ing to decline, has been aptly compared to that period, when the man, mellowed by age, yields the most valuable fruits of experience and wisdom, but daily exhibits increafing symptoms of decay. The cold, cheerlefs, and fluggish Winter has almoft without a metaphor been termed the decrepid and hoary old age of the year. Thus the history of the year, pursued through its changing seasons, is that of an individual, whofe exiftence is marked by a progreffive courfe from its origin to its termination. It is thus represented by our poet; this idea preferves an unity and connection through his whole work; and the accurate obferver will remark a beautiful chain of circumftances in his defcription, by which the birth, vigour, decline, and extinction of the vital principle of the year are pictured in the most lively manner.

This order and gradation of the whole runs, as has been already hinted, through each divifion of the poem. Every feafon has its incipient, confirmed, and receding state, of which its hiftorian ought to give diftinct views, arranged according to the fucceffion in which they appear. Each, too, like the prismatic colours, is indiftinguishably blended in its origin and termination with that which precedes, and which follows it; and it may be expected from the pencil of

an artist to hit off these mingled fhades so as to produce a pleafing and picturefque effect. Our poet has not been inattentive to these circumstances in the conduct of his plan. His SPRING begins with a view of the feafon as yet unconfirmed, and partaking of the roughness of Winter*; and it is not till after feveral fteps in gradual progreffion, that it breaks forth in all its ornaments, as the favourite of Love and Pleasure. His AUTUMN, after a rich profpect of its bounties and splendours, gently fades into "the fere, the "yellow leaf," and with the lengthened night, the clouded fun; and the rising storm, finks into the arms of Winter. It is remarkable, that in order to produce fomething of a fimilar effect in his SUMMER, a season which, on account of its uniformity of character, does not admit of any ftrongly-marked gradations, he has comprised the whole of his defcription within the limits of a fingle day, pursuing the courfe of the fun from its rifing to its setting. A Summer's day is, in reality, a juft model of the entire feafon. Its be

* A defcriptive piece, in which this very interval of time is represented, with all the accuracy of a naturalift, and vivid colouring of a poet, has lately appeared in a poem of Mr. Warton's, entitled "The Firft of April.”

ginning is moist and temperate; its middle, fultry and parching; its clofe, foft and refreshing. By thus exhibiting all the viciffitudes of Summer under one point of view, they are rendered much more striking than could have been done in a series of feebly contrafted and scarcely distinguishable periods.

With this idea of the general plan of the whole work, and of its feveral parts, we proceed to take a view of the various fubjects compofing the defcriptive series of which it principally confifts.

Every grand and beautiful appearance in nature, that distinguishes one portion of the annual circuit from another, is a proper fource of materials for the Poet of the Seasons. Of these, fome are obvious to the common obferver, and require only juftnefs and elegance of taste for the selection: others difcover themselves only to the mind opened and enlarged by science and philofophy. All the knowledge we acquire concerning natural objects by such a train of obfervation and reasoning as merits the appellation of science, is comprehended under the two divifions of Natural Philofophy and Natural Hiftory. Both of these may be employed to advantage in defcriptive poetry for although it be true, that poetical compofition, being rather calculated for amusement than

inftruction, and addreffing itself to the many who feel, rather than to the few who reafon, is improperly occupied about the abftruse and argumentative parts of a science; yet, to reject those grand and beautiful ideas which a philofophical view of nature offers to the mind, merely because they are above the comprehenfion of vulgar readers, is furely an unneceffary degradation of this noble art. Still more narrow and unreasonable is that critical precept, which, in conformity to the received notion that fiction is the foul of poetry, obliges the poet to adopt ancient errors in preference to modern truths; and this even where truth has the advantage in point of poetical effect. In fact, modern philofophy is as much fuperior to the ancient in fublimity as in folidity; and the moft vivid imagination cannot paint to itself scenes of grandeur equal to thofe which cool fcience and demonftration offer to the enlightened mind. Objects so vast and magnificent as planets rolling with even pace through their orbits, comets rufhing along their devious track, light fpringing from its unexhaufted fource, mighty rivers formed in their fubterranean beds, do not require, or even admit, a heightening from the fancy. The most faithful pencil here produces the nobleft pictures; and THOMSON, by ftrictly

adhering to the character of the Poet of Nature, has treated all these topics with a true fublimity, which a writer of less knowledge and accuracy could never have attained. The ftrict propriety with which fubjects from Aftronomy and the other parts of Natural Philofophy are introduced into a poem defcribing the changes of the Seasons, need not be insisted on, fince it is obvious that the primary cause of all these changes is to be fought in principles derived from thefe sciences. They are the ground-work of the whole; and establish that connected series of cause and effect, upon which all thofe appearances in nature depend, from whence the descriptive poet draws his materials.

Natural Hiftory, in its most extenfive fignification, includes every obfervation relative to the diftinctions, refemblances, and changes of all the bodies, both animate and inanimate, which nature offers to us. Thefe obfervations, however, deferve to be confidered as part of a science only when they refer to fome general truth, and form a link of that vaft chain which connects all created beings in one grand system. It was my attempt, in an Effay lately published *, to

*

Effay on the Application of Natural History to Poetry.