reedy pool,
"Now starting to a sudden stream, and now
"Gently diffus'd into a limpid plain,
"A various group the herds and flocks compose,
"Rural confusion!

"A group worthy the pencil of Giacomo de Bassano, and "so minutely delineated, that he might have worked from "this sketch;

"on the grafsly bank

"Some ruminating lie; while others stand
"Half in the flood, and, often bending, ip

"The circling furface.

"He adds, that the ox, in the middle of them,

from his fides

"The troublous infets lashes, to his fides

"Returning still,

"A natural circumstance, that, to the best of my remembrance, "hath escaped even the natural Theocritus. Nor do I recollea "that any poct hath been ftruck with the murmurs of the num"berless infects that swarm abroad at the noon of a fummer's "day; as attendants of the evening, indeed, they have been "mentioned:

"Resounds the living furface of the ground;
"Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum,
"To him who muses thro' the woods at noon,
"Or drowsy shepherd, as he lies reclin'd

"With half-shut eyes.

"But the novelty and nature we admire in the descriptions "of Thomson, is by no means his only excellence: he is "equally to be praised for impreffing on our minds the effects "which the scene delineated would have on the present spectator

[ocr errors]

or hearer. Thus having spoken of the roaring of the savages "in the wilderness of Africa, he introduces a captive, who, "though just escaped from prison and flavery, under the tyrant

the text of his Philosophical Dialogues, Il Neutonianismo per le dame : this was in part owing to the assistance he had of his friend Mr. Gray, a gentleman well versed in the Newtonian philofophy, who, on that occafion, gave him a very exact, though general, abstract of its principles.

That fame year the resentment of our merchants "of Morocco, is so terrified and aftonished at the dreadful uproar, that

"The wretch half wishes for his bonds again.

"Thus, also, having defcribed a caravan loft and overwhelmed "in one of those whirlwinds that so frequently agitate and "lift up the whole fands of the defert, he finishes his picture by adding, that,

"in Cairo's crowded ftreet

"The impatient merchant wond'ring waits in vain,
"And Mecca faddens at the long delay.

"And thus, lastly, in defcribing the peftilence that destroyed the "British troops at the fiege of Carthagena, he has used a circum"stance inimitably lively, picturesque, and striking to the imagi"nation; for he says that the Admiral not only heard the

[ocr errors]

groans of the fick that echoed from ship to ship, but that "he also pensively stood and listened, at midnight, to the "dafhing of the waters, occafioned by throwing the dead bodics for the interruption of their trade by the Spaniards in America running very high, Mr. Thomson zealoufly took part in it, and wrote his poem Britannia, to rouse the nation to revenge: and although this piece is the less read that its subject was but accidental and temporary, the spirited generous fentiments that enrich it can never be out of feason: they will at least remain a monument of that love of his country, that devotion to the public, which he is ever inculcating as the perfection of virtue, and which none ever felt more pure, or more intense, than himself.

"into the fea:

"Heard, nightly, plang'd into the fullen waves
"The frequent corfe.

"These observations on Thomson might be still augmented, "by an examination and developement of the beauties in the "loves of the birds, in Spring, ver. 580.; a view of the torrid "zone, in Summer, ver. 626.; the rife of fountains and rivers, "in Autumn, ver. 781.; a man perishing in the snows, in "Winter, ver. 277.; and the wolves defcending from the Alps,

and a view of winter within the Polar circle, ver. 80g.; "which are all of them highly finished originals, excepting "a few of those blemishes intimated above. Winter is, in my "apprehenfion, the most valuable of these four poems; the "frenes of it, like those of Il Penferofo of Milton, being "of that awful, and folemn, and penfive kind, on which a great genius beft delights to dwell."

Our Author's poetical studies were now to be interrupted, or rather improved, by his attendance on the Honourable Mr. Charles Talbot in his travels. A delightful task indeed! endowed as that young nobleman was by Nature, and accomplished by the care and example of the best of fathers in whatever could adorn humanity; graceful of person, elegant in manners and address, pious, humane, generous, with an exquifite tafte in all the finer arts.

With this amiable companion and friend Mr. Thomson visited most of the courts and capital cities of Europe, and returned with his views greatly enlarged; not of exterior nature only, and the works of art, but of human life and manners, of the constitution and policy of the several states, their connexions, and their religious institutions. How particular and judicious his observations were, we fee in his poem of Liberty, begun soon after his return to England. We fee, at the fame time, to what a high pitch his love of his country was raised, by the comparisons he had all along been making of our happy well-poised government with those of other nations. To inspire his fellow-fubjects with the like sentiments, and shew them by what means the precious freedom we enjoy may be preserved, and how it may be abused or loft, he employed two years of his life in composing that noble work, upon which, confcious of the importance and dignity of the subject, he valued himself more than upon all his other writings.

While Mr. Thomson was writing the first part of Liberty, he received a severe shock by the death of his noble friend and fellow-traveller, which was foon followed by another that was severer still, and of more general concern, the death of Lord Talbot himself; which Mr. Thomson so pathetically and so justly laments in the poem dedicated to his memory. Inhim the nation faw itself deprived of an uncorrupted patriot, the faithful guardian of their rights, on whose wifdom and integrity they had founded their hopes of relief from many tedious vexations; and Mr. Thomson, befides his share in the general mourning, had to bear all the affliction which a heart like his could feel for the person whom, of all mankind, he most revered and loved. At the same time he found himself, from an easy competency, reduced to a state

« السابقةمتابعة »