Strong clerical protests, however, I am sorry to notice, have been made to the attitude taken up by the editor; and, if one were to judge by these letters, the Clergy would not appear to be prepared for the sacrifices which an open and uncompromising repudiation of blood-sports would entail upon them.

We know that land-owning patrons would look askance at an anti-hunting clergyman when a living had to be filled up. Such a cleric also would lose his invitations to the banquets of the squire and the beloved garden-parties, etc. He would suffer socially in a variety of ways. But still, if a thing is morally wrong, why should we act as if we thought it morally right, just to please the great ones of the earth and obtain their favours? The Clergy do not assume their sacred office for playing any such ignominious rôle. They are expected to be champions and upholders of whatever things are "true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report." So acting they will be respected, but not otherwise.

J. STRATTON.

JAMES THOMSON

THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POET OF HUMANENESS

No more conspicuous illustration can be adduced of that curious perversity of the academic school of criticism, whose most pronounced dogma is contained in the formula, "Art for art's sake" (alone)—which regards form as almost, if not altogether, everything, and just thought or feeling as, comparatively, of small accountthan its accustomed estimate of the most humanitarian poem, on the whole, of the eighteenth century—if its attitude towards the unorthodox ethical poetry of Shelley, the supreme poet, is not yet more illustrative of a dogmatism so disastrously dominant, reflected perhaps most conspicuously in our picture-galleries and concert-halls.

Even by the academics, indeed, the author of "The Seasons" is generally accepted as the poet, pre-eminently, of Nature-to employ the convenient but too comprehensive term in common use- -as the most eloquent and enthusiastic poetic celebrator of its various characters in its inanimate manifestations-in its softer or in its more savage aspects, both in its beauties and in its terrors. And, though not often, the humaner inspiration, so far as it affects only the dominant species, may, in some measure, be recognised. But appreciation of the wider, the comprehensive, all-embracing humanity which animates and exalts the whole work, and gives it its highest, almost unique, glory: the union of higher ethical perception with high poetic merits - its ardent denunciation and

detestation of all oppression and all injustice (whether the human or the extra-human species be the object of them) wherever the subject fitly suggests such a practical moral lesson-appreciation of this truer inspiration, for the most part, will be looked for in vain. To supply, in some , measure, this lamentable deficiency, to emphasise, if possible, this fatal indifference of the orthodox schools, and to invite especial attention to the neglected didactic merits of the poem, is the purpose of the present brief review of the masterpiece of Thomson from the exclusively humanitarian point of view.

Although known to most of his admirers, it may be well to repeat the fact that the four poems, which a little later composed a connected whole, appeared separately and successively, and after repeated revisions; for Thomson-unfortunately, not so thoroughly as necessary-put into constant practice the much-lauded but little-practised rule of criticism-" the first, the greatest art, the art to blot."*

"Winter," the first, the best, and the most finished of the series, while displaying in relation to man-"lord of creation" though he be-his feebleness and helplessness confronted with the terrific forces of Nature, abounds in just reflections upon the superadded miseries to human kind from selfish indifferentism and extreme inequalities of ruling society and its self-made laws and institutions. Following upon the powerfully described scene of the winter storms and snow-drifts, with its affecting picture of the helpless peasant lost amidst its horrors, is what, perhaps, may be deemed to be the most impressive passage in all the varied panorama of the "Seasons."

* Much altogether superfluous logomachy has been in evidence as to the poetical position of Thomson. To every reader of true taste it is evident that it is not to the form but to the spirit of his famous work that his title to honour among the poets is really due. In brief, he had much more of the prophetic genius (in the proper meaning of the term) than of the poetic (in the applied meaning).

In equally forcible and feeling language the prevailing unsocial selfishness of society is thus eloquently depicted:

"Ah! little think the gay licentious proud,

Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround;
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste :

Ah! little think they, while they dance along,

How many feel, this very moment, death,

And all the sad variety of pain.

How many sink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame.

How many bleed,

By shameful variance betwixt man and man.
How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms;
Shut from the common air, and common use
Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery. Sore pierced by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut

Of cheerless poverty ! . . .

Thought fond man
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one incessant struggle render life,

One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,

Vice in its high career would stand appalled,

And heedless rambling Impulse learn to think."

Nor less forcible is the reference to the legal brutalities exposed to the light of day by the Jail Committee instituted, as always, long after it was due—in the year preceding the publication of the entire poem (1729):

and the fervid appeal for extended inquiry into that abyss of legalized iniquity:

"Ye sons of Pity! yet resume the search:
Drag forth the legal monsters into light,

Wrench from their hands Oppression's iron rod,

And bid the cruel feel the pains they give.
Much still untouched remains; in this rank age
Much is the patriot's weeding hand required.

Fifty years later appeared Howard's "State of the Prisons," and from the horrifying reports of that fearless investigator of prison conditions may be formed some faint conception of the penal dungeons of Great Britain when these indignant verses were written. If foul, pestilential atmosphere no longer caused the unhappy victims of Draconian legislation to die miserably by hundreds, it was still necessary in the middle of the last century to denounce the continued barbarous methods of treatment, sanctioned and upheld by the legislative and executive powers of the day. And how much remains even now to be exposed, to give effect to the poet's admonitions, is too well known to readers of the HUMANE REVIEW. To "Winter" succeeded the poem on 66 Summer" (1727). It contains many charming descriptive scenes, but is somewhat spoiled by a too luxuriant diction, and (as in other parts of the whole work) now and then by prosaic and commonplace terms. The well-known episode of Musidora-immortalised by Gainsborough-and the bathing scene, it must be admitted, are not free from the prevailing romantic "pastoral" and sentimental style of the early eighteenth century. But "Summer" is inspired by the same humane spirit—as in reprobation of commercial avarice and the cruel variety of fashion and human pride, which, among other misdeeds, involves barbarously atrocious persecution of the elephant"wisest" of the non-human races-" astonished at the madness of mankind," when (as with the noble horse) they pervert his strength, "and bid him rage amid the mortal fray," to massacre their own species.

"Spring" came out the next year. It is in this poem, in which the glories of the budding year are celebrated,