"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?"

"See, Winter comes to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad."

"Welcome, kindred glooms! Congenial horrors, hail!"

"Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave."

"There studious let me sit, And hold high converse with the mighty dead."

"The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the sidelong maid."

"The meek-ey'd Morn appears, mother of dews."

"Falsely luxurious, will not man awake?"

"But yonder comes the powerful king of day, Rejoicing in the east."

"Ships dim-discovered dropping from the clouds."

"And Mecca saddens at the long delay."

"For many a day, and many a dreadful night, Incessant lab'ring round the stormy cape."

"Sighed and looked unutterable things."

"A lucky chance, that oft decides the fate Of mighty monarchs."

"So stands the statue that enchants the world, So bending tries to veil the matchless boast, The mingled beauties of exulting Greece."

"Who stemm'd the torrent of a downward age."

"Tutor'd by thee, hence Poetry exalts Her voice to ages; and informs the page With music, image, sentiment, and thought, Never to die! the treasure of mankind! Their highest honour, and their truest joy!"

"Come, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come."

"The negligence of Nature wide and wild, Where, undisguised by mimic art, she spreads Unbounded beauty to the roving eye."

"Base Envy withers at another’s joy, And hates that excellence it cannot reach."

"But who can paint Like Nature? Can imagination boast, Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?"

"Amid the roses fierce Repentance rears Her snaky crest."

"Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot."

"An elegant sufficiency, content, Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books, Ease and alternate labour, useful life, Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!"

"Crowned with the sickle, and the wheaten sheaf, While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain, Comes jovial on."

"Poor is the triumph o’er the timid hare! Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat Retired—"

"For loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is when unadorned adorned the most."

"He saw her charming, but he saw not half The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd."

"For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh, Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn."

"Or where the Northern ocean, in vast whirls, Boils round the naked melancholy isles Of farthest Thulè, and th' Atlantic surge Pours in among the stormy Hebrides."

"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 witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh; But whate'er smack'd of noyance or unrest Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest."

"They who are pleased themselves must always please."

"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."

"He ceased; but still their trembling ears retained The deep vibrations of his witching song."

"O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein, But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns, And heightens ease with grace."

"Plac'd far amid the melancholy main."

"Scoundrel maxim."

"But what most showed the vanity of life Was to behold the nations all on fire."

"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."

"A little, round, fat, oily man of God."

"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."

"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 trace The 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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!""

"‘The Seasons’ may be regarded as inaugurating a new era in English poetry."

"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."

"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."

"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."