Yet, if we compare the tone of even the common-place class of writers with that of the authors of quasi-scientific treatises of the preceding century--in which the most cold-blooded atrocities on the helpless victims of human ignorance and barbarity are prescribed for the composition of their medical _nostrums_, &c., with the most unconscious audacity and ignoring of every sort of feeling--considerable advance is apparent in the slow onward march of the human race towards the goal of a true morality and religion. To the author of _The Seasons_ belongs the everlasting honour of being the first amongst modern poets earnestly to denounce the manifold wrongs inflicted upon the subject species, and, in particular, the savagery inseparable from the Slaughter-House--for Pope did not publish his _Essay on Man_ until four years after the appearance of _Spring_. James Thomson, of Scottish parentage, came to London to seek his fortune in literature, at the age of 25. For some time he experienced the poverty and troubles which so generally have been the lot of young aspirants to literary, especially poetic, fame. _Winter_--which inaugurated a new school of poetry--appeared in March, 1726. That the publisher considered himself liberal in offering three guineas for the poem speaks little for the taste of the time; but that a better taste was coming into existence is also plain from the fact of its favourable reception, notwithstanding the obscurity of the author. Three editions appeared in the same year. _Summer_, his next venture, was published in 1727, and the (Four) _Seasons_ in 1730, by subscription--387 subscribers enrolling their names for copies at a guinea each. Natural enthusiasm, sympathy, and love for all that is really beautiful on Earth (a sort of feeling not to be appreciated by vulgar minds) forms his chief characteristic. But, above all, his sympathy with suffering in all its forms (see, particularly, his reflections after the description of the snowstorm in _Winter_), not limited by the narrow bounds of nationality or of species but extended to all innocent life--his indignation against oppression and injustice, are what most honourably distinguish him from almost all of his predecessors and, indeed, from most of his successors. _The Seasons_ is the forerunner of _The Task_ and the humanitarian school of poetry. _The Castle of Indolence_ in the stanza of Spenser, has claims of a kind different from those of _The Seasons_; and the admirers of _The Faerie Queen_ cannot fail to appreciate the merits of the modern romance. Besides these _chefs-d’œuvre_ Thomson wrote two tragedies, _Sophonisba_ and _Liberty_, the former of which, at the time, had considerable success upon the stage. In the number of his friends he reckoned Pope and Samuel Johnson, both of whom are said to have had some share in the frequent revisions which he made of his principal production.