THE

SEASON S,

BY

JAMES THOMSON

A NEW EDITION.

ADORNED WITH

A SET OF ENGRAVINGS,

FROM

ORIGINAL PAINTINGS.

TOGETHER WITH

AN ORIGINAL LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

AND

A CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SEASONS.

BY ROBERT HERON.

7

PERTH:

PRINTED BY R. MORISON JUNIOR,

FOR R. MORISON AND SON, BOOKSELLERS.

M,DCC,XCIII.

ΤΟ

DR HUGH BLAIR;

PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, &c.

SIR,

PERMIT us to shelter this edition of the Seafons of Thomson under the protection of your name. The acknowledged merit of the Poem undeniably justifies the propriety of this address: And the labour and expence bestowed in bringing it forth to the Public, with full advantage, will, we hope, entitle our work to your countenance.

BEFORE Thomson, hardly any Scotchman, except perhaps Arbuthnot, had distinguished himself by elegant, English compofition. In the progrefs of the prefent cen

tury,

tury, the taste for polite writing was, by degrees, more and more diffused through North Britain. Hiftorians and philofophers of great name arofe. Correctness, regularity, and grace were cultivated. And, the public, with pleasure, saw the literary compofitions of the natives of North Britain, freed from those peculiarities of dialect, which had been long confidered as their distinguishing characteristics.

FROM the time when you, Sir, began to read your Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, thofe improvements in the Literary Arts advanced, in this country, with increasing rapidity of progrefs. You skilfully explained the constituent qualities of every species of Fine Writing, and, at the same time, exhibited a fingularly happy model of Didactic composition. Thus, the principles of elegant Learning became, every year, more generally known. And, you gradually formed a School by which Taste, and Critical Knowledge, and practical fkill

1

skill in the Art of Writing were diffufed through all parts of Scotland.-By the publication of your Differtation on the Poems of Offian, and at length of your Lectures themselves, you have afferted to your Country, the highest honours which the difplay of critical skill, arising alike from native delicacy of Taste, and from Philosophical difcernment, can poffibly claim.

It is in consequence of the high estimation which, by these and your other publications, you have gained, not in your own country only, but among all the enlightened nations of Europe, that we have presumed, Sir, to give you the trouble of the prefent addrefs. As a friend to the literary honours of your country, as a Judge of the Fine Arts: You cannot but be pleafed to obferve, that the Seasons of Thomson is ftill among the most popular poems in the English language. In the present edition, we have endeavoured to give it every recommendation which can be derived from valuable Engra

vings,