And burn in Cupid's flames - but burn alive.' 'Restore the lock!' she cries; and all around Restore the lock!' the vaulted roofs rebound. Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain 105 Roared for the handkerchief that caused his pain. But see how oft ambitious aims are crossed, And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost! The lock, obtained with guilt, and kept with pain, In every place is sought, but sought in vain: With such a prize no mortal must be blessed, So Heaven decrees! with Heaven who can contest? 112 Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint, 20 Were others angry: I excused them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due. JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748) Thomson was a Scotchman who, at the height of Pope's reign, went to seek his fortune in hterary London. He arrived in need of a pair of shoes and lost the packet of recommendaons which he had tied up in his handkerchief; but he was kindly received by his brother pets, and enjoyed sufficient patronage from the rich to preserve him from actual want. Ile four parts of The Seasons which appeared in rapid succession (1726-30) made his reputation, and a series of stiff tragedies in blank verse had a lukewarm success on the Rage. Politically, he adhered to the opposition and was one of a group, including the pot Collins, which gathered around Lord Lyttleton at Hagley, under the 'precarious atronage' of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Thomson was an indolent man more fat than ard beseems,' luxurious and procrastinating, and the last fifteen years of his life originated ttle that was important. The Castle of Indolence, which commemorates the Hagley comany, was begun in 1733, though not completed until two years before his death. Dull in familiar society, Thomson was loyally and deeply beloved by those who intimately knew m. His warm and truthful delineations of nature and his resource in the older harmonies English verse helped to inaugurate a new era in poetry. Notwithstanding these tendencies, tope regarded him with respect and favor. In the next generation, Dr. Johnson abated his rejudice against blank verse in favor of The Seasons, and forgot his hostility to Spenserism commenting on The Castle of Indolence. He thinks always as a man of genius; he oks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet,' was johnson's summary of his abilities. 35 O let not, aimed from some inhuman eye, A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf 40 The forest walks, at every rising gale, Roll wide the withered waste, and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields; And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery |