-

• Killing of time, my dear lady, is a ferious bufinefs-Every body talks of it as a thing eafily effected; but if you will credit what I tell you, all the labours of HERCULES were a flea-bite to it; for time is not to be destroyed.-It is juft fuch a thing as the Polypes, or (for I hate a fimile that does not lie at my elbow) juft like one of the Sea Anemonies that are found on the rocks of MARGATE, which you may cut long ways, or cross ways, or end ways, or edge ways, or any ways you please, ftill every part you feparate becomes an entire whole, and the parent animal equally perfect as before-Thus when you have flipt off from time, days, and weeks, and months, and years, new days, and weeks, and months, and years fhoot immediately into their places, and this inftantaneous fucceffion must be eternal.

If my fimile is good for any thing, time, with refpect to yourself, is immortal, and therefore never to be killed.

Now when one is haraffed by an adverfary too powerful to be overcome, it is a wife maxim to win him to our intereft.-Befides, the tenderness of your own heart, Madam, would never excite in you a wish to destroy any thing-you do not want to kill time, you only wish to prevent him from plaguing you, and there are a thoufand ways by which you may make him your friend.-It is not with minds occupied in the avocations of domeftic life, or exercised in the duties of profeffions and bufinefs, that time opens hoftilities ;he attacks only the idle, and the diffipated, and fuch whom affluence and luxury have enervated.-We are all naturally formed for action; and if those who are placed by fortune beyond the toils, the wants, and the anxieties, which the generality of mankind are doomed to feel, would cultivate the many noble pursuits and ftudies which lie open to them, they might ever have entertainments of their own to revert to in all their leifure hours; nor be compelled to drive about the world with languid countenances, and live on the miferable charity of public amufements.

Those who have various refources in themselves, feel that independency of mind which all must covet, nor are ever conscious of the oppreffions of time; they meet its approach with joy, and only blame the rapidity with which he seems to steal away from them.Such as have the most of these, will ever be found the happiest ;cheerfulness is the natural refult of exertion, and man the only being we know of in creation to whom time appears often burthen fome.

For how many centuries did the fucceffors of Saint PETER make all the potentates of EUROPE ride behind them!—and trotted them up hill, and down hill, over rough and smooth, just as they pleased to lead the way;-for their holineffes always beftriding a mule, partook a good deal of the humour of the beaft that carried them.Our Eighth HARRY was one of the first who openly quarrelled with the pillion, and refolved to ride fingle, and independent; the advantages of which ENGLAND hath been fenfible of ever fince.

While we are able, like the POPE, to ride foremost, and keep time on the crupper, which is the cafe of the active, the ingenious, and the happy, we may with more infallibility than the fee of ROME ever poffeffed, affert, that we have time at our command; and every thing we meet with attracts and delights.-But if we live at the

6.

mercy

mercy of time by being behind, we are dragged on at whatever pace he pleases to move, the reins are out of our hands, and the whole journey of life grows tedious, and irkfome.

This is merely a hint en paffant, and my readers remain at full liberty to ride whichever way they like belt.

The following addrefs to the Sea is, perhaps, more peculiarly in the Author's own manner :

Hail! thou inexhauftible fource of wonder and contemplation! Hail! thou multitudinous ocean! whofe waves chafe one another down like the generations of men, and after a momentary space are emerged for ever in oblivion !-Thy fluctuating waters wafh the varied fhores of the world, and while they disjoin nations, whom a nearer connection would involve in eternal war, they circulate their arts, and their labours, and give health and plenty to mankind.

How glorious! how awful are the fcenes thou difplayeft!Whether we view thee when every wind is hushed,-when the morn ing fun, as now, filvers the level line of the horizon, or when its evening track is marked with flaming gold, and thy unrippled bofom reflects the radiance of the overarching Heavens!-Or whether we behold thee in thy terrors !-when the black tempeft fweeps thy fwelling billows, and the boiling furge mixes with the clouds,-when death rides the ftorm, and humanity drops a fruitless tear for the toiling mariner whofe heart is finking with difmay!

And yet, mighty deep! 'tis thy farface alone we view-Who can penetrate the fecrets of thy wide domain ?-What eye can vifit thy immenfe rocks and caverns, that teem with life and vegetation? Or fearch out the myriads of objects, whofe beauties lie scattered over thy dread abimes?—

The mind taggers with the immenfity of her own conceptions, -and when the contemplates the flux and reflux of thy tides, which from the beginning of the world were never known to err, how does fhe fhrink at the idea of that DIVINE POWER, which originally laid thy foundations fofure, and whofe omnipotent voice hath fixed the limits where thy proud waves fhall be frayed.'

There is great propriety in the Author's remark on a fashionable mode of dancing, lately borrowed from our capering neighbours across the water :

I must own I am rather forry to obferve, that the COTILLON begins to be introduced into our balls.-How far more experience in thofe dances may improve us in them, I know not; but I have fcarcely as yet, feen the figure gone through without interruption Befides, we feem to want that feftivity, and that enjouément, which hath made me view them with fo much pleasure in FRANCE.-Whoever has attended to them, even in the Bois DE BOULOGNE QU SAINT ESPRIT, or at any of the guinguettes about PARIS, must have remarked, that the foul dances with the body, and every feature of the face tells you it does.

Another objection to their coming into public ufe here, is, that they occupy a very large space in a room, and employ but very few; fo that in a crowded affembly, the far greater number must be merely fpectators, and the few who dance, become extremely diftinguished;

12

-whilst

-whilft the whimsical fteps, and high capers, which are practifed in our ENGLISH COTILLON, furnish more of a spectacle, than many ladies may choose to contribute to.—

-Our own COUNTRY DANCES have the peculiar advantage of admitting a very large number to join in them.-I have feen them practifed and admired, in moft parts of EUROPE; and they are in my idea, infinitely better calculated to display that elegant ease of motion, which has been fo properly termed fwimming in the dance; and which would inevitably be loft, fhould we apply to them the theatrical fteps, which the profeffors of the COTILLON now teach.

-As dancing is an act of hilarity, I think in general, that we appear to make too ferious a bufinefs of it.-The exercife gives an impulfe to circulation.-We may also allow fomething to the animation of mufic,-and far more to the animation of fentiment, naturally excited by being engaged in fo pleasing a familiarity, with the fex we most wish to appear favourably to ;-and yet, in almost every ballroom, how many couple do we fee journeying down a dance, with fuch Serious countenances, as if they were rather toiling through a penance impofed them, than engaged in a voluntary amufement!

-It is certainly being undefirably philosophical, to feel pleafure, without expreffing it.

-Nothing is more calculated than the MINUET, to fhew an elegant figure to advantage;-it is the art of moving with grace and eafe, but to dance in that degree of tafle, as to command admiration, requires early inftruction, good judgment, and a nice ear, fuperadded to many perfonal endowments.-As greatly to excel therefore, in this accomplishment, can happen but to few, a moderate knowledge of it may be difpenfed with, and attended to;but it were far better declined by the many, who attempt it, without any of the requifites.

Acts, which are the efforts of grace, ought to be gracefully performed!-And as there is fome path, or other, in which every one may walk with propriety and fuccefs, it is a fad mistake, when we place ourselves, unneceffarily, in fuch confpicuous fituations, as we are totally unfuited to appear in.

A pathetic, beautiful, and pious ejaculation to Health, shall conclude our extracts from thefe agreeable Sketches:

-How fweet is thy return, O HEALTH! thou rofy cherub!my foul leaps forward to meet thee, whofe true value thy abfence can only teach us!-When thou comeft, with healing on thy wings; when every part, and nerve, and artery, are obedient to their office; and when this complicated machine is fo perfectly harmonized, that we perceive not that we have any part, or nerve, or artery, belonging to us, how fweetly is the mind then attuned to receive pleasure from every inlet of sense !

-GoD of my life! who numbereft my days, teach me to meet with gratitude, or patience, the good, or ill, which the tide of time fhall float down with them!-but never withdraw from me thofe native fpirits, which have been the cheering companions of my exiftence, and have spread a gilding upon every thing around me! that I may continue to view, with rapture, the inexhaustible volume

of NATURE that is thrown open before me; on every page of which is charactered the impreffion of thy OMNIPOTENT HAND!-'

These Sketches from Nature are enlivened with a variety of entertaining anecdotes, real or feigned, together with fome epifodical ftories, well told, and naturally introduced.

*

We will now, for the prefent, take our leave of an Author, whofe various writings we have perufed with pleasure; and which, with grateful acknowledgement for the entertainment they have afforded us, at various times, fince the commencement of our Review, are, to the best of our recollection, enumerated in the note.

. Alps, a poem.

2. Netley Abbey, a poem.

3. Monument in Arcadia, a dramatic Paftoral.
4. Temple Student, a poem.

5. Lady Gray to Lord Dudley, a poem.

6. Ferney, an Epistle to Voltaire.

7. Account of Geneva.

8. Poem to the Memory of Mrs. Cibber.

9. Sketches from Nature, in a Journey to Margate.

ART. VII. The Seafons. By James Thomfon. A new Edition. Adorned with a fet of Engravings from original Defigns. To which is prefixed an Effay on the Plan and Character of the Poem. By J. Aikin. 8vo. 4 s. boards. Murray. 1778.

N the well-witten Effay, which Mr. Aikin has prefixed to this edition of the Seafons, may be difcovered the fame principles of juft and elegant tafte, which are diftinguishable in the other critical works of this ingenious writer.

He fets out with remarking, that originals are always rare productions:

The performances of artifts in general, even of those who stand high in their respective claffes, are only imitations; which have more or lefs merit, in proportion to the degree of skill and judgment with which they copy originals more or lefs excellent. A good original, therefore, forms an æra in the art itself; and the hiftory of every art divides itfelf into periods comprehending the intervals between the appearance of different approved originals. Sometimes, indeed, various models of a very different caft may exercise the talents of imitators during a single period; and this will more frequently be the cafe, as arts become more generally known and ftudied: difference of tafte being always the refult of liberal and varied purfuit.

How strongly thefe periods are marked in the history of Poetry, both ancient and modern, a curfory view will fuffice to fhew. The -fcarcity of originals here is univerfally acknowledged and lamented, and the prefent race of poets are thought particularly chargeable with this defect. It ought, however, to be allowed in their favour,

that if genius has declined, tafte has improved; and that if they imitate more, they choose better models to copy after.

That THOMSON'S SEASONS is the original whence our modern defcriptive poets have derived that more elegant and correct flyle of painting natural objects which diftinguishes them from their immediate predeceffors, will, I think, appear evident to one who examines their feveral cafts and manners. That none of them, however, have yet equalled their mafter; and that his performance is an exquifite piece, replete with beauties of the most engaging and delightful kind; will be fenfibly felt by all of congenial tafte:-and perhaps no poem was ever compofed which addreffed itself to the feelings of a greater number of readers. It is, therefore, on every account an object well worthy the attention of criticifm; and an enquiry into the peculiar nature of its plan and the manner of its execution may be an agreeable introduction to a re-perufal of it in the elegant edition now offered to the public.'

After fhewing, that the principal and favourite occupation of poetry has at all times been, to defcribe fuch natural objects, as by their beauty, grandeur, or novelty, agreeably impress the imagination, he obferves that,

Thus intermixed as they are with almost all, and essential to fome fpecies of poetry, it was, however, thought that they could not legitimately conftitute the whole, or even the principal part, of a capital piece. Something of a more folid nature was required as the ground-work of a poetical fabric; pure description was opposed to fenfe; and binding together the wild flowers which obvious to grew common fight and touch, was deemed a trifling and unprofitable amufement.

Such was the ftate of critical opinion, when Thom fon published, in fucceffion, but not in their prefent order*, the pieces which compofe his Seafons; the first capital work in which natural description was profeffedly the principal object. To paint the face of nature as changing through the changing feafons; to mark the approaches, and trace the progrefs of thefe viciffitudes, in a series of landskips all formed upon images of grandeur or beauty; and to give animation and variety to the whole by interfperfing manners and incidents fuitable to the scenery; appears to be the general defign of this Poem. Effentially different from a didactic piece, its business is to defcribe, and the occupation of its leifure to teach. And as in the Georgies, whenever the poet has, for a while, borne away by the warmth of fancy, wandered through the flowery wilds of defcription, he fuddenly checks himself, and returns to the toils of the husband, man; fo Thomfon, in the midst of his delightful leffons of morality, and affecting relations, recurs to a view of that fate of the feafon which introduced the digreffion.'

The plan and conduct of the Poem are next examined. Thefe are unfolded with great judgment and perfpicuity: But,

*

They appeared in the following order; Winter, Summer, Spring, Autumn.

for