family of
the Duke of Montrose, procured Thomson introductions into titled society,
and helped him to bring out "Winter," the first installment of "The
Seasons," which was published in 1726. Thomson's friend and biographer
(1762) the Rev. Patrick Murdoch, says that the poem was "no sooner read
than universally admired; those only excepted who had not been used to
feel, or to look for anything in poetry beyond a _point_ of satirical or
epigrammatic wit, a smart antithesis richly trimmed with rhyme." This is
a palpable hit at the stronger contrast than between Thomson and Pope,
not alone in subject and feeling, but in diction and verse. Thomson's
style is florid and luxuriant, his numbers flowing and diffuse, while
Pope had wonted the English ear to the extreme of compression in both
language and meter. Pope is among the most quotable of poets, while
Thomson's long poem, in spite of its enduring popularity, has contributed
but a single phrase to the stock of current quotation:

"To teach the young idea how to shoot."

"Winter" was followed by "Summer" in 1727, "Spring" in 1728, and the
completed "Seasons" in 1730. Thomson made many changes and additions in
subsequent editions. The original "Seasons" contained only 3902 lines
(exclusive of the "Hymn"), while the author's final revision of 1746 gave
5413. One proof that "The Seasons" was the work of a fresh and
independent genius is afforded by the many imitations to which it soon
gave birth. In Germany, a passage from Brockes' translation (1745) was
set to music by Haydn. J. P. Uz (1742) and Wieland each produced a
"Fruehling," in Thomson's manner; but the most distinguished of his German
disciples was Ewald Christian von Kleist, whose "Fruhling" (1749) was a
description of a country walk in spring, in 460 hexameter lines,
accompanied, as in Thomson's "Hymn," with a kind of "Gloria in excelsis,"
to the creator of nature. "The Seasons" was translated into French by
Madame Bontemps in 1759, and called forth, among other imitations, "Les
Saisons" of Saint Lambert, 1769 (revised and extended in 1771.) In
England, Thomson's influence naturally manifested itself less in direct
imitations of the scheme of his poem than in the contagion of his manner,
which pervades the work of many succeeding poets, such as Akenside,
Armstrong, Dyer, Somerville and Mallet. "There was hardly one verse
writer of any eminence," says Gosse,[5] "from 1725-50, who was not in
some mann