To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life,
Total extinction of th' enlighten'd soul!
Or else, to feverish vanity alive,
Wilder'd and tossing through distemper'd dreams?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves, when every Muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?"

Exquisite indeed! But this too is a proof how nearly the sublime and
ridiculous are associated,--"how thin partitions do their bounds divide;"
for this fine poetry is associated, in most reader's minds, with Thomson's
own odd indulgence in the "dead oblivion." He was a late riser, sleeping
often till noon; and when once reproached for his sluggishness, observed,
that "he felt so comfortable he really saw no motive for rising." As if,
according to the popular version of the story, "I am convinced, in theory,
of the advantage of early rising. Who knows it not, but what can Cato do?"
"Ay, he's a good divine, you say, who follows his own teaching; don't talk
to us of early rising after this." Why not, unless like Thomson, you're
kept up till a very late hour by business? The fact is he did not

--"In that gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves,"

after all. He had a strong apology for not rising early, in the late hours
of his lying down. The deep silence of the night was the time he commonly
chose for study; and he would often be heard walking in his library, at
Richmond, till near morning, humming over what he was to write out and
correct the next day, and so, good reader, this is no argument against my