He is true about the
outsides of God; and in Thomson we begin to feel that the revelation of
God as _meaning_ and therefore _being_ the loveliness of nature, is about
to be recognized. I do not say--to change my simile--that he is the first
visible root in our literature whence we can follow the outburst of the
flowers and foliage of our delight in nature: I could show a hundred
fibres leading from the depths of our old literature up to the great
root. Nor is it surprising that, with his age about him, he too should be
found tending to magnify, not God's Word, but his works, above all his
name: we have beauty for loveliness; beneficence for tenderness. I have
wondered whether one great part of Napoleon's mission was not to wake
people from this idolatry of the power of God to the adoration of his
love.
The _Hymn_ holds a kind of middle place between the _Morning Hymn_ in the
5th Book of the _Paradise Lost_ and the _Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni_.
It would be interesting and instructive to compare the three; but we have
not time. Thomson has been influenced by Milton, and Coleridge by both.
We have delight in Milton; art in Thomson; heart, including both, in
Coleridge.
HYMN.
These, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee.
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