of genius to be original even in its imitations. Thomson took shape and
hue from Spenser, but added something of his own, and the result has a
value quite independent of its success as a reproduction. "The Castle of
Indolence," 1748,[31] is a fine poem; at least the first part of it is,
for the second book is tiresomely allegorical, and somewhat involved in
plot. There is a magic art in the description of the "land of
drowsy-head," with its "listless climate" always "atween June and
May,"[32] its "stockdove's plaint amid the forest deep," its hillside
woods of solemn pines, its gay castles in the summer clouds, and its
murmur of the distance main. The nucleus of Thomson's conception is to
be found in Spenser's House of Morpheus ("Faërie Queene," book i. canto
i. 41), and his Country of Idlesse is itself an anticipation of
Tennyson's Lotus Land, but verse like this was something new in the
poetry of the eighteenth century:

"Was nought around but images of rest:
Sleep-soothing groves and quiet lawns between;
And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest,
From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creatures seen.

"Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played
And hurlëd everywhere their waters sheen;
That, as they bickered through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made."

"The Castle of Indolence" had the romantic iridescence, the "atmosphere"
which is lacking to the sharp contours of Augustan verse. That is to
say, it produces an effect which cannot be wholly accounted for by what
the poet says; an effect which is wrought by subtle sensations awakened