inscription: nor did his brother poets at all exert themselves on the occasion, as they had lately done for one who had been the terror of poets all his life time. This silence furnished matter to one of his friends for an excellent satirical epigram, which we are sorry we cannot give the reader. Only one gentleman, Mr. Collins, who had lived some time in Richmond, but forsook it when Mr. Thomson died, wrote an Ode to his memory. This, for the dirge-like melancholy it breathes, and the warmth of affection that seems to have dictated it, we shall subjoin.

Such was his extreme sensibility, so perfect the harmony of his organs with the sentiments of his mind, that his looks always announced, and half expressed, what he was about to say; and his voice corresponded exactly to the manner and degree in which he was affected. This sensibility had one inconvenience attending it, that it rendered him the very worst reader of good poetry: a sonnet, or a copy of tame verses, he could manage pretty well, or even improve them in the reading; but a passage of Virgil, Milton, or Shakespeare, proved a difficult task; so deficient was he in this particular, that Doddington, afterwards Lord Melcombe Regis, who was a remarkable good reader, was so provoked at the injustice he did to his own poetry by his recitation, that he snatched his manuscript from his hands, and told him he did not understand his own verses.

He had improved his taste upon the best originals, ancient and modern; but could not bear to write what was not strictly his own, what had not more immediately struck his imagination, or touched his heart; so that he is not in the least concerned in that question about the merit or demerit of imitators. What he borrows from the ancients he gives us in an avowed faithful paraphrase or translation, as we see in a few passages taken from Virgil, and in that beautiful pic

ture from Pliny the Elder, where the course and gradual increase of the Nile are figured by the stages of man's life.

The autumn was his favourite season for poetical composition, and the deep silence of the night the time he generally chose for such studies; so that he would often be heard walking in his library till near morning, humming over, in his way, what he was to correct and write out next day.

The amusements of his leisure hours were civil and natural history, voyages, and the relation of travellers, the most authentic he could procure. While abroad, he had been greatly delighted with the regular Italian drama, such as Metastasio writes; as it is there heightened by the charms of the best voices and instruments; and looked upon our theatrical entertainments as, in one respect, naked and imperfect, when compared with the ancient, or with those of Italy; wishing sometimes that a chorus, at least, and a better recitative could be introduced.

Nor was his taste less exquisite in the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture. In his travels he had seen all the most celebrated monuments of antiquity, and the best productions of modern art, and studied them so minutely, and with so true a judgment, that in some of his descriptions in the poem of Liberty, we have the master-pieces there mentioned placed in a stronger light, perhaps, than if we saw them with our eyes, at least more justly delineated than in any other account extant: so superior is a natural taste of the grand and beautiful to the traditional lessons of a common virtuoso. His collection of prints, and some drawings from the antique, are now in the possession of his friend, Mr. Gray, of Richmond Hill.

As for his more distinguishing qualities of mind and heart, they are better represented in his writings the n they can be by the pen of any biographer. There, his

love of mankind, of his country and friends, his deve. tion to the Supreme Being, founded on the most elevated and just conceptions of his operations and providence, shine out in every page.

He is not indeed known, through his whole life, to have given any person one moment's pain, by his writings or other wise. He took no part in the poetical squabbles which happened in his time, and was respected and left undisturbed by both sides. He would even refuse to take offence when he justly might, by interrupting any personal story that was brought him, with some jest, or some humorous apology for the offender. Nor was he ever seen ruffled or discomposed, but when he road or heard of some flagrant in- | stance of injustice, oppression, or cruelty: then, in-. deed, the strongest marks of horror and indignation. were visible in his countenance.

These amiable virtues, this divine temper of mind, did not fail of their due reward. His friends loved hina with an enthusiastic ardour, and lamented his untimely fate in the manner that is still fresh in every one 's memory: the best and greatest men of his time ho 1oured him with their friendship and protection: tle applause of the public attended every appearance! ae made; the actors, of whom the more eminent we re friends and admirers, grudging no pains to do justi ce to his tragedies. At present, indeed, if we exce pt Tancred, they are seldom called for, the simplicity of his plots, and the models he worked after, not suiting the reigning taste, nor the impatience of an English theatre. They may hereafter come to be in vogue, but we hazard no comment, or conjecture upon then, or upon any part of Mr. Thomson's works: neith er need they any defence or apology, after the recepti on they have had at home, and in the foreign languag es into which they have been translated. We shall or ly say, that, to judge from the imitations of his manner, which have been following him close from the very first publication of Winter, he seems to have fixed no inconsiderable æra of the English poetry.

His extraordinary poetical abilities are described by Dr. Johnson in the following picturesque language. "As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the high"est kind: his mode of thinking, and of expressing his "thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no more the "blank verse of Milton, or of any other 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 every thing pre"sented to his view, whatever there is in which ima"gination 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 shews him, and "that he never yet has felt what Thomson impresses. "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 appearance of things as they are suc"cessively 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.

ODE

ON THE DEATH OF MR. THOMSON,

BY MR. COLLINS.

The Scene of the following Stanzas is supposed to lie on the Thames, near Richmond.

I.

In yonder grave a Druid lies,

Where slowly winds the stealing wave,
The year's best sweets shall duteous rise
To deck its Poet's sylvan grave.

II.

In yon' deep bed of whispering reeds
His airy harp * shali now be laid,
That he whose heart in sorrow bleeds,
May love thro' life the soothing shade.

Then maids and youths shall linger here,
And while its sounds at distance swell,
Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear

To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell.

IV.

Remembrance oft' shall haunt the shore

When Thames in summer wreaths is drest,

And oft' suspend the dashing oar,
To bid his gentle spiritgest!

* The harp of Æolus, of which see a description in the Cas