The Great Theatre of Nature

 

Although each of the SEASONS appears to have been intended as a complete piece, and contains within itself the natural order of beginning, middle, and termination, yet, as they were at length collected and modelled by their author, they have all a mutual relation to each other, and concur in forming a more comprehensive whole. The annual space in which the earth performs its revolution round the sun is so strongly marked by nature for a perfect period, that all mankind have agreed in forming their computations of time upon it. In all the temperate climes of the globe, the four seasons are so many progressive stages in this circuit, which, like the acts in a well-constructed drama, gradually disclose, ripen, and bring to an end the various business transacted on the great theatre of Nature. The striking analogy which this period with its several division bears to the course of human existence, has been remarked and pursued by writers of all ages and countries. Spring has been  represented as the youth of the year—the season of pleasing hope, lively energy, and rapid increase. Summer has been resembled to pefect manhood—the season of steady warmth, confirmed strength, and unremitting vigour. Autumn, which , while it bestows the rich products of full maturity, is yet ever hastening to decline, has been aptly compared to that period, when the man, mellowed by age, yields the most valuable fruits of experience and wisdom, but daily exhibits increasing symptoms of decay. The cold, cheerless, and sluggish Winter has almost without a metaphor been termed the decrepid and hoary old age of the year. Thus the history of the year, pursued through its changing seasons, is that of an individual, whose existence is marked by a progressive course from its origin to its termination. It is thus represented by our Poet; this idea preserves an unity and connection through his whole work, and the accurate observer will remark a beautiful chain of circumstances in his description, by which the birth, vigour, decline, and extinction of the vital principle of the year are pictured in the most lively manner.

This order and gradation of the whole runs, as has been already hinted, through each division of the poem. Every season has its incipient, confirmed, and receding state, of which its historian ought to give distinct views, arranged according to the succession in which they appear. Each, too, like the prismatic colours, is indistinguishably blended in its origin and termination with that which precedes, and which follows it; and it may be expected from the pencil of an artist to hit off these mingled shades so as to produce a pleasing and picturesque effect. Our poet has not been inattentive to these circumstances in the conduct of his plan. His SPRING begins with a view of the season as yet unconfirmed, and partaking of the roughness of Winter*; and it is not till after several steps in gradual progression, that it breaks forth in all its ornaments, as the favourite of Love and Pleasure. His AUTUMN, after a rich prospect of its bounties and splendours, gently fades into "the sere, the yellow leaf," and the rising storm, sinks into the arms of Winter. It is remarkable, that in order to produce something of a similar effect in his SUMMER, a season which, on account of its uniformity of character, does not admit of any stronly-marked gradations, he has comprised the whole of his description within the limits of a single day, pursuing the course of the sun from its rising to its setting. A Summer's day is, in reality, a just model of the entire season. Its beginning is moist and temperate; its middle, sultry and parching; its close, soft and refreshing. By thus exhibiting all the vicissitudes of Summer under one point of view, they are rendered much more striking than could have been done in a series of feebly contrasted and scarcely distinguishable periods.

* A descriptive piece, in which this very interval of time is represented, with all the accuracy of a naturalist, and vivid colouring of a poet, has lately appeared in a poem of Mr. Warton's, entitled "The First of April."

 

 

J. Aikin, M.D. From: The Seasons, by James Thomson.  A New Edition. Adorned with a set of engravings from original designs. To which is prefixed, An Essay on the Plan and Character of the Poem, by J. Aikin, M.D. London: Printed for J. Murray, No. 32, Fleet Street. MDCCXDIV. p. xii-xv.