SOURCE: "Indications of a New Attitude toward Nature in the Poetry of the Eighteenth Century," in The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry: Between Pope and Wordsworth, The University of Chicago Press, 1909, pp. 58-202.

In the excerpt that follows, Reynolds portrays Thomson as an early Romantic poet, a claim she substantiates with a list of the traits that qualify him, including his apeal to the senses and the "freedom" that characterizes the natural world portrayed in The Seasons.

… James Thomson (1700-1748) is confessedly the most important figure in the early history of Romanticism. He foreshadowed the new spirit in various ways, as in his strong love of liberty, his constant plea for the poor as against the rich, his preference for blank verse, his imitation of older models, especially Spenser, and in his tendency toward comprehensive schemes; but his chief importance is in his attitude toward external Nature...