O may'st thou long enjoy the comfort given,

Live long to bless them who the deed have done;
Then change thy earthly pains for joys in heaven!
So beats the bosom of thine only son,

Whose bliss is at its height, whose long hope's crown'd, Το prove, when wanted most, thy friends are found.' There is something exquisitely touching in the warmth and tenderness of this noble peasant's affection for his aged parents. Would to God that poetry were always the foster-nurse of sentiments and passions such as have utterance in the following EFFUSION.'

Ah, little did I think in time that's past, By summer burnt, or numb'd by winter's blast, Delving the ditch a livelihood to earn, Or lumping corn out in a dusty barn; With aching bones returning home at night, And sitting down with weary hand to write; Ab, little did I think, as then unknown, Those artless rhymes I even blush'd to own Would be one day applauded and approv'd, By learning notic'd, and by genius lov'd. God knows, my hopes were many, but my pain Damp'd all the prospects which I hop'd to gain; I hardly dar'd to hope.-Thou corner-chair, In which I've oft. slung back in deep despair, Hadst thou expression, thou couldst easy tell The pains and all that I have known too well; "Twould be but sorrow's tale, yet still 'twould be A tale of truth, and passing sweet to me. How oft upon my hand I've laid my head, And thought how poverty deform'd our shed: Look'd on each parent's face I fain had cheer'd, Where sorrow triumph'd, and pale want appear'd; And sigh'd, and hop'd, and wish'd some day would come, When I might bring a blessing to their home,That toil and merit comforts had in store, To bid the tear defile their cheeks no more. Who that has feelings would not wish to be A friend to parents, such as mine to me, Who in distress broke their last crust in twain, And though want pinch'd, the remnant broke again, And still, if craving of their scanty bread, Gave their last mouthful that I might be fed? Nor for their own wants tear-drops follow'd free, Worse anguish stung-they had no more for me. And now hope's sun is looking brighter out, And spreading thin the clouds of fear and doubt, That long in gloomy sad suspense to me Hid the long-waited smiles I wish'd to see. VOL. XVII. N. S.

D

1

And now, my parents, helping you is sweet,-
The rudest havoc fortune could complete;
A piteous couple, little blest with friends,
Where pain and poverty have had their ends.
I'll be thy crutch, my father, lean on me;
Weakness knits stubborn while its bearing thee:
And hard shall fall the shock of fortune's frown,
To eke thy sorrows, ere it breaks me down.
My mother, too, thy kindness shall be met,
And ere I'm able will I pay the debt;

For what thou'st done, and what gone through for me,
My last-earn'd sixpence will I break with thee:
And when my dwindled sum won't more divide,
Then take it all-to fate I'll leave the rest;

In helping thee I'll always feel a pride,

Nor think I'm happy till ye both are blest.'

Vol. I. pp. 65-7. But our readers may be pleased to take a peep into the inside of the Poet's cottage. We transcribe the following sketch from a visit to John Clare,' inserted in a periodical publication of considerable merit and interest.

Helpstone consists of two streets, intersecting each other at right angles. In the middle stand the church and a cross, both rather picturesque objects, but neither of them very ancient. Clare lives in the right hand street. I knew the cottage by the elm trees which overhang it:

The witchen branches nigh,

O'er my snug box towering high

and was glad to hear that they are not now likely to be cut down. • On a projecting wall in the inside of the cottage, which is whitewashed, are hung some well engraved portraits, in gilt frames, with a neat drawing of Helpstone Church, and a sketch of Clare's head, which Hilton copied in water colours, from the large painting, and sent as a present to Clare's father. I think that no act of kindness ever touched him more than this; and I have remarked on several occasions, that the thought of what would be his father's feelings on any fortunate circumstance occurring, has given him more visible satisfaction, than all the commendations which have been bestowed on his genius. I believe we must go into low life to know how very much parents can be beloved by their children. Perhaps it may be that they do more for them, or that the affection of the child is concentrated on them the more, from having no other friend on whom it can fall. I saw Clare's father in the garden: it was a fine day, and his rheumatism allowed him just to move about, but with the aid of two sticks, he could scarcely drag his feet along: he can neither kneel nor stoop. I thought of Clare's lines:

I'll be thy crutch, my father, lean on me;

Weakness knits stubborn while its bearing thee.

The father, though so infirm, is only fifty six years of age; the mother is about seven years older. While I was talking to the old

man, Clare had prepared some refreshment within, and with the appetite of a thresher we went to our luncheon of bread and cheese, and capital beer from the Bell. In the midst of our operations, his little girl awoke, a fine lively pretty creature, with a forehead like her father's, of ample promise. She tottered along the floor, and as her father looked after her with the fondest affection, and with a careful twitch of his eyebrow when she seemed in danger, the last verse of his address to her came into my mind:

Lord knows my heart, it loves thee much;

And may my feelings, aches, and such,
The pains I meet in folly's clutch,

Be never thine;

Child, it's a tender string to touch,

That sounds thou'rt mine." Vol. I. p. 163.

Our meal ended, Clare opened an old oak bookcase, and showed me his library. It contains a very good collection of modern poems, chiefly presents made him since the publication of his first volume. Among the works of Burns, Cowper, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Crabbe, and about twenty volumes of Cooke's Poets, I was pleased to see the Nithsdale and Galloway Sang of our friend Allan Cunningham, to whom Clare expresses a great desire to be introduced; he thought as I did, that only " Auld Lang Syne" could have produced such poems as the Lord's Marie, Bonnie Lady Anne, and the Mermaid of Gallowa'. The Lady of the Bishop of Peterborough had just made him a present of Miss Aikin's Court of Queen Elizabeth. From Sir W. Scott he received (I think) the Lady of the Lake, and Chatterton's Poems of Rowley, in lieu of two guineas which were offered him; he had requested to have the value of the gift enhanced by the autograph of Sir Walter, in one or both the volumes, but his wish was refused. Crabbe's works were sent him, by Lord Milton, on the day I called at Helpstone. To see so many books handsomely bound, and "flash'd about with golden letters," as he describes it, in so poor a place as Clare's cottage, gave it almost a romantic air, for, except in cleanliness, it is no whit superior to the habitations of the poorest of the peasantry. The hearth has no fire-place on it, which to one accustomed to coal fires looked comfortless, but Clare found it otherwise; and I could readily picture him enjoying, as he describes himself in one of his early sonnets,

--The happy winter-night,

When the storm pelted down with all his might,
And roar'd and bellow'd in the chimney-top,
And patter'd vehement 'gainst the window-light,
And on the threshold fell the quick eaves-drop.
How blest I've listen'd on my corner stool,

Heard the storm rage, and hugg'd my happy spot,
While the fond parent wound her whirring spool,
And spar'd a sigh for the poor wanderer's lot.
In thee, sweet hut, this happiness was prov'd,
And these endear and make thee doubly lov'd.'

London Magazine, pp. 545-6. Nov, 1. 1821.

But we must now turn from the man to the Author. The Village Minstrel, the principal poem in the present volumes, was begun in the autumn of 1819; and was finished soon after the appearance of his former publication. To the fate of that volume, the Author alludes with natural anxiety at the end of the poem; and the state of dreary misery in which he then lived,' is suggested by the Editor as an excuse for some apparently discontented stanzas about the middle of the poem,if any excuse be necessary for some of the most vigorous and 'beautiful ebullitions of truepoesy, than can be met with in our language.' Lubin, like Giles in the Farmer's Boy, is at once the hero and the minstrel; but there is more of" Edwin" than of Giles about Clare, and had Beattie been living, he might have been surprised to find the half-allegorical idea which he has imbodied in his elegant villager, realized in a living wight, who comes forward to tell his own tale. In place of the lazy young enthusiast who had nothing else to do but pipe to the rustics, or stroll for whole days among rocks and woods, and listen to s philosophical hermit, we have here a substantial English labourer, a consumer of bread and cheese and porter, who has been compelled to work hard for a bare livelihood; and if, like Edwin, he is no vulgar boy,' it is because his mind has been borne up by the elasticity of genius, above the vulgarizing influence of his circumstances and employment.

• Young Lubin was a peasant from his birth;
His sire a hind born to the flail and plough,
To thump the corn out and to till the earth,
The coarsest chance which nature's laws allow,
To earn his living by a sweating brow;
Thus labour's early days did rugged roll,
Mixed with untimely toil;-but e'en as now,
Ambitious prospects fired his little soul,

And fancy soared, and sung, 'bove poverty's control.

O who can speak his joys when spring's young morn
From wood and pasture open'd on his view,
When tender green buds blush upon the thorn,
And the first primrose dips its leaves in dew:
Each varied charm how joy'd would he pursue,
Tempted to trace their beauties through the day!
Grey-girdled eve, and morn of rosy hue
Have both beheld him on his lonely way,

Far, far remote from boys, and their unpleasing play.
• Sequester'd nature was his heart's delight;
Him would she lead thro' wood and lonely plain,
Searching the pooty from the rushy dyke;
And while the thrush sang her long-silenc'd strain,
He thought it sweet, and mock'd it o'er again :

C

And while he pluck'd the primrose in its pride,
He ponder'd o'er its bloom 'tween joy and pain;
And a rude sonnet in its praise he tried,

Where nature's simple way the aid of art supplied.

The freshen'd landscapes round his routs unfurl'd,
The fine-ting'd clouds above, the woods below,
Each met his eye a new-revealing world,
Delighting more as more he learn'd to know;
Each journey sweeter, musing to and fro.
Surrounded thus, not paradise more sweet,
Enthusiasm made his soul to glow;

His heart with wild sensations used to beat;
As nature seemly sang, his mutterings would repeat.
O who can tell the sweets of May-day's morn,
To waken rapture in a feeling mind,
When the gilt east unveils her dappled dawn,
And the gay woodlark has its nest resign'd,
As slow the sun creeps up the hill behind;
Morn redd'ning round, and daylight's spotless hue,
As seemingly with rose and lily lin'd;

While all the prospect round beams fair to view,
Like a sweet opening flower with its unsullied dew.

Ah, often brushing through the dripping grass,
Has he been seen to catch this early charm,
List'ning the love song" of the healthy lass
Passing with milk-pail on her well-turn'd arm;
Or meeting objects from the rousing farm;
The jingling plough-teams driving down the steep,
Waggon and cart-and shepherd-dogs' alarm,
Raising the bleatings of unfolding sheep,
As o'er the mountain top the red sun 'gins to peep.
Nor could the day's decline escape his gaze;
He lov'd the closing as the rising day,
And oft would stand to catch the setting rays,
Whose last beams stole not unperceiv'd away;
When, hesitating like a stag at bay,

The bright unwearied sun seem'd loth to drop,
Till chaos' night-hounds hurried him away,
And drove him headlong from the mountain-top,
And shut the lovely scene, and bade all nature stop.
With contemplation's stores his mind to fill,
O doubly happy would he roam as then,
When the blue eve crept deeper round the hill,
While the coy rabbit ventur'd from his den,
And weary labour sought his rest agen;
Lone wanderings led him haply by the stream
Where unperceiv'd he 'joy'd his hours at will,
Musing the cricket twittering o'er its dream,

Or watching. o'er the brook the moon-light's dancing beam.