It was just about the opening of the second quarter of the eighteenth century--when Fielding was fresh from Eton, fifteen years before _Pamela_ had appeared and while George II. was in waiting for the slipping off of Father George at Osnaburg--that a stout Scotch poet found his way to London to try a new style of verses with the public which was still worshipping at the shrine of Mr. Pope. This was the poet of _The Seasons_,[12] whose boyhood had been passed and enriched in that bight of the beautiful Tweed valley which lies between Coldstream and the tall mass of Kelso's ruin,--with Melrose and Smailhome Tower and Ettrickdale not far away, and the Lammermuir hills glowering in the north. He had studied theology in Edinboro', till some iris-hued version of a psalm (which he had wrought) brought the warning from some grim orthodox friend--that {74} a good Dominie should rein up his imagination. So he set his face southward, with the crystal scenery of a winter on Tweed-side sparkling in his thought. He lived humbly in London, for best of reasons, near to Charing Cross; but by the aid of Northern friends, brought his _Winter_ to book, in the spring of 1726. It delighted everybody; the tric-trac of Pope was lacking, and so was the master's arrant polish; but the change brought its own blithe welcome. We will try a little touch from this first poem of his which he brought in his satchel, on the boy journey to London:-- "Thro' the hushed air the whitening shower descends, At first, thin, wavering, till at last the flakes Fall broad and wide and fast, dimming the day With a continual flow.... Low, the woods Bow their hoar heads; and ere the languid sun Faint from the west emits his evening ray, Earth's universal face, deep hid and chill, Is one wide dazzling waste. The fowls of heaven, Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around The winnowing stone.... {75} One alone, The red-breast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky In joyless fields and thorny thickets, leaves His shivering mates. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor Eyes all the smiling family askance And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is."