1 Now only remembered from a rough parody on one of its verses. The play had excited high expectation, and was well received; but when the actor came to repeat—"O, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O," a voice from the audience chimed in—"O, Jemmie Thomson, Jemmie Thomson, O," which for a time was a mouth-verse throughout the city.
To this Poem I will confine myself in treating hurriedly of the writings of Thomson. His Seasons are too well known to call for comment—and his other works are (perhaps deservedly) out of the public recollection. The "Castle of Indolence" then, is a renewal of Spenser's best pictures—a renewal not only in its dreamy voluptuousness of character, but in its stanzaic peculiarities. It has been said that no other writers ever succeeded in acquiring the peculiar flow of Milton's blank verse, or the singular play of Spenser's old time rhythm. This is true with an exception. One half of the Castle of Indolence, if a little more antiquated, might be inserted among the cantos of the Faery Queene without detection. And this I hold to be no slight compliment to the later poet.
The Castle of Indolence was the work in which the idle Thomson gave words to his individual mood. A sluggard, he had a sluggard's visions. His visions of nature were of nature lulled into quietude. His landscapes sleep under quiet skies—his winds come from "the land of Drowsy Head." He reared shadowy battlements, and planted "sleep-soothing groves," under which lay
"Idlesse in her dreaming mood."
And in such pictures the Poet rejoiced. But with this drowsy enchantment he mingled all the freshness of that age which, from its far distance in the past, takes upon itself the hue of far clouds—becoming in the eyes of men an age of gold. The freshness of which I speak is of the patriarchal age—
| "What time Dan Abraham left the Chaldee land, And pastured on from verdant stage to stage, Where fields and fountains fresh could best engage." |
And this freshness retrieves the swooning and too sickly tone of a poem, all in all, inimitable.
If, reader, you wish an hour of forgetfulness, go to some quiet hollow, in the pleasant summer time, and after working thought and heart into the mood which can
"Pour all the Arabian heaven upon our nights,"
hum such sleep-begetting verses as these: