sense used, you cannot plead a precedent. They would fetter the English poet as much as they circumscribe the maker of Latin verses, and yet they complain that our modern poets want originality!

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 highand 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 white-washed, 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 it's bearing thee:

And hard shall fall the shock of fortune's frown,

To eke thy sorrows, ere it breaks me down. (Vol. i. p. 67.) 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

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 chimneytop,

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 orm 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. (V. ii. p. 152.) Having directed my man to set off in an hour's time, and wait for me at the top of Barnack Hill, I walked with Clare to the lower end of the street, to see the place where "Jenny" drowned herself. It is a large

pond, partly overhung with trees; a deep wood backs the field; and in front is an ancient building, which looks like an old manor-house, but it is now in ruins: the scene is, perhaps, the most picturesque of any in the neighbourhood. Here let me refer you at once to the poem of Cross Roads, or the Haymaker's Story. It is so true to nature, so full of minute incidents, all telling the story in the most dramatic way, that any attempt to glance at it otherwise than in the words of the original, would be to destroy some portion of its interest; and altogether it is a most affecting narrative. The following lines are beautifully characteristic of those numberless recollections, which rush upon the memory after an irreparable deed is done, and seem to have been so strikingly prophetic of the fact, that our indifference to them assumes even a culpable taint, and we almost feel as if we might have prevented the mischief. An old woman, who was Jenny's companion, thus narrates the story:

Poor thoughtless wench! it seems but Sunday past

Since we went out together for the last, And plain enough indeed it was to find She'd something more than common on her mind;

For she was always fond and full of chat, In passing harmless jokes 'bout beaus and that,

But nothing then was scarcely talk'd about,
And what there was, I even forc'd it out.
A gloomy wanness spoil'd her rosy cheek,
And doubts hung there it was not mine to
seek;

She ne'er so much as mention'd things to

eye,

I little took it as her last good-bye;
For she was tender, and I've often known
Her mourn when beetles have been tram-
pled on :

So I ne'er dream'd from this, what soon befel,

Till the next morning rang her passing-bell. (V. ii. p. 88.) And how wonderfully natural on these reflections! That very morning, it affects me still, Ye know the foot-path sidles down the hill, Ign'rant as babe unborn I pass'd the pond To milk as usual in our close beyond, And cows were drinking at the water's edge, And horses brows'd among the flags and sedge,

And gnats and midges danc'd the water o'er, Just as I've mark'd them scores of times

before,

And birds sat singing as in mornings gone, While I as unconcern'd went soodling on, But little dreaming, as the wakening wind

reclin'd,

out,

And took her home, where scarce an hour gone by

She had been living like to you and I. I went with more, and kiss'd her for the last,

And thought with tears on pleasures that were past;

And, the last kindness left me then to do,
I went, at milking, where the blossoms

grew,

And handfuls got of rose and lambtoe sweet,

And put them with her in her windingsheet.

A wilful murder, jury made the crime; Nor parson 'low'd to pray, nor bell to chime; On the cross roads, far from her friends and

kin,

The usual law for their ungodly sin Who violent hands upon themselves have laid,

Poor Jane's last bed un-christian-like was made;

And there, like all whose last thoughts turn to heaven,

She sleeps, and doubtless hop'd to be forgiven. (V. ii. p. 92.)

The tale is a true one, and in a little village it would doubtless make a deep impression at the time; but Clare received it from tradition, for the circumstance happened long ago: he would learn therefore the mere fact, that such a girl was drowned in such a pond, and all those particulars which constitute the poetry of the story, would remain to be created by the activity of his own imagination. The true poet alone could so faithfully realize to himself, and few of that class would dare to dwell so intensely upon, the agonizing considerations which pass in the mind of a person intent on self-destruction: the subsequent reflections of the narrator on her own indifference in passing the pond where Jenny lay drowned, and on the unconcern of the cattle and the insects,

Urges more strong the simpering maid to love;

More freely using toying ways to win-
Tokens that echo from the soul within-

Her soft hand nipping, that with ardour burns,

And, timid, gentlier presses its returns ;
Then stealing pins with innocent deceit,
To loose the 'kerchief from its envied seat;
Then unawares her bonnet he'll untie,

Her dark-brown ringlets wiping gently by,
To steal a kiss in seemly feign'd disguise,
As love yields kinder taken by surprise:
While, nearly conquer'd, she less disap-

proves,

And owns at last, 'mid tears and sighs, she

loves.

With sweetest feelings that this world be

stows

Now each to each their inmost souls dis

close,

pray,

Half-smother'd discontent pursues its way In whispering Providence, how blest she'd been,

If life's last troubles she'd escap'd unseen If, ere want sneak'd for grudg'd support from pride,

She had but shar'd of childhood's joys, and died.

And as to talk some passing neighbours stand,

And shove their box within her tottering hand,

She turns from echoes of her younger years, And nips the portion of her snuff with tears. (V, ii. p. 82.)

But you are tired, or at least I am, with this long letter. Briefly then, suppose that I parted with my interesting companion, on the top of Barnack Hill, a place which he has celebrated in his poems; that he pursued his way to Casterton; and that after dinner I tried to put these my imperfect recollections of the day on paper for your amusement.