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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 Excerpt: ... the title Ancient and Modern Italy Compared, appeared in December 1734; the second and third parts, respectively devoted to Greece and Rome, were published in the following year. The announcement of the early stages of the publication was made to his friend Cranston in a strain of some confidence. The work was dedicated to Frederick, Prince of Wales. The public received it coldly from the beginning. Hill, with his indomitable gift of florid flattery, did his best, both in public and private, to arouse enthusiasm, but to no purpose. I look upon this work, ' he wrote to Thomson, 'as the last stretched blaze of our expiring genius.' But the public sternly asserted that they would have none of it; and the book, of which an edition of three thousand copies had been struck off, was practically thrown upon the publisher's hands. Thomson, although greatly disappointed by the unpopularity of the poem, wished to requite the publishers for the loss. 'I think, ' he remarks, in a letter to Hill, 'of annulling the bargain I made with my bookseller, who would be a considerable loser by the paper, printing, and publication of Liberty! To the last, however, he believed in the merits of the poem. The opinion of every succeeding age of readers has reversed the judgment of Thomson on what he considered to be his 'noblest work.' No other conclusion is possible. In Liberty he attempted a task that both in material and scope was not adapted to his powers. That imaginative strength which endows The Seasons throughout, in spite of whatever minor defects it may possess, with real poetic glamour, seems scarce to enter into this didactic effusion. Its cold reflections on civil and political conditions, ancient and modern, are stated eloquently enough; and the poem is aptly leavened wit...

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9781236014382

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