chool-boy. The
appreciation of the work was more affectionate than critical, and
Thomson's faults were sometimes mistaken for beauties; but the
popularity of the _Seasons_ was a healthy sign, and the poem, a
forerunner of Cowper's _Task_, brought into vigorous life, feelings and
sympathies that had been long dormant.

Pope, who is twice mentioned in the poem, took a great interest in its
progress through the press. Thomson consulted him frequently, and
accepted many of his suggestions, while apparently retaining at all
times an independent judgment. To the familiar episode of 'the lovely
young Lavinia' the following graceful passage is said, but on very
doubtful authority to have been added by Pope.[30] The first line, given
for the sake of the context, is from Thomson's pen:

'Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close-embowering woods;
As in the hollow breast of Apennine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises, far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild;
So flourished, blooming and unseen by all,
The sweet Lavinia; till, at length, compelled
By strong necessity's supreme command
With smiling patience in her looks she went
To glean Palemon's fields.'

Thomson had now gained the highest mark of his fame, and, like Pope, had
won it in a few years. Nearly two years of foreign travel followed, the
poet having obtained the post of governor to a son of the
Solicitor-General. The fruit of this tour was a long poem in blank verse
on _Liberty_, which probably gave him infinite labour, but his ascent
upon this occasion of what he calls 'the barren, but delightful mountain
of Parnassus,' was labour lost. It is enough to say of _Liberty_, that
it contains more than three thousand lines of unreadable blank verse.
Sinecures were the rewards of genius in Thomson's day, and he was made
Secretary of Briefs in the Court of Chancery. He took a cottage at
Richmond, within an easy walk of Pope, and the two poets met often and
lived amicably.

Thomson did not enjoy his official fortune long, for his patron died,
and though he might have kept his post had he applied to the Lord
Chancellor, in whose gift it was, he appears to have been too lazy to do
so. His friend Lyttelton in this emergency introduced him to the Prince
of Wales, who, on learning that his affairs 'were in a more poetical
posture than formerly,' gave him a pe