[3] "Autumn," lines 645-47. [4] "Life of Philips." [5] "Eighteenth Century Literature," p. 221 [6] _Cf_. Chaucer: "And as a bitoure bumbleth in the mire." --_Wyf of Bathes Tale_. [7] Phillimore's "Life of Lyttelton," Vol. I, p. 286. [8] "First Impression of England," p. 135. [9] Appendix to Preface to the Second Edition of "Lyrical Ballads," [10] There are, of course, Miltonic reminiscences in "The Seasons." The moon's "spotted disk" ("Autumn," 1091) is Milton's "spotty globe." The apostrophe to light ("Spring" 90-96) borrows its "efflux divine" from Milton's "bright effluence of bright essence increate" ("Paradise Lost," III. 1-12) And _cf._ "Autumn," 783-84: "--from Imaus stretcht Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds," with P.L., III, 431-32; and "Winter," 1005-08. "--moors Beneath the shelter of an icy isle, While night o'erwhelms the sea." with P.L., I. 207-208. [11] "Ward's English Poets," Vol. III. p. 171. [12] There were originally _three_ damsels in the bathing scene! [13] It was to this episode that Pope supplied the lines (207-14) "Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self," etc., which form his solitary essay in blank verse. Thomson told Collins that he took the first hint of "The Seasons" from the names of the divisions--Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter--in Pope's "Pastorals." [14] Appendix to Preface to Second Edition of "Lyrical Ballads." [15] "The Hermit." [16] "Essay on Man," Epistle I. [17] "Falsely luxurious, will not man awake?" etc. --_Summer_, 67. [18] "Nor, when cold winter keens the brightening flood, Would I, weak shivering, linger on the brink." --_Ibid._ 1259-60. [19] "Life of Thomson." [20] "Spring," 755-58. [21] "Autumn," 862-65. [22] "Epistle of Augustus." [23] "Autumn," 1030-37. _Cf._ Cowper's "O for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade!" [24] "Winter," 424-32. [25] "Spring," 1026-28. [26] Shakspere's "broom groves whose shade the dismist bachelor loves;" Fletcher's "Fountain heads and pathless groves, Places which pale passion loves," and his "Moonlight walks when all the fowls Are safely housed, save bats and owls." [27] Letter to Howe, September 10. [28] Letter to Howe, November, 1763.