able evidence of being composed altogether from the impulses of the writer's mind, as excited by external objects and internal sensations. Here are no tawdry and feeble paraphrases of former poets, no attempts at describing what the author might have become acquainted with in his limited reading. The woods, the vales, the brooks, "the crimson spots i' the bottom of a cowslip," or the loftier phenomena of the heavens, contemplated through the alternations of hope and despondency, are the principal sources whence the youth, whose adverse circumstances and resignation under them extort our sympathy, drew the faithful and vivid pictures before us. Examples of minds highly gifted by nature, struggling with, and breaking through the bondage of adversity, are not rare in this country: but privation is not destitution; and the instance before us is, perhaps, one of the most striking of patient and persevering talent existing and enduring in the most forlorn, and seemingly hopeless condition, that literature has at any time exhibited.' In a short time Clare was in possession of a little fortune. The present Earl Fitzwilliam sent £100 to his publishers, which, with the like sum advanced by them, was laid out in the purchase of stock; the Marquis of Exeter allowed him an annuity of fifteen guineas for life; the Earl of Spencer a further annuity of £10, and various contributions were received from other noblemen and gentlemen, so that the poet had a permanent allowance of £30 per annum. He married his Patty of the Vale,' the rosebud in humble life,' the daughter of a neighbouring farmer; and in his native cottage at Helpstone, with his aged and infirm parents and his young wife by his side-all proud of his now rewarded and successful genius-Clare basked in the sunshine of a poetical felicity. The writer of this recollects, with melancholy pleasure, paying a visit to the poet at this genial season in company with one of his publishers. The humble dwelling wore an air of comfort and contented happiness. Shelves were fitted up, filled with books, most of which had been sent as presents. Clare read and liked them all! He took us to see his favourite scene, the haunt of his inspiration. It was a low fall of swampy ground, used as a pasture, and bounded by a dull rushy brook, overhung with willows. Yet here Clare strayed and mused delighted. Flow on, thou gently-plashing stream, Bemoistening many a weedy stem, That makes me love thee dearly. In 1821 Clare came forward again as a poet. His second publication was entitled The Village Minstrel and other Poems, in two volumes. The first of these pieces is in the Spenserian stanza, and describes the scenes, sports, and feelings of rural life-the author himself sitting for the portrait of Lubin, the humble rustic who hummed his lowly dreams' is now, we believe, in a private asylum-hopeless, but not dead to passing events. This sad termination of so bright a morning it is painful to contemplate. Amidst the native wild flowers of his song we looked not for the deadly nightshade'-and, though the example of Burns, of Chatterton, and Bloomfield, was better fitted to inspire fear than hope, there was in Clare a naturally lively and cheerful temperament, and an apparent absence of strong and dangerous passions, that promised, as in the case of Allan Ramsay, a life of humble yet prosperous contentment and happiness. Poor Clare's muse was the true offspring of English country life. He was a faithful painter of rustic scenes and occupations, and he noted every light and shade of his brooks, meadows, and green lanes. His fancy was buoyant in the midst of labour and hardship; and his imagery, drawn directly from nature, is various and original. Careful finishing could not be expected from the rustic poet, yet there is often a fine delicacy and beauty in his pieces, and his moral reflections and pathos win their way to the heart. It is seldom,' as one of his critics remarked, 'that the public have an opportunity of learning the unmixed and unadulterated impression of the loveliness of nature on a man of vivid perception and strong feeling, equally unacquainted with the art and reserve of the world, and with the riches, rules, and prejudices of literature.' Clare was strictly such a man. His reading before his first publication had been extremely limited, and did not either form his taste or bias the direction of his powers. He wrote out of the fulness of his heart; and his love of nature was so universal, that he included all, weeds as well as flowers, in his picturesque catalogues of her charms. In grouping and forming his pictures, he has recourse to new and original expressions-as, for example Brisk winds the lightened branches shake By pattering, plashing drops confessed; And, where oaks dripping shade the lake, A sonnet to the glow-worm is singularly rich in this Paint crimping dimples on its breast. vivid word-painting : Tasteful illumination of the night, Bright scattered, twinkling star of spangled earth Hail to the nameless coloured dark and light, The witching nurse of thy illumined birth. In thy still hour how dearly I delight To rest my weary bones, from labour free; In lone spots, out of hearing, out of sight, To sigh day's smothered pains; and pause on thee, tear. In these happy microscopic views of nature, Grahame, the author of the Sabbath, is the only poet who can be put in competition with Clare. The delicacy of some of his sentimental verses, mixed up in careless profusion with others less correct or pleasing, may seen from the following part of a ballad, The Fate of Amy : Far in the shade where poverty retires. The descriptions of scenery, as well as the expres-be sion of natural emotion and generous sentiment in this poem, exalted the reputation of Clare as a true poet. He afterwards contributed short pieces to the annuals and other periodicals, marked by a more choice and refined diction. The poet's prosperity was, alas! soon over. His discretion was not equal to his fortitude: he speculated in farming, wasted his little hoard, and amidst accumulating difficulties sank into nervous despondency and despair. He The flowers the sultry summer kills Lost was that sweet simplicity; Her eye's bright lustre fled; And o'er her cheeks, where roses bloomed, A sickly paleness spread. So fades the flower before its time, Where cankerworms assail; So droops the bud upon its stem Beneath the sickly gale. What is Life? And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run, Its length? A minute's pause, a moment's thought. And Happiness? A bubble on the stream, That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought. And what is Hope? The puffing gale of morn, That robs each flowret of its gem-and dies; A cobweb, hiding disappointment's thorn, Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise. And what is Death? Is still the cause unfound? That dark mysterious name of horrid sound? A long and lingering sleep the weary crave. And Peace! Where can its happiness abound? No where at all, save heaven and the grave. Then what is Life! When stripped of its disguise, A thing to be desired it cannot be; Since everything that meets our foolish eyes Gives proof sufficient of its vanity. "Tis but a trial all must undergo, To teach unthankful mortal how to prize That happiness vain man's denied to know, Until he's called to claim it in the skies. Summer Morning. 'Tis sweet to meet the morning breeze, The wakening charms of early day! Where glittering dew the ground illumes, As sprinkled o'er the withering swaths Their moisture shrinks in sweet perfumes. And hear the beetle sound his horn, And hear the skylark whistling nigh, Sprung from his bed of tufted corn, A hailing minstrel in the sky. First sunbeam, calling night away To see how sweet thy summons seems; Split by the willow's wavy gray, And sweetly dancing on the streams. How fine the spider's web is spun, Unnoticed to vulgar eyes; Its silk thread glittering in the sun 'Neath their morning burthen lean, While its crop my searches shields, Sweet I scent the blossomed bean. Making oft remarking stops; So emerging into light, From the ignorant and vain Fearful genius takes her flight, Skimming o'er the lowly plain. The Primrose-A Sonnet. Welcome, pale primrose! starting up between Dead matted leaves of ash and oak that strew The every lawn, the wood, and spinney through, 'Mid creeping moss and ivy's darker green; How much thy presence beautifies the ground! Plucking the fairest with a rude delight: The Thrush's Nest-A Sonnet. Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush I watched her secret toils from day to day; How true she warped the moss to form her nest, And modelled it within with wood and clay. And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue: And there I witnessed, in the summer hours, A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky.* First-Love's Recollections. First-love will with the heart remain Their fragrance when they die: Mary, I dare not call thee dear, I felt a pride to name thy name, How loath to part, how fond to meet, At sunset, with what eager feet Scarce nine days passed us ere we met Thy face was so familiar grown, A moment's memory when alone, Would bring thee in mine eye; * Montgomery says quaintly but truly of this sonnet, 'Here we have in miniature the history and geography of a thrush's nest, so simply and naturally set forth, that one might think such strains No more difficile Than for a blackbird 'tis to whistle. But let the heartless critic who despises them try his own hand either at a bird's nest or a sonnet like this; and when he has succeeded in making the one, he may have some hope of being able to make the other.' But now my very dreams forget When last that gentle cheek I prest, Even loftier hopes than ours; Spring bids full many buds to swell, That ne'er can grow to flowers. Dawnings of Genius. In those low paths which poverty surrounds, While moiled and sweating, by some pasture's side, For which his language can no utterance find; Dim burns the soul, and throbs the fluttering heart, [Scenes and Musings of the Peasant Poet.] Each opening season, and each opening scene, And tales of fairyland he loved to hear, And how the restless slut was pinched black and blue. How ancient dames a fairy's anger feared, And thousands such the village keeps alive;' As long as wild rusticity has birth To spread their wonders round the cottage-hearth. On Lubin's mind these deeply were impressed; Oft fear forbade to share his neighbour's inirth: And long each tale, by fancy newly dressed, Brought fairies in his dreams, and broke his infant rest. He had his dreads and fears, and scarce could pass A churchyard's dreary mounds at silent night, But footsteps trampled through the rustling grass, And ghosts 'hind grave-stones stood in sheets of white; Dread monsters fancy moulded on his sight; Soft would he step lest they his tread should hear, And creep and creep till past his wild affright; Then on wind's wings would rally, as it were, So swift the wild retreat of childhood's fancied fear. And when fear left him, on his corner-seat Much would he chatter o'er each dreadful tale; Tell how he heard the sound of 'proaching feet, And warriors jingling in their coats of mail; And lumping knocks as one would thump a flail; Of spirits conjured in the charnel floor; And many a mournful shriek and hapless wail, Where maids, self-murdered, their false loves deplore ; And from that time would vow to tramp on nights no more. O! who can speak his joys when spring's young morn, From wood and pasture, opened on his view! When tender green buds blush upon the thorn, And the first primrose dips its leaves in dew: Each varied charm how joyed would he pursue, Tempted to trace their beauties through the day; Gray-girdled eve and morn of rosy hue Have both beheld him on his lonely way, Far, far remote from boys, and their unpleasing play. Sequestered nature was his heart's delight; The freshened landscapes round his routes unfurled, His heart with wild sensations used to beat; Of sheltering trees it humbly peeped between ; The stone-rocked wagon with its rumbling sound; The windmill's sweeping sails at distance seen; And every form that crowds the circling round, Where the sky, stooping, seems to kiss the meeting ground. And dear to him the rural sports of May, O'er brook-banks stretching, on the pasture-sward That like low genius sprang, to bloom their day and die. O! who can tell the sweets of May-day's morn, When the gilt east unveils her dappled dawn, Morn reddening round, and daylight's spotless hue, 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, As o'er the mountain top the red sun 'gins to peep. Nor could the day's decline escape his gaze; The bright unwearied sun seemed loath to drop, 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 ventured from his den, And weary labour sought his rest again; Lone wanderings led him haply by the stream, Where unperceived he 'joyed his hours at will, Musing the cricket twittering o'er its dream, Or watching o'er the brook the moonlight's dancing beam. And here the rural muse might aptly say, All by the brook the pasture-flowers among: latter years were gratified by the talents and reputation of his two sons, James and Horace. James, the eldest, was educated at a school at Chigwell, in Essex, and was usually at the head of his class. For this retired 'schoolboy spot' he ever retained a strong affection, rarely suffering, as his brother relates, a long interval to elapse without paying it a visit, and wandering over the scenes that recalled the truant excursions of himself and chosen playmates, or the solitary rambles and musings of his youth. Two of his latest poems are devoted to his reminiscences of Chigwell. After the completion of his education, James Smith was articled to his father, was taken into partnership in due time, and eventually succeeded to the business, as well as to the appointment of solicitor to the Ordnance. With a quick sense of the ridiculous, a strong passion for the stage and the drama, and a love of London society and manners, Smith became a town wit and humorist-delighting in parodies, theatrical colloquies, and fashionable criticism. His first pieces appear to have been contributed to the Pic-Nic newspaper established by Colonel Henry Greville, which afterwards merged into The Cabinet, both being solely calculated for the topics and feelings of the day. A selection from the Pic-Nic papers, in two small volumes, was published in 1803. He next joined the writers for the London Review-a journal established by Cumberland the dramatist, on the novel principle of affixing the writer's name to his critique. The Review proved a complete failure. The system right, which had been originally offered to Mr Mur of publishing names was an unwise innovation, de-ray for L.20, was purchased by that gentleman, in stroying equally the harmless curiosity of the reader, 1819, after the sixteenth edition, for L.131. The and the critical independence of the author; and articles written by James Smith consisted of imitaCumberland, besides, was too vain, too irritable and tions of Wordsworth, Cobbett, Southey, Coleridge, poor, to secure a good list of contributors. Smith Crabbe, and a few travesties. Some of them are then became a constant writer in the Monthly inimitable, particularly the parodies on Cobbett and Mirror (wherein Henry Kirke White first attracted Crabbe, which were also among the most popular. the notice of what may be termed the literary world), Horace Smith contributed imitations of Walter and in this work appeared a series of poetical imita- Scott, Moore, Monk Lewis, Lord Byron, W. T. tions, entitled Horace in London, the joint production Fitzgerald (whose Loyal Effusion' is irresistibly of James and Horace Smith. These parodies were ludicrous for its extravagant adulation and fustian), subsequently collected and published in one volume Dr Johnson, &c. The amount of talent displayed in 1813, after the success of the Rejected Addresses by the two brothers was pretty equal; for none of had rendered the authors famous. Some of the James Smith's parodies are more felicitous than that pieces display a lively vein of town levity and of Scott by Horace. The popularity of the Rejected humour, but many of them also are very trifling Addresses' seems to have satisfied the ambition of and tedious. In one stanza, James Smith has given the elder poet. He afterwards confined himself to a true sketch of his own tastes and character:- short anonymous pieces in the New Monthly Magazine and other periodicals, and to the contribution of some humorous sketches and anecdotes towards Mr Mathews's theatrical entertainments, the authorship of which was known only to a few. The Country Cousins, Trip to France, and Trip to America, mostly written by Smith, and brought out by Mathews at the English Opera House, not only brought the witty writer a thousand pounds—a sum filled the theatre, and replenished the treasury, but Me toil and ease alternate share, With these, and London for my home, The Circus or the Forum! To London he seems to have been as strongly at tached as Dr Johnson himself. A confirmed me tropolitan in all his tastes and habits, he would often quaintly observe, that London was the best place in summer, and the only place in winter; or quote Dr. Johnson's dogma-"Sir, the man that is tired of London is tired of existence." At other times he would express his perfect concurrence with Dr Mosley's assertion, that in the country one is always maddened with the noise of nothing: or laughingly quote the Duke of Queensberry's rejoinder on being told one sultry day in September that London was exceedingly empty-" Yes, but it's fuller than the country." He would not, perhaps, have gone quite so far as his old friend Jekyll, who used to say, that "if compelled to live in the country, he would have the approach to his house paved like the streets of London, and hire a hackney-coach to drive up and down the street all day long;" but he would relate, with great glee, a story showing the general conviction of his dislike to ruralities. He was sitting in the library at a country house, when a gentleman, informing him that the family were all out, proposed a quiet stroll into the pleasure-grounds. "Stroll! why, don't you see my gouty shoe?" "Yes, but what then? you don't really mean to say that you have got the gout? I thought you had only put on that shoe to avoid being shown over the improvements." There is some good-humoured banter and exaggeration in this dislike of ruralities; and accord ingly we find that, as Johnson found his way to the remote Hebrides, Smith occasionally transported himself to Yorkshire and other places, the country seats of friends and noblemen. The 'Rejected Ad dresses' appeared in 1812, having engaged James and Horace Smith six weeks, and proving one of the luckiest hits in literature.' The directors of Drury Lane theatre had offered a premium for the best poetical address to be spoken on opening the new edifice; and a casual hint from Mr Ward, secre allusion without shrugging up his shoulders, and to which, we are told, the receiver seldom made ejaculating, A thousand pounds for nonsense!' Mr Smith was still better paid for a trifling exertion of his muse; for, having met at a dinner party the late Mr Strahan, the king's printer, then suffermained unimpaired, he sent him next morning the ing from gout and old age, though his faculties refollowing jeu d'esprit : Your lower limbs seemed far from stout The power that props the body's length, In you mounts upwards, and the strength Mr Strahan was so much gratified by the compli- We every-day bards may ‘anonymous' sign— WORTH. The easy social bachelor-life of James Smith was tary to the theatre, suggested to the witty brothers perately, and at his club-dinner restricted himself to much impaired by hereditary gout. He lived temthe composition of a series of humorous addresses, his half-pint of sherry; but as a professed joker and professedly composed by the principal authors of the day. The work was ready by the opening of the diner out,' he must often have been tempted to theatre, and its success was almost unexampled. gout began to assail him in middle life, and he graover-indulgence and irregular hours. Attacks of Eighteen editions have been sold; and the copy-dually lost the use and the very form of his limbs, Memoir prefixed to Smith's Comic Miscellanies, 2 vols. bearing all his sufferings, as his brother states, with 'an undeviating and unexampled patience.' One of 1841. |