Though spice-breathing gales on his caravan hover, The day-spring of youth still unclouded by sorrow, No warmth from the smile of-wife, children, and friends. Let the breath of renown ever freshen and nourish The laurel which o'er the dead favourite bends; O'er me wave the willow, and long may it flourish, Bedewed with the tears of-wife, children, and friends. Let us drink, for my song, growing graver and graver, To subjects too solemn insensibly tends; Let us drink, pledge me high, love and virtue shall flavour The glass which I fill to-wife, children, and friends. To Too late I stayed-forgive the crime; How noiseless falls the foot of Time! What eye with clear account remarks When all its sands are diamond sparks, Oh! who to sober measurement Epitaph upon the Year 1806. "Tis gone, with its thorns and its roses! The year Eighteen Hundred and Six! Thy portion of sunshine and storm. That life in full blossom could show! One hand gave the balmy corrector Of ills which the other had brewedOne draught from thy chalice of nectar All taste of thy bitter subdued. 'Tis gone, with its thorns and its roses! With mine, tears more precious may mix To hallow this midnight which closes The year Eighteen Hundred and Six! Stanzas. When midnight o'er the moonless skies Her pall of transient death has spread, When mortals sleep, when spectres rise, And nought is wakeful but the dead: at the time of the American war, he espoused the British interest with so much warmth, that he had to leave the new world and seek a subsistence in the old. He took orders in the church of England, and was sometime tutor to the nephew of Lord Chandos, near Southgate. His son (who was named after his father's pupil, Mr Leigh) was educated at Christ's Hospital, where he continued till his fifteenth year. 'I was then,' he says, 'first deputy Grecian; and had the honour of going out of the school in the same rank, at the same age, and for the same reason as my friend Charles Lamb. The reason was, that I hesitated in my speech. It was understood that a Grecian was bound to deliver a public speech before he left school, and to go into the church afterwards; and as I could do neither of these things, a Grecian I could not be.' Leigh was then a poet, and his father collected his verses, and published them with a large list of subscribers. He has himself described this volume as a heap of imitations, some of them clever enough for a youth of sixteen, but absolutely worthless in every other respect. In 1805, Mr Hunt's brother set up a paper called the News, and the poet went to live with him, and write the theatrical criticisms in it. Three years afterwards, they established, in joint partnership, the Examiner, a weekly journal still conducted with distinguished POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ability. The poet was more literary than political in his tastes and lucubrations; but unfortunately he ventured some strictures on the prince regent, which were construed into a libel, and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. The poet's captivity was not without its bright side. He had much of the public sympathy, and his friends (Byron and Moore being of the number) were attentive in their visits. One of his two rooms on the ground-floor' he converted into a picturesque and poetical study:-I papered the walls with a trellis of roses; I had the ceiling coloured with clouds and sky; the barred windows were screened with Venetian blinds; and when my bookcases were set up, with their busts and flowers, and a pianoforte made its appearance, perhaps there was not a handsomer room on that side the water. I took a pleasure, when a stranger knocked at the door, to see him come in and stare about him. The surprise on issuing from the borough, and passing through the avenues of a jail, was dramatic. Charles Lamb declared there was no other such room except in a fairy tale. But I had another surprise, which was a garden. There was a little yard outside, railed off from another belonging to the neighbouring ward. This yard I shut in with green palings, adorned it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick bed of earth from a nursery, and even contrived to have a grass plot. The earth I filled with flowers and young trees. There was an apple-tree from which we managed to get a pudding the second year. As to my flowers, they were allowed to be perfect. A poet from Derbyshire (Mr Moore) told me he had seen I bought the "Parnaso no such heart's-ease. Italiano" while in prison, and used often to think of a passage in it, while looking at this miniature piece of horticulture: Mio picciol orto, A me sei vigna, e campo, e silva, e prato.-Baldi. My little garden, To me thou'rt vineyard, field, and wood, and meadow. Here I wrote and read in fine weather, sometimes under an awning. In autumn, my trellises were hung with scarlet runners, which added to the flowery investment. I used to shut my eyes in my arm-chair, and affect to think myself hundreds of miles off. But my triumph was in issuing forth of a morning. A wicket out of the garden led into the large one belonging to the prison. The latter was only for vegetables, but it contained a cherry-tree, which I twice saw in blossom.'* On This is so interesting a little picture, and so fine an example of making the most of adverse circumstances, that it should not be omitted in any life of Hunt. The poet, however, was not so well fitted to battle with the world, and apply himself steadily to worldly business, as he was to dress his garden and nurse his poetical fancies. He fell into difficulties, and has been contending with them ever since. leaving prison he published his Story of Rimini, an Italian tale in verse, containing some exquisite lines and passages. He set up also a small weekly paper called the Indicator, on the plan of the periodical essayists, which was well received. He also gave to the world two small volumes of poetry, Foliage, and The Feast of the Poets. In 1822 Mr Hunt went to Italy to reside with Lord Byron, and to establish the Liberal, a crude and violent melange of poetry and politics, both in the extreme of liberalism. This connexion was productive of mutual disappointment and disgust. The 'Liberal' did not sell; Byron's titled and aristocratic friends cried out against so * Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries, vol. ii. p. 2:8. plebeian a partnership; and Hunt found that the Behold where thou dost lie, Heeding naught, remote on high! As if heaven had rained them wine; Though thy small blind eyes pursue it; In 1840 Mr Hunt brought out a drama entitled [May Morning at Ravenna.] The sun is up, and 'tis a morn of May 423 A balmy briskness comes upon the breeze; 'Tis nature, full of spirits, waked and springing: And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay. Of expectation and a bustling crowd. [Funeral of the Lovers in Rimini.'] The last few leaves came fluttering from the trees, The train, and now were entering the first street. And in their lifted hands the gushing sorrow rolled. To keep the window, when the train drew near; To T. L. H., Six Years Old, During a Sickness. And balmy rest about thee Smooths off the day's annoy. I sit me down, and think Thy sidelong pillowed meekness, The little trembling hand Sorrows I've had severe ones, I will not think of now; But when thy fingers press When life and hope were new, My light, where'er I go, 'His voice'' his face is gone;" To feel impatient-hearted, Yet feel we must bear on; Ah, I could not endure To whisper of such wo, Unless I felt this sleep insure That it will not be so. Yes, still he's fixed, and sleeping! Dirge. Blessed is the turf, serenely blessed, To the Grasshopper and the Cricket. Oh, sweet and tiny cousins, that belong, At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth I had forgotten; and, alas! Fancied myself in heaven, not where I was; Such love for the green bower, I cannot rest elsewhere. JOHN CLARE. JOHN CLARE, one of the most truly uneducated of The Celebrated Canzone of Petrarch- Chiare, fresche, e English poets, and one of the best of our rural de dolce acque.' Clear, fresh, and dulcet streams, Which the fair shape, who seems To me sole woman, haunted at noontide; Bough, gently interknit (I sigh to think of it), Which formed a rustic chair for her sweet side; O'er which her folded gown Flowed like an angel's down; And you, O holy air and hushed, Where first my heart at her sweet glances gushed; To my last words, my last and my lamenting. If 'tis my fate below, And Heaven will have it so, That love must close these dying eyes in tears, In middle of your shade, While my soul, naked, mounts to its own spheres. When taking, out of breath, The doubtful step of death; For never could my spirit find. A stiller port after the stormy wind: Nor in more calm abstracted bourne, scribers, was born at Helpstone, a village near Peterborough, in 1793. His parents were peasants -his father a helpless cripple and a pauper. John obtained some education by his own extra work as a ploughboy: from the labour of eight weeks he generally acquired as many pence as paid for a month's schooling. At thirteen years of age he met with Thomson's Seasons, and boarded up a shilling to purchase a copy. At daybreak on a spring morning, he walked to the town of Stamford-six or seven miles off-to make the purchase, and had to wait some time till the shops were opened. This is a fine trait of boyish enthusiasm, and of the struggles of youthful genius. Returning to his native village with the precious purchase, as he walked through the beautiful scenery of Burghley Park, he composed his first piece of poetry, which he called the Morning Walk. This was soon followed by the Evening Walk, and some other pieces. A benevolent exciseman instructed the young poet in writing and arithmetic, and he continued his obscure but ardent devotions to his rural muse. 'Most of his poems,' says the writer of a memoir prefixed to his first volume, were composed under the immediate impression of his feelings in the fields or on the road sides. He could not trust his memory, and therefore he wrote them Slip from my travailed flesh, and from my bones out-down with a pencil on the spot, his hat serving him worn. for a desk; and if it happened that he had no opportunity soon after of transcribing these imperfect memorials, he could seldom decipher them or recover his first thoughts. From this cause several of his poems are quite lost, and others exist only in fragments. Of those which he had committed to writing, especially his earlier pieces, many were destroyed from another circumstance, which shows how little he expected to please others with them: from a hole in the wall of his room where he stuffed his manuscripts, a piece of paper was often taken to hold the kettle with, or light the fire.' In 1817, Clare, while working at Bridge Casterton, in Rutlandshire, resolved on risking the publication of a volume. By hard working day and night, he got a pound saved, that he might have a prospectus printed. This was accordingly done, and a Collection of Original Trifles was announced to subscribers, the price not to exceed 3s. 6d. I distributed my papers,' he says; but as I could get at no way of pushing them into higher circles than those with whom I was acquainted, they consequently passed off as quietly as if they had been still in my possession, unprinted and unseen.' Only seven subscribers came forward! One of these prospectuses, however, led to an acquaintance with Mr Edward Drury, the poems were published by Messrs Taylor and bookseller, Stamford, and through this gentleman Hessey, London, who purchased them from Clare for £20. The volume was brought out in January 1820, with an interesting well-written introduction, and bearing the title, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, by John Clare, a Northamptonshire peasant. The attention of the public was instantly awakened to the circumstances and the merits of Clare. The magazines and reviews were unanimous in his favour. This interesting little volume,' said the Quarterly Review, bears indubit 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 is now, we believe, in a private asylum-hopeless, but not dead to passing events. This sad termina tion of so bright a morning it is painful to contenplate. 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 litera ture.' 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 80 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 been sent as presents. Clare read and liked them A sonnet to the glow-worm is singularly rich in this all! He took us to see his favourite scene, the Flow on, thou gently-plashing stream, 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 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, Bedecking dangling brier and ivied tree, Or diamonds tipping on the grassy spear; Thy pale-faced glimmering light I love to see, Gilding and glistering in the dewdrop near: O still-hour's mate! my easing heart sobs free, While tiny bents low bend with many an added tear. pieces is in the Spenserian stanza, and describes the In these happy microscopic views of nature, Grahame, himself sitting for the portrait of Lubin, the humble the patio competition with Clare. The delicacles rustic who 'hummed his lowly dreams' Far in the shade where poverty retires. poet who caf profusion with others less correct or pleasing, may some of his sentimental verses, mixed up in careless The descriptions of scenery, as well as the expres-/ be seen from the following part of a ballad, The Fate 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 of Amy : The flowers the sultry summer kills 496 |