Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/21

Rh friend's premature death, appears in the copy of verses which he wrote on that occasion.

In the mean time, our author's reception, where-ever he was introduced, emboldened him to risque the publication of his Winter: in which, as himself was a mere novice in such matters, he was kindly assisted by Mr. Mallet, then private tutor to his grace the Duke of Montrose, and his brother the Lord George Graham, so well known afterwards as an able and gallant sea officer. To Mr. Mallet he likewise owed his first acquaintance with several of the wits of that time; an exact information of their characters, personal and poetical, and how they stood affected to each other.

The Poem of Winter, published in March 1726, was no sooner read than universally admired; those only excepted who had not been used to feel, or to look for any thing in poetry, beyond a point of satirical or epigrammatic wit, a smart antithesis richly trimmed with rhime, or the softness of an elegiac complaint. To such his manly classical spirit could not readily recommend itself; till after a more attentive perusal, they had got the better of their prejudices, and either acquired or affected a truer taste. A few others stood aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and resigned themselves to an absolute despair of ever seeing any thing new and original. These were somewhat mortified to find their notions disturbed by the appearance of a poet, who seemed to owe nothing but to Nature and his own genius. But, in a short time, the applause became unanimous; every one wondering how so Rh