And they are left to many dangerous ways.
A green grasshopper's jump might break the shells;
Yet lowing oxen pass them morn and night,
And restless sheep around them hourly stray.

*

I add yet another :

THE YELLOWHAMMER'S NEST.

*

Just by the wooden bridge a bird flew up,
Seen by the cow-boy as he scrambled down
To reach the misty dewberry. Let us stoop

And seek its nest. The brook we need not dread, —
'T is scarcely deep enough a bee to drown,
As it sings harmless o'er its pebbly bed.
-Aye, here it is! Stuck close beside the bank,
Beneath the bunch of grass that spindles rank
Its husk-seeds tall and high: 't is rudely planned
Of bleached stubbles and the withered fare
That last year's harvest left upon the land,
Lined thinly with the horse's sable hair.
Five eggs, pen-scribbled o'er with ink their shells,
Resembling writing scrawls, which Fancy reads
As Nature's poesy and pastoral spells :
They are the Yellowhammer's; and she dwells,
Most poet like, 'mid brooks and flowery weeds.

*

*

*

*

I question if the great bird-painter, Wilson, or our own Australian ornithologist, Mr. Gould (he is a Berkshire man, I am proud to say), or Audubon, or White of Selborne, or Mr. Waterton himself and all those careful inquirers into nature are more or less poets, seldom as they have used the conventional language of poetry-I question if any of these eminent writers have ever exceeded the minuteness and accuracy of these birds' nests.

The Poem called "Insects" is scarcely less beautiful.

These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard,
And happy units of a numerous herd
Of playfellows, the laughing suminer brings;
Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings,
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose,
And where they fly for dinner no one knows;
The dew-drops feed them not; they love the shine
Of noon, whose suns may bring them golden wine.
All day they 're playing in their Sunday dress;
When night reposes they can do no less!
Then to the heath-bell's purple hood they fly,
And, like to princes in their slumbers, lie

Secure from rain and dropping dews, and all
On silken beds and roomy painted hall.
So merrily they spend their summer day,
Now in the corn-fields, now the new-mown hay,
One almost fancies that such happy things,
With coloured hoods and richly-burnished wings,
Are fairy folk in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid,

Keeping their joyous pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.

And as I have said above, other qualities too had supervened. The delicacy of sentiment in the following stanzas bears no touch of the uncultivated peasant.

FIRST LOVE'S RECOLLECTIONS.

First love will with the heart remain
When all its hopes are by,

As frail rose-blossoms still retain

Their fragrance when they die.

And joy's first dreams will haunt the mind
With shades from whence they sprung,

As summer leaves the stems behind

On which spring's blossoms hung.

Mary! I dare not call thee dear,
I've lost that right so long,

Yet once again I vex thine ear
With memory's idle song.

Had time and change not blotted out

The love of former days,

Thou wert the first that I should doubt

Of pleasing with my praise.

When honied tokens from each tongue
Told with what truth we loved,
How rapturous to thy lips I clung,
Whilst nought but smiles reproved.
But now, methinks if one kind word
Was whispered in thine ear,
Thou'dst startle like an untamed bird,
And blush with wilder fear.

How loth to part, how fond to meet,
Had we two used to be,

At sunset with what eager feet

I hastened unto thee!

Scarce nine days passed us ere we met,
In spring, nay, wintry weather;

Now nine years' suns have risen and set,
Nor found us once together.

Thy face was so familiar grown,
Thyself so often by,

A moment's memory when alone
Would bring thee to mine eye.
But now my very dreams forget
That witching look to trace;
And though thy beauty lingers yet,
It wears a stranger's face.

I felt a pride to name thy name,

But now that pride hath flown;
My words e'en seem to blush for shame
That own I love thee on.

I felt I then thy heart did share,
Nor urged a binding vow;

But much I doubt if thou couldst spare
One word of kindness now.

And what is now my name to thee,

Though once nought seemed so dear?
Perhaps a jest in hours of glee,

To please some idle ear.

And yet like counterfeits with me
Impressions linger on,

Though all the gilded finery

That passed for truth is gone.

Ere the world smiled upon my lays
A sweeter meed was mine;
Thy blushing look of ready praise
Was raised at every line.

But now methinks thy fervent love
Is changed to scorn severe;
And songs that other hearts approve,
Seem discord to thine ear.

When last thy gentle cheek I pressed
And heard thee feign adieu,
I little thought that seeming jest
Would prove a word so true.
A fate like this hath oft befell

E'en loftier hopes than ours;—
Spring bids full many buds to swell,
That ne'er can grow to flowers.

That was John Clare's last volume, published in 1839, and although generously noticed by the press, it did not sell. Perhaps the very imperfections of the earlier works had made a part of their charm. There is a certain pleasure in being called upon to show indulgence to one whose high gifts are indisputable. Besides the complacency always attending a sense of superiority of any kind, it flatters one's self-love most agreeably (I am speaking of readers, not of critics) to be able

to detect and to point out beauties under the veil of defects. Still greater was the pride of being amongst the first discoverers of such endowments. With the novelty, that pleasure vanished. Every child boasts the violet of his own finding, and cherishes and caresses it—while it is fresh; then it disappears and is no more thought of. Woe to us if so we treat a still tenderer flower!

However, it happened the popularity diminished as the merit increased. The public, usually so just in its ultimate estimate of authors, failed in this particular instance to recognise the strong and honest claim upon a fair and liberal patronage possessed by one who had been taken from his own humble avocation, from the homely work but the certain reward of the plough, to cultivate the always uncertain, and too often barren and unthankful fields of literature. Such, I fear, poor Clare found them. Improvement had come, but with improvement came sickness and anxiety. The little income had soon been found inadequate to the wants of his aged parents, and the demands of an increasing family: for they will marry, these poets! Poverty overwhelmed him, and sickness-and they who still took a kindly interest in one who had crept so close to the heart of nature in coppice and in field, heard with sorrowful sympathy that the sickness was of the mind.

It has been said that pecuniary difficulties were the real cause of the malady, and that the removal of all anxiety as to the means of living would at once cure the delusions under which he labours, and restore him to his home and to his family. I wish it were so, for I think, if that were true (and certainly the fact ought to be ascertained, as nearly as anything of that nature can be ascertained by medical examination), that they who so benevolently lent their aid to lift him from his original obscurity, would, aided by others of a like spirit, step forward to rescue from a still deeper darkness one whose talents had so well justified their former bounty.

In the meanwhile it is an alleviation to the painful feeling excited by such a narrative to know that the poor poet, perfectly gentle and harmless, enjoys, in the asylum where he is placed, the wise freedom of person and of action which is the triumph of humanity and of science in the present day.

A few years ago he was visited by a friend of mine, himself a poet of the people, who gave me a most interesting account of the then state of his intellect. His delusions were at that time very singular in their character. Whatever he read, whatever recurred to him from his former reading, or happened to be mentioned in conversation, became impressed on his mind as a thing that he had witnessed and acted in. My friend was struck with a narrative of the execution of Charles the First, recounted by Clare, as a transaction that occurred yesterday, and of which he was an eye-witness-a narrative the most graphic and minute, with an accuracy as to costume and manners far exceeding what would probably have been at his command if sane. It is such a lucidity as the disciples of Mesmer claim for clairvoyance. Or he would relate the battle of the Nile and the death of Lord Nelson, with the same perfect keeping, especially as to seamanship, fancying himself one of the sailors who had been in the action, and dealing out nautical phrases with admirable exactness and accuracy, although it is doubtful if he ever saw the sea in his life.

About three years before my friend's visit, Mr. Cyrus Redding went to see him, and has given a very interesting description of the poet, and of his state of mind, in the "English Journal.” He says that during his stay he appeared free from all delusion, except once when some allusion was made to prize-fighting, and represents him as regretting the absence of female society, and as continuing to write verse of much merit. I have myself some fragments, written with a pencil, which show all his old power over rhythm.*

* About a hundred years ago, Christopher Smart, seized with a similar malady, confined in a madhouse, and deprived of the use of pen, ink, and paper, contrived to indent his Song of David upon the wainscot with the end of a key. I add three stanzas of this fine poem as a psychological curiosity. Times are changed for the better. John Clare has all encouragement to write as often and as much as he chooses.

He sang of God, the mighty source
Of all things, the stupendous force,
On which all strength depends;

From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes
All period, power, and enterprise,

Commences, reigns, and ends.

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