THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE

The "Castle of Indolence" is a renewal of Spencer's best pictures—a renewal not only in its dreamy voluptuousness of character, but in its stanzaic peculiarities. It has been said that no other writers ever succeeded in acquiring the peculiar flow of Milton's blank verse, or the singular play of Spenser's old time rhythm. This is true with an exception. One half of "The Castle of Indolence," if a little more antiquated, might be inserted among the cantos of the Faery Queene without detection. Of course, this is no slight compliment to the later poet.

"The Castle of Indolence" was the work in which the idle Thomson gave words to his individual mood. A sluggard, he had a sluggard's visions. His visions of nature were of nature lulled into quietude. His landscapes sleep under quiet skies—his winds come from "the land of Drowsy Head." He reared shadowy battlements,and planted "sleep-soothing groves," under which lay

"Idlesse in her dreaming mood."

And in such pictures the Poet rejoiced. But with this drowsy enchantment he mingled all the freshness of that age which, from its far distance in the past, takes upon itself the hue of far clouds—becoming in the eyes of men an age of gold. The freshness of the patriarchal age—

"What time Dan Abraham left the Chaldee land,
And pastured on from verdant stape to stage,
Where fields and fountains fresh could best engage."

And this freshness retrieves the swooning and too sickly tone of a poem, all in all, inimitable.

If, reader, you wish an hour of forgetfulness, go to some quiet hollow, in the pleasant summer time, and after working thought and heart into the mood which can
"Pour all the Arabian heaven upon our nights," hum such sleep-begetting verses as these:

"Joined to the prattle of the purling rills
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks were bleating from the distant hills,
Jlnd vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep:
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined oil to sleep.

And up the hills, on either side, a wood
Of blackening pines aye waving to and fro,
Sent forth a sleepy horror thro' the blood;
And where this valley winded out below,
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.
A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever Hushing round a summer sky:
There, eke the soft delights that witchingly
Instill a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh."

Such soporific verses are of more worth than all the narcotics ever squeezed from the pores of the poppy. They sound like the trickle of rain from the caves, or like the hum of bees about a tulip-tree in early summer.

Thomson died in August 1748, and was buried in the church of Richmond.

He is said to have been above the middle stature; somewhat corpulent; of a stupid look and repulsive appearance; taciturn in strange company, but sociable among his intimate friends; fixed in his attachments, and fervid in his benevolence. But he was too fat to be active; and often failed to bestow as well as obtain a favor through mere indolence. We have already seen that he wrote one poem on this vice; and reflecting upon its effects in his own affairs,he is said to have designed an eastern tale 'of the man who loved to be in distress.'