eness. He who could
describe "_Indolence_" so well, and so often appeared in the part
himself,

Slippered, and with hands,
Each in a waistcoat pocket, (so that all
Might yet repose that could) was seen one morn
Eating a wondering peach from off the tree.

A little summer-house at Richmond which Thomson made his study is still
preserved, and even some articles of furniture, just as he left
them.[025] Over the entrance is erected a tablet on which is the
following inscription:

HERE
THOMSON SANG
THE SEASONS
AND THEIR CHANGE.

Thomson was buried in Richmond Church. Collins's lines to his memory,
beginning

In yonder grave a Druid lies,

are familiar to all readers of English poetry.

Richmond Hill has always been the delight not of poets only but of
painters. Sir Joshua Reynolds built a house there, and one of the only
three landscapes which seem to have survived him, is a view from the
window of his drawing-room. Gainsborough was also a resident in
Richmond. Richmond gardens laid out or rather altered by Brown, are now
united with those of Kew.

Savage resided for some time at Richmond. It was the favorite haunt of
Collins, one of the most poetical of poets, who, as Dr. Johnson says,
"delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the
magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian
gardens." Wordsworth composed a poem upon the Thames near Richmond in
remembrance of Collins. Here is a stanza of it.

Glide gently, thus for ever glide,
O Thames, that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now fair river! come to me;
O glide, fair stream for ever so,
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.

Thomson's description of the scenery of Richmond Hill perhaps hardly
does it justice, but the lines are too interesting to be omitted.

Say, shall we wind
Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead?
Or court the forest-glades? or wander wild
Among the waving harvests? or ascend,
While radiant Summer opens all its pride,
Thy hill, delightful Shene[026]? Here let us sweep
The boundless landscape now the raptur'd eye,
Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send,
Now to the sister hills[027] that skirt her plain,
To lofty Harrow now, and now to where
Majestic Windsor lifts his prince