How strongly these periods are marked in the history of Poetry, both antient and modern, a cursory view will suffice to shew. The scarcity of originals here is universally acknowledged and lamented, and the present race of poets are thought particularly chargeable with this defect. It ought, however, to be allowed in their favour, that if genius has declined, taste has improved; and that if they imitate more, they choose better models to copy after.
That Thomson's Seasons is the original whence our modern descriptive poets have derived that more elegant and correct style of painting natural objects which distinguishes them from their immediate predecessors, will, I think, appear evident to one who examines their several calls and manners. That none of them, however, have yet equalled their master; and that his performance is an exquisite piece, replete with beauties of the most engaging and delightful kind; will be sensibly felt by all of congenial taste:—and perhaps no poem was ever composed which addressed itself to the feelings of a greater number of readers. It is, therefore, on every account an object well worthy the attention of criticism; and an enquiry into the peculiar nature of its plan and the manner of its execution may be an agreeable introduction to a re-perusal of it in the elegant edition now offered to the public.
The description of such natural objects as by their beauty, grandeur, or novelty agreeably impress the imagination, has at all times been a principal and favourite occupation of Poetry. Various have been the methods in which such descriptions have been introduced. They have been made subservient to the purposes of ornament and illustration, in the more elevated and abstracted kinds of Poetry, by being used as objects of similitude. They have constituted a pleasing and necessary part of epic narration, when employed in forming a scenery suitable to the events. The simple tale of pastoral life could
scarcely
