The Harmony of Things: An Essay on Man and Moral Essays

Abstract

A passage of somewhat surprising intensity in Thomson’s ‘Autumn’ describes the formation of lakes and rivers. Thomson worked hard on it, elaborating a short passage in the version of ‘Autumn’ published in 1730, when Pope was working on the poems principally discussed in this chapter, the Essay on Man and the four Moral Essays, into the long and more scientifically accurate (and heroic) version printed in 1744, the year of Pope’s death. Thomson wishes to reveal ‘where lurk the vast eternal Springs’ of water that he compares with ‘creating nature’ and which ‘with their lavish Stores/Refresh the Globe, and all its joyous Tribes.’¹ With his poetic eye Thomson penetrates the surface of the earth and discovers among ‘the leaning Strata, artful rang’d’, ‘the gaping Fissures’ receiving rains and meltwater, layers of gravel, underground channels, ‘rocky Siphons’ and ‘The mighty Reservoirs, of harden’d Chalk,/Or stiff compacted Clay, capacious form’d’. From here ‘The crystal Treasures of the liquid World’ burst out ‘In pure Effusion’ (810–28). As Thomson goes on to explain how the exposed waters are then drawn up by the sun in vapours, distilled in rains, and returned in proper proportion all over the earth, it becomes clear that more than hydrology is at stake: the hydraulic cycle is both an instance of a complete and intricate working system, and in being that a confirmation of the governing principle of creation, universal harmony: