The phrase, “dislike of boundaries,” is perhaps not very apt, but it may serve to describe what is certainly a pervasive quality of Thomson’s work, and a significant quality, for if there was one thing more pleasing than another to an orthodox classicist it was a well-defined limit. Thomson preferred the blank verse to the couplet because the unrhymed, flowing lines gave a certain freedom. There is an air of abundance, of even undue exuberance about much of his work. Even his diction presents this idea of lavishness. There is a surprisingly large number of such words as “effulgent,” “refulgent,” “effusion,” “diffusion,” “suffusion,” “profusion,” from the roots “fundo” and “fulgeo” with their idea of a liberal pouring out. “Luxuriant,” “ample,” “prodigal,” “boundless,” “unending,” “ceaseless,” “immense,” “interminable,” “immeasurable,” “vast,” “infinite,” are typical words. Profusely poured around, Materials infinite, Infinite splendor wide investing all, To the far horizon wide-diffused, A boundless deep immensity of shade, Night, a shade immense, magnificent and vast, are typical phrases. In one short description the birds are “innumerous;” they are “prodigal” of harmony; their joy overflows in music “unconfined;” the song of the linnets is “poured out profusely.”[310] In another short passage the stores of the vale are “lavish,” the lily is “luxuriant” and grows in fair “profusion,” the flowers are “unnumbered,” beauty is “unbounded,” and bees fly in “swarming millions.”[311] When images come into his mind it is by the ten thousand. In spring the country is “one boundless blush,” “far diffused around.” He loves the “liberal air,” “lavish fragrance,” “full luxuriance,” “extensive harvests,” “immeasurable,” or “exhaustless” stores, “copious exhalations.” All is superlative, exaggerated, scornful of limits. It was “the unbounded scheme of things” that most appealed to him. The same point receives illustration in his sense for landscape. He rejoiced in a wide view.[312] He loved to seek out some proud eminence and there let his eye wander “far excursive,” and dwell on “boundless prospects.” Such scenes not only gave him a chance for picturesque enumerations without any especial demand for minute discrimination, but they satisfied his preference for grand, general effects.