shown that much of what his biographer deemed genuine admiration must in fact have been blind wonderment—­how is the rest to be accounted for?—­Thomson was fortunate in the very title of his poem, which seemed to bring it home to the prepared sympathies of every one:  in the next place, notwithstanding his high powers, he writes a vicious style; and his false ornaments are exactly of that kind which would be most likely to strike the undiscerning.  He likewise abounds with sentimental commonplaces, that, from the manner in which they were brought forward, bore an imposing air of novelty.  In any well-used copy of the Seasons the book generally opens of itself with the rhapsody on love, or with one of the stories (perhaps ’Damon and Musidora’); these also are prominent in our collections of Extracts, and are the parts of his Work which, after all, were probably most efficient in first recommending the author to general notice.  Pope, repaying praises which he had received, and wishing to extol him to the highest, only styles him ‘an elegant and philosophical Poet’; nor are we able to collect any unquestionable proofs that the true characteristics of Thomson’s genius as an imaginative poet[10] were perceived, till the elder Warton, almost forty years after the publication of the Seasons, pointed them out by a note in his Essay on the Life and Writings of Pope.  In the Castle of Indolence (of which Gray speaks so coldly) these characteristics were almost as conspicuously displayed, and in verse more harmonious and diction more pure.  Yet that fine poem was neglected on its appearance, and is at this day the delight only of a few!

When Thomson died, Collins breathed forth his regrets in an Elegiac Poem, in which he pronounces a poetical curse upon him who should regard with insensibility the place where the Poet’s remains were deposited.  The Poems of the mourner himself have now passed through innumerable editions, and are universally known, but if, when Collins died, the same kind of imprecation had been pronounced by a surviving admirer, small is the number whom it would not have comprehended.  The notice which his poems attained during his lifetime was so small, and of course the sale so insignificant, that not long before his death he deemed it right to repay to the bookseller the sum which he had advanced for them and threw the edition into the fire.

Next in importance to the Seasons of Thomson, though a considerable distance from that work in order of time, come the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, collected, new-modelled, and in many instances (if such a contradiction in terms may be used) composed by the Editor, Dr Percy.  This work did not steal silently into the world, as is evident from the number of legendary tales, that appeared not long after its publication, and had been modelled, as the authors persuaded themselves, after the old Ballad.  The Compilation was, however ill suited to the then existing