James Thomson (poet, born 1700)

James Thomson (poet, born 1834) thumb|250px|I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence? James Thomson (September 11, 1700 – August 27, 1748) was a Scottish poet and playwright. Quotes At the throng'd levee bends the venal tribe:With fair but faithless smiles each varnish'd o'er,Each smooth as those that mutually deceive,And for their falsehood each despising each. Liberty, Pt. v, l. 190 (1734); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 144 Forever, Fortune, wilt thou proveAn unrelenting foe to love,And, when we meet a mutual heart,Come in between and bid us part? To Fortune; song reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)    Whoe'er amidst the sonsOf reason, valour, liberty, and virtueDisplays distinguish'd merit, is a nobleOf Nature's own creating. Coriolanus, Act iii, scene 3; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) O Sophonisba! Sophonisba, O! Sophonisba, Act iii, scene 2; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). The line was altered after the second edition to "O Sophonisba! I am wholly thine." When Britain first, at Heaven's command,Arose from out the azure main,This was the charter of the land,And guardian angels sung this strain:'Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.' Alfred, Act II, sc. v (1740) Hymn (1730) These as they change, Almighty Father! theseAre but the varied God. The rolling yearIs full of Thee. l. 1 Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade. l. 25 From seeming evil still educing good. l. 114    But I loseMyself in Him, in Light ineffable!Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise.These, as they change, Almighty Father, theseAre but the varied God. The rolling Year Is full of Thee. l. 116 The Seasons (1726-1730) I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence? Preface Winter (1726) See, Winter comes to rule the varied year,Sullen and sad. l. 1 Welcome, kindred glooms!Congenial horrors, hail! l. 5 Thither the household feathery people crowd,The crested cock, with all his female train. l. 87 Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave. l. 393 There studious let me sit,And hold high converse with the mighty dead. l. 431 The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the sidelong maid. l. 625 Summer (1727) The meek-ey'd Morn appears, mother of dews. l. 47 Falsely luxurious, will not man awake? l. 67 But yonder comes the powerful king of day,Rejoicing in the east. l. 81 Ships dim-discovered dropping from the clouds. l. 946 And Mecca saddens at the long delay. l. 979 For many a day, and many a dreadful night,Incessant lab'ring round the stormy cape. l. 1002 Sighed and looked unutterable things. l. 1188 Flocks thick-nibbling through the clovered vale. l. 1235 Even from the body's purity, the mindReceives a secret sympathetic aid. l. 1269 A lucky chance, that oft decides the fateOf mighty monarchs. l. 1285 So stands the statue that enchants the world,So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,The mingled beauties of exulting Greece. l. 1346 Who stemm'd the torrent of a downward age. l. 1515 Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge,The glow-worm lights his gem; and through the dark,A moving radiance twinkles. l. 1682 Tutor'd by thee, hence Poetry exaltsHer voice to ages; and informs the pageWith music, image, sentiment, and thought,Never to die! the treasure of mankind!Their highest honour, and their truest joy! l. 1752 Spring (1728) Come, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come. l. 1    Senseless, and deformed,Convulsive Anger storms at large; or pale,And silent, settles into fell revenge. l. 28 Variant: Base Envy withers at another's joy,And hates that excellence it cannot reach. The negligence of Nature wide and wild,Where, undisguised by mimic art, she spreadsUnbounded beauty to the roving eye. l. 71 The Hawthorn whitens; and the juicy GrovesPut forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,Till the whole leafy Forest stands displayed,In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales. l. 90    'Tis silence all,And pleasing expectation. l. 160 Base Envy withers at another’s joy,And hates that excellence it cannot reach. l. 283 Desponding Fear, of feeble fancies full,Weak and unmanly, loosens every power. l. 286 Pure was the temperate Air, an even CalmPerpetual reign'd, save what the Zephyrs blandBreath'd o'er the blue expanse. l. 323    But should you lureFrom his dark haunt, beneath the tangled rootsOf pendent trees, the Monarch of the brook,Behoves you then to ply your finest art. l. 420    But who can paintLike Nature? Can imagination boast,Amid its gay creation, hues like hers? l. 465 The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue;And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes. l. 529 From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,Anemones, auritulas, enrichedWith shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves. l. 533    While I deduce,From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings,The symphony of spring. l. 576    What, but God?Inspiring God! who boundless Spirit all,And unremitting Energy, pervades,Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole. l. 849 Amid the roses fierce Repentance rearsHer snaky crest. l. 996 Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,To teach the young idea how to shoot. l. 1149 An elegant sufficiency, content,Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,Ease and alternate labour, useful life,Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven! l. 1158 Autumn (1730) Crowned with the sickle, and the wheaten sheaf,While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,Comes jovial on. l. 1    Home is the resortOf love, of joy, of peace, and plenty; whereSupporting and supported, polished friendsAnd dear relations mingle into bliss. l. 65 Poor is the triumph o’er the timid hare!Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seatRetired— l. 71    Think, oh, grateful think!How good the God of Harvest is to you;Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields,While, those unhappy partners of your kindWide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,And ask their humble dole. l. 169    Her polish'd limbs,Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire;Beyond the pomp of dress; for LovelinessNeeds not the foreign aid of ornament,But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most. l. 202 He saw her charming, but he saw not halfThe charms her downcast modesty conceal'd. l. 229 For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn. l. 233 Or where the Northern ocean, in vast whirls,Boils round the naked melancholy islesOf farthest Thulè, and th' Atlantic surgePours in among the stormy Hebrides. l. 871 Age too shines out: and, garrulous, recounts the feats of youth. l. 1231 But while listening Senates hang upon thy tongue,Devolving through the maze of eloquenceA roll of periods, sweeter than her song. l. ? The lovely young Lavinia once had friends;And fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth. l. ? The Castle of Indolence (1748) A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was,Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,Forever flushing round a summer sky:There eke the soft delights that witchinglyInstil a wanton sweetness through the breast,And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh;But whate'er smack'd of noyance or unrestWas far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest. Canto I, Stanza 6 They who are pleased themselves must always please. Canto I, Stanza 15 The best of men have ever loved repose: They hate to mingle in the filthy fray;Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows, Imbitter'd more from peevish day to day. Canto I, Stanza 17 He ceased; but still their trembling ears retainedThe deep vibrations of his witching song. Canto I, Stanza 20 O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,And heightens ease with grace. Canto I, Stanza 26 Plac'd far amid the melancholy main. Canto I, Stanza 30 Scoundrel maxim. Canto I, Stanza 50 But what most showed the vanity of lifeWas to behold the nations all on fire. Canto I, Stanza 55 A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard becomes Who void of envy, guile and lust of gain,On virtue still and nature's pleasing themes Poured forth his unpremeditated strain. Canto I, Stanza 68 (Last line said to be "writ by a friend of the author.") A little, round, fat, oily man of God. Canto I, Stanza 69 Their only labour was to kill the time;And labour dire it is, and weary woe,They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme,Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go,Or saunter forth, with tottering steps and slow. Canto I, Stanza 72 I care not, Fortune, what you me deny; You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to traceThe woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve.Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,And I their toys to the great children leave:Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave. Canto II, Stanza 3 Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, When drooping health and spirits go amiss?How tasteless then whatever can be given! Health is the vital principle of bliss,And exercise, of health. Canto II, Stanza 55 Quotes about James Thomson Thomson is the best of our descriptive poets: for he gives most of the poetry of natural description. Others have been quite equal to him, or have surpassed him, as Cowper for instance, in the picturesque part of his art, in marking the peculiar features and curious details of objects;—no one has yet come up to him in giving the sum total of their effects, their varying influences on the mind. William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Poets (1818), p. 171 Nature in his descriptions is seen growing around us, fresh and lusty as in itself. We feel the effect of the atmosphere, its humidity or clearness, its heat or cold, the glow of summer, the gloom of winter, the tender promise of the spring, the full overshadowing foliage, the declining pomp and deepening tints of autumn. He transports us to the scorching heat of vertical suns, or plunges us into the chilling horrors and desolation of the frozen zone. We hear the snow drifting against the broken casement without, and see the fire blazing on the hearth within. The first scattered drops of a vernal shower patter on the leaves above our heads, or the coming storm resounds through the leafless groves. In a word, he describes not to the eye alone, but to the other senses, and to the whole man. He puts his heart into his subject, writes as he feels, and humanises whatever he touches. He makes all his descriptions teem with life and vivifying soul. William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Poets (1818), p. 172 His faults were those of his style—of the author and the man; but the original genius of the poet, the pith and marrow of his imagination, the fine natural mould in which his feelings were bedded, were too much for him to counteract by neglect, or affectation, or false ornaments. It is for this reason that he is, perhaps, the most popular of all our poets, treating of a subject that all can understand, and in a way that is interesting to all alike, to the ignorant or the refined, because he gives back the impression which the things themselves make upon us in nature. "That," said a man of genius, seeing a little shabby soiled copy of Thomson's Seasons lying on the window-seat of an obscure country alehouse—"That is true fame!" William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Poets (1818), pp. 172-173 ‘The Seasons’ may be regarded as inaugurating a new era in English poetry. Thomas Seccombe, 'Thomson, James', Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. LVI. Teach—Tollet, ed. Sidney Lee (1898), p. 251 In France ‘The Seasons’ proved no less ‘a revelation’ than in England... Voltaire, in his amiable mood, spoke highly of its simplicity and the love of mankind which it exhibited. Montesquieu raised a sylvan monument to Thomson, whose poem contributed materially to the ‘rural delirium’ of Rousseau. Thomas Seccombe, 'Thomson, James', Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. LVI. Teach—Tollet, ed. Sidney Lee (1898), p. 252 Hazlitt and Coleridge, two very safe guides, regard Thomson as pre-eminently ‘the born poet.’ Dr. Johnson (to whom as an unorthodox Scot of liberal opinions Thomson was by no means dear) admitted that ‘he could not have viewed two candles burning but with a poetical eye.’ In this respect, in the possession of the true poetic temperament, he has been surpassed not even by Tennyson. Unfortunately, unlike his successor, he allowed the false taste of the day to intercept his utterance before it was complete. In addition to the poet's vision he had the poetic gift of observation at first hand, but in giving expression to these faculties he was content to employ the right phrase relatively to his time, and so the absolutely right eluded him. That a true poet should have been so content may be attributed in part to the sensitiveness of a provincial to the imputation of rudeness, in part to his kindly, sociable, and easy-going temperament, and the predominant influence of his much-esteemed ‘Mr. Pope.’ The result is that ‘The Seasons,’ which ‘gave the signal for a revolution destined to renew European literature,’ yet comes short in itself of being a perfect masterpiece. Thomas Seccombe, 'Thomson, James', Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. LVI. Teach—Tollet, ed. Sidney Lee (1898), p. 252 Amongst the latest of Mr. Thomson's productions is his Castle of Indolence, a poem of so extraordinary merit, that perhaps we are not extravagant, when we declare, that this single performance discovers more genius and poetical judgment, than all his other works put together. Robert Shiels, 'The Life of Mr. James Thomson', The Lives of the Poets of Great-Britain and Ireland. Vol. V (1753), p. 205 The Seasons, and still more the Castle of Indolence, entitle Thomson to be ranked among the good English Poets: nor should it be forgotten that the song of Rule Britannia is his, a song which will be the political hymn of this country as long as she maintains her political power. Robert Southey, Specimens of the Later English Poets, With Preliminary Notices, Vol. II (1807), p. 107 External links James Thomson (poet, born 1700) James Thomson Author:James Thomson (1700-1748) Category:Poets from Scotland Category:Playwrights from Scotland Category:1748 deaths