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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zaob Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 74-3229 LEGASSE, James Joseph, 1947- "THIS DARK STATE": JAMES THOMSON'S CRITICAL -SATIRICAL RESPONSE TO THE LITERARY AND POLITICAL DELINQUENCY OF THE 1720fS AND 1730'S. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1973 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, A XEROX Company , Ann Arbor, Michigan © Copyright by James Joseph Legasse 1973 "THIS DAHK STATE"i JAMES THOMSON'S CRITICAL-SATIHICAL RESPONSE TO THE LITERARY AND POLITICAL DELINQUENCY OP THE 1720'S AND 1?30*S DISSERTATION Presented In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy In the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By James Joseph Legasse, B.A., M.A. * ■* * * The Ohio State University 1973 Reading Committeet Approved By Edward P. J. Corbett Arthur Efland 4 s w o w _____________ A. E. Wallace Maurer Adviser Department of English Betty Sutton ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank all who saw me through this project* Professor John B. Gabelv who helped me procure an Ohio State University Travel Grant so I could conduct my read­ ing and research at the British Museumt Professors Edward P. J* Corbett and Betty Sutton, who, as careful readers of my thesis, offered me their astute criticism and generous support; Professor A. E. Wallace Maurer, my adviser, who provided the inspiration, motivation, and direction to get me through some of the more wearisome moments of the year; and Margaret Glockner-Hartshorn, a dear friend, who read the roughest of my rough drafts, I only wish that my project (which, I suspect, will remain at an ln-prog- ress stage for a while) reflected the intelligence and precision of the work of my advisors, teachers, and friends^ who contributed greatly to my understanding of literature, scholarship, teaching, and myself. ii VITA June 22, 19^7 • • • Borm Cohoes, New York 1 9 6 9. ....... B • A • f Siena College, Loudonville, New York 1969-1973 • • • • • University Fellow, The Ohio State University 197 2 . H. A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 197 3 . Ph.D., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio AREAS OF STUDY Major Area 1 Restoration and Eighteenth Century Literature Minor Areass Studies in Renaissance and Nineteenth Cen­ tury Literature Special Areat Greek, Roman and English Satire 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................. li VITA ............................ Ill INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1 Chapter I. THOMSON* S PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENTI THE SHAPING OF HIS CRITICAL-SATIRICAL TEM­ PERAMENT ..................................... 14 II. PATRONAGE, PROFESSIONALISM, AND POLITICS I THE PARAMETERS OF THOMSON'S CRITICAL REACH . 70 III. "THIS DARK STATE"! THOMSON*S WORLD VIEW AND THE STRATEGY OF HIS CRITICAL IMPULSE IN THE SEASONS .............................. 122 IV. "KIND, WELL-TEMPERED SATIRE"* THE IDEN­ TIFICATION AND BACKGROUND OF THE PARODIC ELEMENTS IN THOMSON'S THE SEASONS........... 176 V. "THE WHOLESOME WINDS OF OPPOSITION"! THE INFLUENCE OF DISSIDENT WHIG THOUGHT ON JAMES THOMSON'S EDITORIAL TRAGEDIES.......... 223 VI. EPILOGUE ..................................... 275 APPENDIX A ................................................. 281 B ................................................. 282 C .................................................. 284 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED........... 28? iv Enough for us to know that this dark state* In wayward passions lost and vain pursuits* This infancy of being* cannot prove The final Issue of the works of God* By boundless love and perfect wisdom formed* And ever rising with the rising mind. (‘•Summer*** 1800-05) v * INTRODUCTION All you learn, and all you can read, will be of little use. If you do not think and reason upon it yourself. One reads to know other people's thoughtsi but if we take them upon trust, without explaining and comparing them with our own. It is really living upon other people's scraps, or retailing other people's goods. To know the thoughts of others is of use, because it suggests thoughts to one's self, and helps one to form a judgment» but to repeat other people's thoughts, without considering whether they are right or wrong, is the talent only of a parrot, or at most a player. — Philip Dormer Stanhope George Buffon, an eighteenth-century French natural­ ist, claimed that "style is the man himself"* critics since Buffon, particularly psycho—linguists, have con­ curred i style Is the impress of a writer's personality upon his subject. Even Patrick Murdoch, James Thomson's first biographer, indicated his awareness of this basic critical principlei "The life of a good writer," he said, "Is best read in his works, which can scarce fail to re­ ceive a peculiar tincture from his temper, manner, and habitsi the distinguishing character of his mind, his ruling passions, will there appear undisguised."1. Though 1 the premise that the habit of one,s mind is inextricably and unavoidably related to the manner of one’s expression seems inviolable, its application has engendered many a serious critical error* James Thomson’s life and work is a case in point* His biographers and critics have persisted in viewing the man exclusively as that amiable, apolitical, generous literary freak, who saw the natural world in a fresh and novel fashion through the rose-colored glasses of Shaftes- burian benevolence and optimism* they claim, therefore, that his writing is exclusively lyrical, musically re­ cording the observations of an insouciant soul at peace with himself and his world. I maintain, however, that, given his peculiar tincture of mind, his work is also critical and satirical« not that Thomson was consistently indignant or that his work is always critical, only that, like all men, and particularly the professional writers of his day, he too had moments of exasperation, when he was compelled to ask Juvenal’s questions* Semper ego auditor tantum? numoue reponam * * * * and that such spots in time mark at least the rem substratum of Thomson’s canon* What his biographers and critics fall to realize is that Thomson’s personality (as it is manifested in his poetry, prose, and drama) easily accommodated the seeming­ ly distinct temperaments of the lyrical naturalist, appre­ ciative of the present, and the analytical satirist and critic* skeptical of the "achievements'* of the present when they are seen in relation to the glories of the past* The poet as lyrical painter of nature* the primary charac­ terization of Thomson since Wordsworth*s observations on The Seasons ("Essay, Supplementary to the Preface," 1815)» o has been more than adequately presented* No one, to my knowledge, however, has ever explored either his critical or satirical personality, which led him to be, at times, purposely somber or seemingly Jovial, either criticizing the foibles of his political foes or burlesquing the tri­ fles of his literary adversaries* Thomson’s biographers and critics are at fault in misrepresenting him unduly* They have all treated the poet too narrowly, the biogra­ phers out of friendship or lack of generosity, and the critics out of unconcern or reductive Judgment* Among the biographers, for example, Patrick Murdoch wanted to assist in glorifying his friend and fellow Scotsman* Since he assumed that the nonpartisan writer would be more readily loved and esteemed than the likes of a Pope or Swift, Irascible as they could sometimes be, Murdoch slanted his recollections of Thomson and selected only those facts which present the poet in the most flat­ tering manner* Murdoch admitted that it was difficult to be Just in relating the life of a "deceased friend" 1 he could not, therefore, adequately check his feelings for the man who, he unflinchingly states, possessed "amiable If virtues."^ His biography, as a result, eulogizes Thomson to the point of deification* the poet is no less than the h, embodiment of "a divine temper of mind,” Murdoch's relationship with Thomson, I suspect, pre­ vented him from seeing the poet in the clear light of dis­ interestedness. In a letter to Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Murdoch reveals lack of objectivity, an unpardonable trait in biographers.

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