from his intercourse with mankind. Had I been more intimate with him, I should have ventured to touch upon his office as a minister of the Gospel, and how far his heart and soul were in it so as to make him a zealous and diligent labourer: in poetry, though he wrote much, as we I happened once to speak of pains all know, he assuredly was not so. as necessary to produce merit of a certain kind which I highly valued : his observation was 'It is not worth while.' You are quite right, thought I, if the labour encroaches upon the time due to teach truth as a steward of the mysteries of God: if there be cause to fear that, write less: but, if poetry is to be produced at all, make what you do produce as good as you can. Mr. Rogers once told me that he expressed his regret to Crabbe that he wrote in his later works so much less correctly than in his earlier. 'Yes,' replied he, but then I had a reputation to make; now I can afford to relax.' Whether it was from a modest estimate of his own qualifications, or from causes less creditable, his motives for writing verse and his hopes and aims were not so high as is to be desired. After being silent for more than twenty years, he again applied himself to poetry, upon the spur of applause he received from the periodical publications of the day, as he himself tells us in one of his prefaces. Is it not to be lamented that a man who was so conversant with permanent truth, and whose writings are so valuable an acquisition to our country's literature, should have required an impulse from such a quarter?-Mrs. Hemans was unfortunate as a poetess in being obliged by circumstances to write for money, and that so frequently and so much, that she was compelled to look out for subjects wherever she could find them, and to write as expeditiously as possible. As a woman, she was to a considerable degree a spoilt child of the world. She had been early in life distinguished for talent, and poems of hers were published while she was a girl. She had also been handsome in her youth, but her education had been most unfortunate. She was totally ignorant of housewifery, and could as easily have managed the spear of Minerva as her needle. It was from observing these deficiencies, that, one day while she was under my roof, I purposely directed her attention to household economy, and told her I had purchased Scales, which I intended to present to a young lady as a wedding present; pointed out their utility (for her especial benefit), and said that no ménage ought to be without them. Mrs. Hemans, not in the least suspecting my drift, reported this saying, in a letter to a friend at the time, as a proof of my simplicity. Being disposed to make large allowances for the faults of her education and the circumstances in which she was placed, I felt most kindly disposed towards her, and took her part upon all occasions, and I was not a little affected by learning that after she withdrew to Ireland, a long and severe sickness raised her spirit as it depressed her body. This I heard from her most intimate friends, and there is striking evidence of it in a poem written and published not long before her death. These notices of Mrs. Hemans would be very unsatisfactory to her intimate friends, as indeed they are to myself, not so much for what is said, but what for brevity's sake is left unsaid. Let it suffice to add, there was much sympathy between us, and, if opportunity had been allowed me to see more of her, I should have loved and valued her accordingly; as it is, I remember her with true affection for her amiable qualities, and, above all, for her delicate and irreproachable conduct during her long separation from an unfeeling husband, whom she had been led to marry from the romantic notions of inexperienced youth. Upon this husband I never heard her cast the least reproach, nor did I ever hear her even name him, though she did not wholly forbear to touch upon her domestic position; but never so as that any fault could be found with her manner of adverting to it.-I. F. Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant' 2 In the month of January, when Dora and I were walking from Town-end, Grasmere, across the vale, snow being on the ground, she espied, in the thick though leafless hedge, a bird's nest half filled with snow. Out of this comfortless appearance arose this Sonnet, which was, in fact, written without the least reference to any individual object, but merely to prove to myself that I could, if I thought fit, write in a strain that Poets have been fond of. On the 14th of February in the same year, my daughter, in a sportive mood, sent it as a Valentine, under a fictitious name, to her cousin C. W.-I.F. Page 280 'The Cuckoo at Laverna' (From Memorials of a Tour in Italy, 1837.) 1 Among a thousand delightful feelings connected in my mind with the voice of the cuckoo, there is a personal one which is rather melancholy. I was first convinced that age had rather dulled my hearing, by not being able to catch the sound at the same distance as the younger companions of my walks; and of this failure I had a proof upon the occasion that suggested these verses. I did not hear the sound till Mr. Robinson had twice or thrice directed my attention to it.-I. F. Page 282 'A Night Thought' 1 These verses were thrown off extempore upon leaving Mrs. Luff's house at Fox-Ghyll, one evening. The good woman is not disposed to look at the bright side of things, and there happened to be present certain ladies who had reached the point of life where youth is ended, and who seemed to contend with each other in expressing their dislike of the country and climate. One of them had been heard to say she could not endure a country where there was 'neither sunshine nor cavaliers.'-I.F. Page 284 'A Poet' 1 I was impelled to write this Sonnet by the disgusting frequency with which the word artistical, imported with other impertinences from the Germans, is employed by writers of the present day for artistical let them substitute artificial, and the poetry written on this system, both at home and abroad, will be for the most part much better characterised.— I.F. Page 285 1 These verses were suggested while I was walking on the foot-road between Rydal Mount and Grasmere. The clouds were driving over the top of Nab-Scar across the vale: they set my thoughts agoing, and the rest followed almost immediately.-I.F. Page 287 1 The hill that rises to the south-east, above Ambleside.-W.W. 1 The first of the Poems Composed or Suggested during a Tour in the Summer of 1833.'-ED. My companions were H. C. Robinson and my son John.-I. F. Having been prevented by the lateness of the season, in 1831, from visiting Staffa and Iona, the author made these the principal objects of a short tour in the summer of 1833, of which the following series of poems is a Memorial. The course pursued was down the Cumberland river Derwent, and to Whitehaven; thence (by the Isle of Man, where a few days were passed) up the Frith of Clyde to Greenock, then to Oban, Staffa, Iona; and back towards England, by Loch Awe, Inverary, Loch Goil-head, Greenock, and through parts of Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, and Dumfries-shire to Carlisle, and thence up the river Eden, and homewards by Ullswater.-W.W. INDEX TO THE FIRST LINES PAGE ACCEPT, O Friend, for praise or blame, Adieu, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown 156 290 A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by, A Poet! He hath put his heart to school, -A simple Child, 189 86 235 229 254 284 285 38 A slumber did my spirit seal, 37 As star that shines dependent upon star, 252 A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain, 267 At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, DEAR Child of Nature, let them rail, EARTH has not anything to show more fair,. Ere yet our course was graced with social trees, FAIR seed-time had my soul, and I grew up, Fair Star of evening, Splendour of the west,. Farewell, thou little Nook of mountain-ground, Five years have past; five summers, with the length, From Stirling Castle we had seen, HAD this effulgence disappeared,. Hail, blest above all kinds!-Supremely skilled, High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate, Hope rules a land for ever green, . Art, I AM not One who much or oft delight, 184 If from the public way you turn your steps, 68 271 If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven, 270 217 23 173 155 114 262 20 120 251 ... I have seen, I heard a thousand blended notes, I met Louisa in the shade, Inland, within a hollow vale, I stood, In these fair vales hath many a Tree, In the sweet shire of Cardigan, In youth from rock to rock I went, I saw the figure of a lovely Maid, I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold, Is it a reed that's shaken by the wind, I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, It is not to be thought of that the Flood, It is the first mild day of March, . I travelled among unknown men, -It seems a day, It was a cove, a huge recess, It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night, It was an April morning: fresh and clear, I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile, JONES! as from Calais southward you and I, KIND Nature keeps a heavenly door,. LET other bards of angels sing, List-twas the Cuckoo.-O with what delight, Lo! where the Moon along the sky, MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour, Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes, Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost, My heart leaps up when I behold, NAY, Traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands, -Not a breath of air, |