With regard to the special problems with which we are here concerned, it must be noted that when Thomson was first writing “The Seasons,” the device of personified abstraction had not become quite so conventional and forced in its use as at a later date. Nevertheless examples of the typical abstraction are not infrequent; thus, in an enumeration of the passions which, since the end of the “first fresh dawn,” have invaded the hearts and minds of men, we are given “Base Envy,” withering at another’s joy; “Convulsive Anger,” storming at large; and “Desponding Fear,” full of feeble fancies, etc. (“Spring,” 280-306). Other examples are somewhat redeemed by the use of a felicitous compound epithet, “Art imagination-flushed” (“Autumn,” 140), “the lonesome Muse, low-whispering” (_ibid._, 955), etc. In “Summer” (ll. 1605 foll.) the poet presents one of the usual lists of abstract qualities (“White Peace, Social Love,” etc.), but there are imaginative touches present that help to vitalize some at least of the company into living beings: The tender-looking Charity intent On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles— and the passage is thus a curious mixture of mechanical abstractions with more vivid and inspired conceptions. Occasionally Thomson employs the figure with ironical or humorous intention, and sometimes not ineffectively, as in the couplet, Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst Produce the mighty bowl. (“Autumn,” 512) He is also fond of the apostrophic personification, often feebly, as when, acting upon a suggestion from Mallet,[205] he writes: Comes, Inspiration, from thy hermit seat, By mortal seldom found, etc. (“Summer,” l. 15) As for the seasons themselves, we do not find any very successful attempts at personification. Thomson gives descriptive impressions rather than abstractions: “gentle Spring, ethereal mildness” (“Spring,” 1), “various-blossomed Spring” (“Autumn,” 5); or borrowing, as often, an epithet from Milton, “refulgent Summer” (“Summer,” 2); or “surly Winter” (“Spring,” 11). But in these, and similar passages, the seasons can hardly be said to be distinctly pictured or personified. In “Winter,” however, there is perhaps a more successful attempt at vague but suggestive personification:[206] See Winter comes, to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad, with all his rising train Vapours, and clouds and storms. But on the whole Thomson’s personifications of the seasons are not, poetically, very impressive. There is little or no approach to the triumphant evocation with which Keats conjures up Autumn for us, with all its varied sights and sounds, and its human activities vividly personified in the gleaner and the winnower sitting careless on a granary floor Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,