to west,
  In tracks oblique he thro’ the zodiac rolls,
  Between the northern and the southern poles;
  From which revolving progress thro’ the skies. 
  The needful seasons of the year arise: 
  And as he now advances, now retreats,
  Whence winter colds proceed, and summer heats,
  He qualifies, and chears the air by turns,
  Which winter freezes, and which summer burns. 
  Thus his kind rays the two extremes reduce,
  And keep a temper fit for nature’s use. 
  The frost and drought by this alternate pow’r. 
  The earth’s prolific energy restore. 
  The lives of man and beast demand the change;
  Hence fowls the air, and fish the ocean range. 
  Of heat and cold, this just successive reign,
  Which does the balance of the year maintain,
  The gard’ner’s hopes, and farmer’s patience props,
  Gives vernal verdure, and autumnal crops.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Jacob.

[2] Preface to Remarks on Prince Arthur, octavo 1696.

* * * * *

Mr. JAMES THOMSON.

This celebrated poet, from whom his country has derived the most distinguished honour, was son of the revd.  Mr. Thomson, a minister of the church of Scotland, in the Presbytery of Jedburgh.

He was born in the place where his father was minister, about the beginning of the present century, and received the rudiments of his education at a private country school.  Mr. Thomson, in the early part of his life, so far from appearing to possess a sprightly genius, was considered by his school master, and those which directed his education, as being really without a common share of parts.

While he was improving himself in the Latin and Greek tongues at this country school, he often visited a minister, whose charge lay in the same presbytery with his father’s, the revd.  Mr. Rickerton, a man of such amazing powers, that many persons of genius, as well as Mr. Thomson, who conversed with him, have been astonished, that such great merit should be buried in an obscure part of the country, where he had no opportunity to display himself, and, except upon periodical meetings of the ministers, seldom an opportunity of conversing with men of learning.

Though Mr. Thomson’s schoolmaster could not discover that he was endowed with a common portion of understanding, yet Mr. Rickerton was not so blind to his genius; he distinguished our author’s early propension to poetry, and had once in his hands some of the first attempts Mr. Thomson ever made in that province.

It is not to be doubted but our young poet greatly improved while he continued to converse with Mr. Rickerton, who, as he was a philosophical man, inspired his mind with a love of the Sciences, nor were the revd. gentleman’s endeavours in vain, for Mr. Thomson has shewn in his works how well he was acquainted with natural and moral philosophy, a circumstance which, perhaps, is owing to the early impressions he received from Mr. Rickerton.