poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His
numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without
transcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train,
and he thinks always as a man of genius; he looks round on Nature
and on Life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet; the
eye that distinguishes in everything presented to its view whatever
there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a
mind that at once comprehends the vast and attends to the minute.
The reader of the "Seasons" wonders that he never saw before what
Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson
impresses. His is one of the works in which blank verse seems
properly used. Thomson's wide expansion of general views, and his
enumeration of circumstantial varieties, would have been obstructed
and embarrassed by the frequent intersections of the sense, which
are the necessary effects of rhyme. His descriptions of extended
scenes and general effects bring before us the whole magnificence of
Nature, whether pleasing or dreadful. The gaiety of Spring, the
splendour of Summer, the tranquillity of Autumn, and the horror of
Winter, take in their turns possession of the mind. The poet leads
us through the appearances of things as they are successively varied
by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us so much of his
own enthusiasm that our thoughts expand with his imagery and kindle
with his sentiments. Nor is the naturalist without his part in the
entertainment, for he is assisted to recollect and to combine, to
arrange his discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his
contemplation. The great defect of the "Seasons" is want of method;
but for this I know not that there was any remedy. Of many
appearances subsisting all at once, no rule can be given why one
should be mentioned before another; yet the memory wants the help of
order, and the curiosity is not excited by suspense or expectation.