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 From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes Commences, reigns, and ends. The world, the clustering spheres he made, The glorious light, the soothing shade, Dale, champaign, grove, and hill; The multitudinous abyss, Where Secresy remains in bliss, And Wisdom hides her skill. [Tell Mr. Redding gives several examples of these poems. They are distinguished from those of his earlier days by several differences, especially by the change from the rich level meadows of Northamptonshire to the hill and dale of Epping Forest. Here is one which is said to be reminiscent of his Patty : Maid of Walkherd meet again By the wilding in the glen ; Yet never far from love and thee. The next specimen has much of his fine observation of natural objects, and his old love of birds breaks through everything : The forest meets the blessings of the spring, The chestnut throws her sticky buds away, And shows her pleasant leaves and snow-white flowers. I've often tried, when tending sheep or cow, The blackbird never cared, but sang again; The nightingale's pure song I could not try, And when the thrush would mock her song, she paused, She sang when all were done, and beat them all. There is some intention, I believe, of publishing a volume of these poems. It will be interesting on many accounts, and for the sake of the poet and of his family, I heartily wish it every success. We cannot, I repeat, do too much for John Clare; he has a claim to it as a man of genius suffering under the severest visitation of Providence. But let us beware of indulging ourselves by encouraging the class of pseudo-peasant poets who spring up on every side, and are amongst the most pitiable objects in creation. One knows them by sight upon the pathway, from their appearance of vagrant misery--an appearance arising from the sense of injustice and of oppression under which they suffer, the powerless feeling that they have claims which the whole world refuses to acknowledge, a perpetual and growing sense of injury. It is a worse insanity than John Clare's, and one for which there is no asylum. Victims to their own day-dreams are they! They have heard of Burns and of Chatterton; they have a certain knack of rhyming, although even that is by no VOL. I. M means necessary to such a delusion; they find an audience whom their intense faith in their own power conspires to delude; and their quiet, their content, their every prospect is ruined for ever. It is this honest and unconquerable persuasion of their own genius that makes it impossible to reason with or convince them. Their faith in their own powerstheir racking sense of the injustice of all about them, makes one's heart ache. It is impossible for the sternest or the sturdiest teller of painful truths to disenchant them, and the consequence is as obvious as it is miserable. For that shadow every substance is foregone. They believe poetry to be their work and they will do no other. Then comes utter poverty. They haunt the ale-house, they drink, they sicken, they starve. I have known many such. Happily there is one cure, not for individual cases, but for the entire class; a slow but a sure remedy. Let the sunlight in, and the night-phantoms vanish. Education, wide and general, not mere learning to read, but making discreet and wise use of the power, and the nuisance will be abated at once and for ever. Let our peasants become as intelligent as our artisans, and we shall have no more prodigies, no more martyrs. XI. AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. A COUNTRY WEDDING-MY FIRST VISIT TO LONDON. SAMUEL JOHNSON. MOST undoubtedly I was a spoilt child. When I recollect certain passages of my thrice happy early life, I cannot have the slightest doubt about the matter, although it contradicts all foregone conclusions, all nursery and school-room morality, to say so. But facts are stubborn things. Spoilt I was. Everybody spoilt me, most of all the person whose power in that way was greatest, the dear papa himself. Not content with spoiling me in-doors, he spoilt me out. How well I remember his carrying me round the orchard on his shoulder, holding fast my little three-year-old feet, whilst the little hands hung on to his pig-tail, which I called my bridle (those were days of pig-tails), hung so fast, and tugged so heartily, that sometimes the ribbon would come off between my fingers, and send his hair floating, and the powder flying down his back. That climax of mischief was the crowning joy of all. I can hear our shouts of laughter now. Nor were these my only rides. This dear papa of |