That robin red-breast has hopped over a great many floors in his time; and now after a hundred and sixty years he comes brisk as ever out of that Winter poem of Thomson's. This Scotch poet is wordy; he draws long breaths; he is sometimes tiresome; but you will catch good honest glimpses of the country in his verse without going there--not true to our American seasons in detail, but always true to Nature. The sun never rises in the west in his poems; the jonquils and the daisies are not confounded; the roses never forget to blush as roses should; the oaks are sturdy; the hazels are lithe; the brooks murmur; the torrents roar a song; the winds carry waves across the grain-fields; the clouds plant shadows on the mountains. {76} Thomson was befriended by Pope, who kindly made corrections in the first draught of some of his poems; and that you may see together the wordy ways of these two poets I give a sample of Pope's mending. Thomson wrote--speaking of a gleaning girl:-- "Thoughtless of Beauty, she was beauty's self Recluse among the woods; if city dames Will deign their faith; and thus she went, compelled By strong necessity, with as serene And pleased a look as Patience ere put on, To glean Palemon's fields." And this is the way in which Pope does the mending:-- "Thoughtless of Beauty, she was beauty's self Recluse among the close embowering woods. As in the hollow breast of Apennine, Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, A myrtle rises far from human eyes, And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild; So flourished, blooming, and unseen by all, The sweet Lavinia; till at length compelled By strong necessity's supreme command, With smiling patience in her looks, she went To glean Palemon's fields." {77} There are more words, but the words gleam! Pope is the master, yet mastered by rules; Thomson less a master, but free from bonds. He tried play-writing, in those days when Fielding was just beginning in the same line, but it was not a success. After a year or two of travel upon the Continent, on some tutoring business, he published an ambitious poem (1734-1736) entitled _Liberty_--never a favorite. He had made friends, however, about the Court; and he pleasantly contrived to possess himself of some of those pensioned places, which fed unduly his natural indolence. But all will forgive him this vice, who have read his fine poem of the _Castle of Indolence_ in Spenserian verse. It was his last work--perhaps his best, and first published in 1748, the year of his death. One stanza from it I must quote; and shall never forget my first hearing of it, in tremulous utterance, from the lips of the venerable John Quincy Adams, after he had bid adieu (as he thought) to public life and was addressing[13] a {78} large assemblage in the university town of New Haven: