My task has been in part a task of selection. Many of the old Poets whose frequent beauties I have acknowledged, (at no time more than when occupied in the compilation of these papers,) have been passed over in silence. Herrick, the "honey-bee of letters"--Rare Drummond, hight "of Hawthornden"--Lovelace, whose Althea will live with Surry's Geraldine--and many other "names noble and bright" have met with bare mention. It cannot be expected then that I should rake up from the dung-hill of the day the Tennysons, the Montgomeries, the Blessingtons, etc. etc. with whose writings magazine readers are so conversant. These are "bad bardlings." But many will be passed by for whom I entertain much respect, and more love. Mrs. Norton, the elder Montgomery, Miss Landon, gentle and sad Grahame, are lights of no mean magnitude. But "in looking upon the moon the dimmer orbs are forgotten." I avail myself of this introductory paragraph to say, that this paper will be unlike those which have preceded it. Accurate research, and close examination into points of literary history, although necessary in treating of English Poetry in its earlier stages, are scarcely so in treating of the same subject in its later. The reason of this is evident. I shall therefore content myself with brief critical remarks, (_too_ brief, perhaps, to excite interest) and as a matter of less importance than in my former papers--with snatches of biography. This being the case, I fear that these papers will be thought trivial. My last chapter ended with Pope. Passing over Swift and a few others, we come at once upon a worthy name. I. James Thomson, the author of the _Seasons_ and other Poems of merit, was born in Roxburgshire, Scotland, in September, 1700. His father, a clergyman of small estate, died while the Poet was yet a boy; and, after a few years spent in obscurity, the son went to London as a literary adventurer. "By what gradation of indigence he became reduced to a Poet it would be vain to inquire." He did become "_reduced to a Poet_," however, and, after a season of want, he succeeded in selling his "Winter." Mr. Wheatley and Aaron Hill took active parts in his advancement, and Thomson was so blinded by gratitude for the kindness of the latter gentleman, that he flattered him without stint,--for which our poet no doubt underwent the repentance of Caliban on discovering the earthly quality of Stephano. ----------"What a thrice double ass Was I to take the drunkard for a God, And worship this dull fool."