Excerpt from Thomson's Winter: Being a Reproduction of the First Edition, With an Introduction

AT the close of Dr. Johnson's 'life of Thomson, there are a few sentences, the full meaning of which can scarcely be realized by a reader of the present day, unless he has devoted a considerable time to the study of the early editions of I'he Seasons.' These poems, says Dr. Johnson, with which I was acquainted at their first appearance, I have since found altered and enlarged by subsequent revisals, as the author supposed his judgment to grow more exact, and as books or conversation extended his knowledge and opened his prospects. They are, I think, improved in general; yet I know not whether they have not lost part of what Temple calls their mac; a word which, applied to wines, in its primitive sense, means the flavour of the soil. Mr. Logie Robertson has justly said that the changes which Thomson made in the text of the Seasons, especially in the later editions, were very numerous. Here he introduced, there he struck out; this he condensed, that he expanded; he was never done substituting a new word or phrase for an old one, and he carried his passion for correcting, or rather for altering, so far as to shift whole passages from one Season to another. An instance of this 'passion for altering, and one which has led Mr. Logie Robertson into a slight inaccuracy, may be seen in the Poet's treatment of Algernon Sidney. In the editions of 'the Seasons of 1744, 1746, Algernon Sidney, in the list of Britain's Sons of Glory given in Summer, ' is styled the 'british Cassius.' Not finding 'the British Cassius' in the previous editions, Mr. Robertson states that Algernon Sidney does not appear in the list of British Worthies' until after the edition of 1738. This statement is not correct. Algernon Sidney appears in the edition of 1730 and in the edition of 1738. In these editions, however, he is styled The British Brutus.'

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