THOMSON'S SEASONS.

297

Picturesque strokes of a more general character are abundant in Burns. They are often combined with humour, as in 'Tam o' Shanter' and 'Death and Doctor Hornbook'. The following is of a different nature

Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbl'd shore,

O'erhung with wild woods thickening green,
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twin'd amorous round the raptur'd scene;
The flow'rs sprang wanton to be press'd,
The birds sang love on every spray-
Till too, too soon the glowing west
Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.

The scene of the lovers' parting is first set before us comprehensively, by the pictures of the river and the overhanging woods; and the spot on the river bank is more specifically described as surrounded by birch and hawthorn. Note, in the details, the variety of the aids offered to the imagination, including suggestive points of sight-the 'pebbl'd shore,' the woods thickening green,' the 'hawthorn hoar'; appropriate sounds-Ayr gurgling, and the 'birds singing'; and a characteristic odour the fragrant birch'. Further, the object of the description is intensely emotional, as expressed in the immediately following lines.

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,

And fondly broods with miser care.

Accordingly, the language is strongly emotional, and the features of the description are expressed with special reference to the emotion of love, which is in view: 'Ayr kiss'd his shore,' the trees 'twin'd amorous round the raptur'd scene,' 'the flowers sprang wanton to be press'd,' 'the birds sang love'. Thus, the emotional harmony is complete, while the intellectual conception is more vividly presented than is usual in pictures so charged with emotion.

THOMSON is reckoned one of the foremost of our nature poets, as regards both the date of his appearance and the felicity of his style. He is not, however, an example of the descriptive art, further than by his poetic touches. His scenic views are generalized and representative; he exemplifies the characteristics of each of the four seasons, as realized in all places alike. This brings out a certain kind of individuality, but seldom presents a concrete picture in

all its circumstantials. He is the poet of nature in general, and of no place in particular. The degree of pictorial concreteness attained by him is easily seen. The following are two brief examples. The first is on Winter.

And see where surly Winter passes off,
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts:
His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The shattered forest, and the ravaged vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,

The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.

The individual touches are admirable, but there is no scenic fulness; it is a narrative series of effects due to natural agency, and is simply the picturesque of single-threaded action.

The next example is the influence of Spring on the garden.

At length the finished garden to the view

Its vistas opens, and its alleys green.

Snatched through the verdant maze, the hurried eye
Distracted wanders: now the bowery walk

Of covert close, where scarce a speck of day

Falls on the lengthened gloom, protracted sweeps ;
Now meets the bending sky, the river now
Dimpling along, the breezy-ruffled lake,

The forest darkening round, the glittering spire,
The ethereal mountain, and the distant main.

This is more of a composed picture, but wants the art that would give coherence to the particulars, and make it easy to conceive the whole. The 'vistas' and the alleys green,' are well put for a comprehensive view so far; but the lines that follow pass to the verdant maze' without giving it a definite place. The same with the 'bowery walk'; it has an independent place in the picture. So with the river and the lake; each has its characteristic touch'dimpling,' 'breezy-ruffled'; but the aggregation of particulars into an imaginable whole is not aimed at. Probably, the poet considered that such a result would not have repaid the labour.

COWPER is often bracketed with Thomson, as nature poets of a kindred. Their merits are closely compared by Campbell. The conclusion is that Cowper's landscapes have less of the ideally beautiful than Thomson's,' but they

have an unrivalled charm of truth and reality'. The generalizing of scenic effects, under the influence of season, was, however, no part of Cowper's plan. He described the actual scenes where he was accustomed to ramble, and, while he put forth the genius of description, which he undoubtedly possessed, he intermingled his pictures so profusely with sentiment that they seldom exemplify descriptive method at its utmost; yet, allowing for interruptions, they often attain very high excellence no less in method than in genius. In short descriptions, there is seldom a want of comprehensive outline. Thus—

Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain

Of spacious meads, with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course

Delighted.

The test of descriptive power is the prospect from a

height.

Now roves the eye;

And, posted on this speculative height,
Exults in its command. The sheepfold here
Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe.
At first, progressive as a stream, they seek
The middle field; but, scattered by degrees,
Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land.

There from the sunburnt hay-field homeward creeps
The loaded wain; while lightened of its charge,
The wain that meets it passes swiftly by;
The boorish driver leaning o'er his team

Vociferous and impatient of delay.

Nor less attractive is the woodland scene,
Diversified by trees of every growth,

Alike, yet various. Here the gray smooth trunks
Of ash, or lime, or beech distinctly shine,
Within the twilight of their distant shades;
There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood
Seems sunk, and shortened to its topmost boughs.
No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar; paler some,
And of a wannish gray; the willow such,
And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf,
And ash far stretching his umbrageous arm;
Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,
Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak.

This is a case where detail is everything. Still, he introduces the enumeration of the various kinds of trees, with a comprehensive view-'Not less attractive is the woodland scene'.

BYRON is rarely scenic in his descriptions. When he has still objects to deal with, he makes abundant use of active circumstances; while, in pure action, his genius revels. Compare with Campbell's 'Hohenlinden' the stanza from "Waterloo,' beginning

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war.

The

COLERIDGE has exquisite touches of picturesqueness, as may be seen by turning to the Ancient Mariner'. personal description of the mariner is familiar to us.

I fear thee, and thy glittering eye,

And thy skinny hand, so brown.

WORDSWORTH, on principle, abstained from picturesque description in the fulness requisite to reproduce the scene in the mind of a reader. The following is, however, an exception, and shows what he could do if he chose.

A point that show'd the valley, stretched
In length before us; and, not distant far,
Upon a rising ground a gray church tower,
Whose battlements were screened by tufted trees.
And towards a crystal Mere, that lay beyond
Among steep hills and woods embosomed, flowed
A copious stream with boldly-winding course;
Here traceable, there hidden-there again
To sight restored, and glittering in the sun.
On the stream's bank, and everywhere, appeared
Fair dwellings, single, or in social knots,
Some scattered o'er the level, others perched
On the hillsides, a cheerful quiet scene,
Now in its morning purity arrayed.

The arrangement is here almost unexceptionable. The valley is indicated as the all-comprehending feature. A rising ground, not far off, shows a gray church tower among trees. Next comes the chief feature,—the valley, and its natural accompaniment, the river, under which all the other details are arranged. If there be any defect in delineation, it is the reference to the far-off hidden Mere, which is its destination. Better, perhaps, if he could have started at the commencement from a known point, as Milton begins his two rivers from the mount of temptation. The ending in the Mere

contributes nothing to the scene. Still, as compared with Milton's fancy sketch, it gives a sense of reality, and by that circumstance alone is made more conceivable. An actual river would, in most situations, show the various aspects here given.

Wordsworth's more usual mode of dealing with scenic effects is brought out strikingly in a reported conversation, in which he compared his method with Scott's,

'Scott,' he says, 'went out with his pencil and note-book, and jotted down whatever struck him most—a river rippling over the sands, a ruined tower on a rock above it, a promontory, and a mountain-ash waving its red berries. He went home and wove the whole together into a poetical description. He should have left his pencil and note-book at home, fixed his eye as he walked with a reverent attention on all that surrounded him, and taken all into a heart that could understand and enjoy. Then, after several days had passed by, he should have interrogated his memory as to the scene. He would have discovered that while much of what he had admired was preserved to him, much was also most wisely obliterated; that which remained-the picture surviving in his mind-would have presented the ideal and essential truth of the scene, and done so in a large part by discarding much which, though in itself striking, was not characteristic. In every scene many of the most brilliant details are but accidental; a true eye for Nature does not note them, or at least does not dwell on them.'

There is truth in this from Wordsworth's point of view. What it does not sufficiently take account of is, that the omitted details may serve to recall and hold in the view the others, and that to trust to emotional suggestions alone is to impoverish the very picture that supports the feeling. It is a weakness of Scott himself, and of poets generally, to depend too exclusively on the emotional impression of a scene, as rendered by some fine poetical image. Wordsworth here deserts the laws of Descriptive art, as Rhetoric can teach it, and revels in pure poetic fusion of effects of language, so as to bring nature into the embrace of feeling. See the illustrations of the foregoing extract, in Myers's 'Wordsworth,' p. 144.

SCOTT's genius for description comprises both still-life and action, and is eminent in both, although more abundantly notable in the last. In a few instances, he gives a landscape, or an aspect of external nature, by description pure and simple, as a geographer that is also a poet would depict it. The prospect from Richmond Hill, in the ‘Heart of Midlothian,' is a good example