"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!""
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William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Poets (1818), pp. 172-173
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Thomson_(poet%2C_born_1700)
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James Thomson (poet, born 1700)
James Thomson (September 11, 1700 – August 27, 1748) was a Scottish poet and playwright.
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