coloured ribands on their hats, and steeple or sugar-loaf | formed caps, decked with coloured paper, &c.) go round among the neighbouring farmers to taste their horkey beer, and solicit largess. The money so collected is usually spent at night in the alehouse, where tobacco and ale are consumed by the men, and a tea table set out for their wives and sweethearts. In Kent, at the end of the harvest, a figure is composed of some of the best corn the field produces, and called an ivy-girl. This is afterwards curiously dressed by the women, and adorned with paper trimmings cut to resemble a cap, ruffles, handkerchief, &c. of the finest lace. It is brought home upon the wagon containing the last load of corn, and the reapers suppose that it entitles them to a supper at the expense of their employers. In Gloucestershire and Suffolk, when the last load enters the farm-yard, he who has the loudest and the clearest voice, mounts upon a neighbouring shed and shouts : "We have ploughed, we have sowed, A correspondent in Hone's Every Day Book gives the following picturesque description of the Hock-cart and its accessories at Hawkesbury, on the top of Cotswold. "As we approached the isolated hamlet, we were 'aware' of a may-pole that unsophisticated trophy of innocence, gaiety, and plenty; and as we drew near, saw that it was decorated with flowers and ribands fluttering in the evening breeze. Under it stood a wagon with its full complement of men, women, children, flowers, and corn, and a handsome team of horses tranquilly enjoying their share of the finery and revelry of the scene; for scarlet bows and sunflowers had been lavished on their winkers with no niggard hand. On the first horse sat a damsel, no doubt intending to represent Ceres; she had on, of course, a white dress and straw-bonnet for could Ceres or any other goddess appear in a rural English festival in any other costume? A broad yellow sash encompassed a waist that evinced a glorious and enormous contempt for classical proportion and modern folly in its elaborate dimensions.” Dr. E. D. Clarke relates that in Cambridgeshire, at the Hawkie, as it is called, "a clown dressed in woman's clothes, having his face painted, his head decorated with ears of corn, and bearing about him other symbols of Ceres, is called the Harvest Queen, and carried in a wagon, with great pomp and loud shouts, through the streets, the horses being covered with white sheets." Herrick, as we have seen, in the verses before cited, informs us that the lastnamed practice was prevalent in his time. RAMBLING RHYMES.1 THE author of the volume of poetry bearing the above title, which now lies before us, is one of a class of men whose contributions to our poetical literature we receive, for the most part, with very peculiar feelings-with an interest strongly shaded by anxiety and misgiving. He is a labouring man,-a journeyman printer, we believe, in Edinburgh. In reviewing the works of men belonging to this class, the prevailing inclination with every critic of generous feeling is to praise, to overlook or dwell gently upon imperfections, which in no case are more pardonable, and to award with overflowing liberality commendation upon beauties and excellences, which, when they do appear, are no where more undoubtedly indicative of the existence of real native genius. The only counteracting feeling to this generous inclination is the fear lest injudicious praise, or the withholding of needful censure, should help to divert the energies of the poetical aspirant from pursuits more conducive to his real welfare, to one in which he may have no ground for hope that he shall attain that high degree of excellence, which alone can compensate for the sacrifice of other and more practicable means of worldly advancement which he must make in entering upon it; or should foster sensibilities which, as unsuited for a social condition from which he has no means of emerg ing, must be a fruitful source of much discontent and unhappiness. To men in a humble station in life, who belong to what we commonly call the labouring classes, and whose material enjoyments are therefore restricted to the bare necessaries of life, whose supply of these even is painfully irregular aud uncertain, and the subject of many a feeling of distressful anxiety, of which, at least in relation to such matters, those in more favoured circumstances have no experience, the poetical temperament is either a very great blessing, a ray of heavenly light, gilding the homely furniture of their humble dwellings, and lighting up the gloom which surrounds them-a gift of ownership in the world of beauty and joy, whose lords are the nobility of Nature's creation,—or it is a very serious misfortune, causing an unfitness for their proper business in life, and creating feelings and tastes out of harmony with their actual condition; it is the one or other of these, according to the kind of it which they possess, and to the degree in which it is subordinated to the restraints of reason and judgment. It is no easy matter to be a poet in the present day. The standard of poetical excellence is now placed so high-the faculty of writing very fair verses, chargeable with no striking defects of thought or expression, has become so common, that it is difficult to gain any share of public attention for compositions which in other times would have established an undoubted claim to a very respectable place in the roll of poets. Upon none does this depreciation in the value of secondary poetry press more heavily than upon the verse-stricken sons of toil. They have peculiar difficulties to contend with. Their education has necessarily been imperfect; their command of language is apt on that account to be insufficient to give adequate expression to the thoughts that struggle for utterance within them; their taste can seldom have been chastened and corrected by the habitual contemplation of the best models of ancient and modern times; and they have not the advantage of having their minds filled with those stores of classical allusion, which in many cases go far to conceal the absence of real poetical inspiration. Add to this the consideration that, in all ranks of society, among the educated as well as the uneducated, poetical feeling is far more common than poetical genius; that a keen susceptibility to those impressions of the objects by which we are surrounded, which constitute the materials of which the poet builds, is often possessed to a considerable extent, with a very slender share of ability to make any effective use of them,-with little of that creating and combining power by which the mind of the poet throws back all the impressions it receives in ever new and varied forms of beauty and sublimity,—and we shall not wonder that we so seldom receive from among the uneducated or imperfectly educated aspirants for poctical fame anything which we should feel earnestly desirous of preserving for its own sake. It is not that poetical genius is more rarely to be found among them, or that the world is less willing to render it due homage when it does appear; but that that inferior gift, which approaches but does not reach to the elevation of genius, must in their case go forth unsupported by the artificial aids, and unclothed with the factitious ornaments, which enable the more favoured mediocrity of other classes to pass muster for a degree of excellence to which it has intrinsically no better claim. The highest praise which can often be bestowed in such cases, is that it is very sweet-very pretty-really wonderful, consideringPoor meed of praise for the young enthusiast, whose dreams by night and day, have been of bursting out into sudden blaze! Sad withering of all the fair blossoms which promised to his ardent hopes so luxuriant a harvest, and which he watched over and tended so fondly to the neglect of more worldly-profitable cares! To the rich or easily circumstanced poet, an unfavourable verdict from the critical tribunal is but a passing disappointment-the shock of a shower-bath-rude and unpleasant enough in its first encounter, but soon over, and leaving no injurious effects behind it. To his less favourably circumstanced brother it is a sentence of death-he has cast his all upon the die which has turned up against him; and desolate indeed is the feelingsad and unavailing the regrets, with which he is thrown back upon the complaint "Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, have done anything else whatever? genius, by men in humble station, has been suggested by anything either in his personal history or in the character of his poetry. Of the former we know nothing, but we should infer from the cheerful tone of his writings that his lot has been one of fair average happiness. He writes like a contented man,-like one whose recollections of the scenes of his childhood and youth are associated with no painful remembrances, and who now, in the evening of his days, (for he has a son who is also a poet, and he cannot therefore be a very young man,) looks alike upon the past and the present with "the quiet of a loving eye." We have no indications of remorse for past errors, or regret for disappointments. Every line bespeaks a healthy, well-balanced mind, understanding clearly its own position, and satisfied with it, and not likely to have suffered itself to be led astray by vivacity of temperament into any very devious paths. We should be much surprised, indeed, if, were we to make inquiry, we should not learn that Mr. Smart is a man of regular and domestic habits, of a gentle and kindly disposition, and of strong Scottish good sense. The circumstances of the poor man's lot are seldom favourable to the healthy development of poetical feeling. of his poems being written in the Scottish dialect, will, But his poetical merits are of no mean order. Most The world, as we have already remarked, with all its of course, be better appreciated by his countrymen than sordid cares and anxieties, presses daily and hourly by Englishmen, although in none of them is the upon him with a closeness of immediate and engrossing Scotticism so broad as to be either unpleasant or uninterest, of which those in more favourable circumstances telligible to an English ear. They are throughout can have little conception. The questions "what shall distinguished by remarkably good taste, pervaded by a I eat? what shall I drink? and wherewithal shall gentle and kindly spirit, and a genial sympathy with I be clothed?" are to him of almost daily recurrence, nature and natural feelings. Nothing more clearly as matters of serious doubt and anxiety, leaving his evidences to us the genuineness of Mr. Smart's poetic mind little leisure or inclination for expatiating in the talent, than the fact that he has not felt it necessary to world of imagination. The things, too, with which he look for his subjects beyond the range of familiar is placed in close connexion are in themselves ill fitted objects to be met with every day in that walk of life to suggest the thoughts and feelings which are most where his lot has been cast; he has not been driven by fitly shaped into poetic forms. Often living in a narrow and dirty street in a dark and unhealthy dwelling acquired by prescription a poetic character, claim it as poverty of internal resources to regions which, having surrounded by rude and noisy, or dissipated and squalid of right, for whatever makes them or what pertains to neighbours-with few of the comforts and none of the them its theme, there to pick up the cast-off finery of luxuries of life about him-there is little external to former poets, wherewith to hide the defects of his own him, from which the poet of humble life can select fit halting muse. Knowing that a true poet will find the subjects for his muse. In such circumstances we cannot soul of poetry wherever the face of nature is seen, and wonder that we should find the poetical temperament the voice of nature heard, he has felt his poetic vocamost frequently presenting its darker aspect, giving a tion to be where it has pleased God to cast his worldly keen perception of beauties which can never be realized, lot. But he has himself described the character of his and a relish for enjoyments which can never be attained, poetry better than we can pretend to do, with a modest and rendering to its possessor the inevitable circum-confidence, and a just appreciation of his own true place stances of his condition an object of disgust and discontent. Poetical genius can, indeed, create beauty for itself amid the most unseemly and unlovely scenescan hold converse with nature through every chink in the walls by which it is hemmed in-can attract towards itself the genuine feelings of human hearts, and clothe them in fitting forms of expression, even in the vilest haunts of misery and vice-will seek out everywhere in human faces for the image of God-if repelled from men and women, will find it in innocent children, in fair and yet uncontaminated young maidens, nay, though obscured and defaced, in some corner of many a heart deep sunk in debasement and sin. It can find a soul of good in all things evil, and throw its own light upon, and give its own colour to, the worst forms of evil by which it may be surrounded. It is " its own place, and of itself," we might almost say, "can make a heaven of hell." But such genius is a rare endowment, and, in the absence of it, poetical feeling can merely discern, and that with extraordinary keenness of perception, the deformities by which it may be surrounded-their want of harmony with the ideal of beauty with which itself is filled. Are we wrong in saying that such a gift, without the higher gift of genius, is no enviable possession for a poor man? It would be doing great injustice to the author of the poems now before us, were it to be supposed that the unfavourable picture which we have drawn of the effects of the possession of poetical sensibilitics without poetical as a poet, which are very pleasing. "The author," he says, in his preface, "can have no pretensions to the loftier attributes of song; and many of his pieces are of that class that does not admit of much poetical embellishment. But the harp of Apollo has many strings, and the field of poetry is as varied and boundless as universal nature. He must beg, therefore, to dissent from the opinion of those who cannot tolerate, or recognise as poetry, any strains but such as are of the highest order. Surely that wide world of humanity, the hopes and fears, the thoughts and affections, of the industrious poor, who form the great bulk of the human family, may be sung in unpretending strains of natural simplicity, that may find an echo in many a feeling breast; and though neither soaring into sublimity nor sinking into dulness, may still, in their true exposition of life and character, be impregnated with the best elements of song-the poetry of the human heart." We must here mention that a very favourable judgment of Mr. Smart's poetry has been pronounced by one of the highest, perhaps the very highest, critical authority now living, Lord Jeffrey. In a letter written to the author in acknowledgment of a copy of a former edition of this work, his lordship thus expresses himself:-"I had scarcely read any of your little book when I acknowledged the receipt of it. I have now, however, gone through every word of it, and find I have more to thank you for than I was then aware of. I do not allude so much to the very flattering sonnet you have been pleased to inscribe with my name, as to the many passages of great poetical beauty, and to the still greater number expressive of (and inspired by) those gentle affections and just and elevated sentiments which it is so delightful to find in the works of persons of the middling class, on whose time the calls of a necessary and often laborious industry must press so heavily. I cannot tell you the pride and the pleasure I have in such indications, not of cultivated intellect only, but of moral delicacy and elegant taste in the tradesmen and artizans of our country; and you will readily understand, therefore, both why I feel obliged to you for this new and remarkable proof of them, and disposed to do anything in my power to gratify and serve those in whom you take an interest." With such an attestation to his merits (as creditable to the heart and feelings of the eminent man from whom it emanates, as it is flattering to the humble poet to whom it is addressed,) Mr. Smart may well feel independent of inferior criticism. The poems in this volume are classed under the following general heads: Hobby-horses, Opinions, Recollections of Montrose (the author's native town), Rhymes and Songs for the Nursery and Miscellaneous pieces. Of these, decidedly the best in our opinion, are the Rhymes and Songs for the Nursery-a rather inapplicable title by the way; for the Rhymes and Songs, though suggested by the Nursery and circumstances connected with it, are anything but studiously levelled to the capacities of children. They paint, with a very happy vein of mingled humour and pathos, scenes such as the memory of all of us will readily recall, but in a style quite as well fitted to convey pleasure and instruction to parents as to children. But we shall let our readers judge of them for themselves by presenting them with two specimens. The first we have been so pleased with that we shall try whether our publisher cannot find an artist to place the sweet little errandrunner in proper person before us. THE LITTLE ERRAND RUNNER.1 I NEVER saw a bairnie yet, An errand rin mair fleet than Mary, For what ye gi'e she'll never tease ye; And never on their errands tarry, The next is in a more solemn strain, but very beautiful. A BROTHER'S DEATH. I had a brother dear who died And still the sad remembrance comes, (1) See Illustration, p. 225. It comes with all the tenderness When hand in hand we roved along, To cull gay summer flowers; Or wandered through the old church-yard, And played among the lowly graves I see him yet, with locks of gold, With pale, pale brow, and ruddy cheeks- And when he pined in sore disease, I could have laid me down and died And well do I remember still, In childish fancy I have traced I knew his spirit was in heaven, I thought his gentle eye looked down, In solitude, at evening hour, To muse among the dear old scenes And many an old-frequented spot, A bank there was with wild flowers gay, A small bird's nest he found; My well-worn foot-prints on the grass And I have gazed upon his grave, And I have lingered on the spot, Cold dust alone remained of all Our former joy and pride, And they who loved and mourned for him, One or two of the poems in this volume are by Mr. Smart's son, a young man of high poetical promise. One of these, an ode, "To the Primrose," our readers have already seen in this magazine,2 and, we are sure, admired, as indicating powers both of thought and expression of a very high order. THE USE AND VALUE OF SMALL BIRDS IN A NEWLY CLEARED COUNTRY. THERE was a large portico in front of the house, with a few steps leading up to it, and floored like a room; it was open at the sides, and had seats all round. Above, was either a slight wooden roof, painted like an awning, or a covering of lattice-work, over which a transplanted wild vine spread its luxuriant leaves and numerous elusters. These, though small, and rather too acid till sweetened by the frost, had a beautiful appearance. What gave an air of liberty and safety to these rustic (1) Furze, in England. (2) See No. 1, p. 15. porticos, which always produced in my mind a sensation of pleasure that I know not how to define, was the number of little birds domesticated there. For their accommodation there was a small shelf built round, where they nestled, sacred from the touch of slaves and children, who were taught to regard them as the good genii of the place, not to be disturbed with impunity. You often see on such a one, at once, thirty or forty of these odd little domiciles, with the inhabitants busily going out and in. Besides all these salutary provisions for the domestic comfort of the birds, there was, in clearing the way for their first establishment, a tree always left in the middle of the back yard, for their sole emolument, this tree being purposely pollarded at Midsummer, when all the branches were full of sap. Wherever there had been a branch, the decay of the inside produced a hole; and every hole the habitation of a bird. These were of various kinds, some of which had a pleasing note, but, on the whole, these songsters are far inferior to ours.' THE SHEPHERDS OF LES BAS LANDES. In the south-western portion of France, bounded on the west by the Atlantic, and on the south by the lower Pyrenees, is the barren and sterile tract, that from the number of its heaths has conferred the title of Les Landes on the department to which it belongs. Its superficial extent amounts to 3,600 square miles, but its population is so thinly scattered over the surface as not to exceed 240,000. I do not recollect sparrows there, except the wood sparrow. These little birds were of various kinds peculiar to the country; but the one most frequent and familiar was a pretty little creature of a bright cinnamon colour, called a wren, though little resembling the one to which we give that name, for it is more sprightly and flies higher. Of these, and other small birds, hundreds gave and received protection around this hospitable dwelling. The protection they received consisted merely in the privilege of being let alone. That which they bestowed was of more importance than any inhabitant of Britain can imagine. In these new countries, where man has scarce asserted his dominion, life swarms abundant on every side; the insect population is numerous beyond belief, and the birds that feed on them are in proportion to their abundance. In process of time, when their sheltering woods are cleared, all these recede before their master, but not before his empire is fully established. These minute aerial foes are more harassing than the terrible inhabitants of the forest, and more difficult to expel. It is only by proBeing generally a level district, covered with heath, tecting, and in some sort domesticating, these little winged allies, who attack them in their own element, and intermixed with swamps, it may be naturally dethat the conqueror of the lion and tamner of the elephant scribed as the most desolate and dreary portion of La can hope to sleep in peace, or eat his meals unpolluted. | Belle France. A few spots, like the oases of Africa, While breakfasting or drinking tea in the airy portico, are to be found at long intervals of space, and near to which was often the scene of these meals, birds were these only can a little rye be grown, the rest exhibiting constantly gliding over the table with a butterfly, grasshopper, or cicada in their bills, to feed their young, The climate is very inimical to health; the heat in a dreary waste, dotted with heath, firs, or cork trees. who were chirping above. These familiar inmates brushed by without ceremony, while the chimney swal- summer being scorching, and in winter the marshes low, the martin, and other hirundines in countless being enveloped in dense fogs. From the level nature numbers darted past in pursuit of this aerial popula- of the land, and from a considerable portion of it being tion, while the fields resounded with the ceaseless under water, the shepherds have recourse to stilts, as chirping of many gay insects unknown to our more temperate summers. These were now and then mingled represented in our illustration, and the dexterity which with the animated and not unpleasing cry of the tree is manifested in their management, has often elicited frog, a creature of that species, but of a light slender wonder and admiration from the passing traveller, who form, almost transparent, and of a lively green; it is may happen to encounter one of these wanderers of the dry to the touch, and has not the dank moisture of its wild in his progress. It however seldom occurs that aquatic relatives; in short, it is a pretty, lively creature, with a singular and cheerful note. This loud, and any one, save the stilted shepherd of the Landes, breaks upon the appalling solitude of these melancholy regions. not unpleasing insect chorus, with the swarms of gay butterflies in constant motion, enlivened scenes to which Except in the immediate vicinity of the rye-farms, the traveller would encounter but few traces of life or civilithe prevalence of woods, rising shade above shade on every side, would otherwise give a still and solemn sation; no living forms would brighten the gloominess aspect. .. Round the house were different enclosures, of the prospect but the slow movements of the herdswhich were all surrounded by simple deal fences. Now man, and no sounds greet his ear but the subdued lowing let not the genius that presides over pleasure grounds, of the herd. All around is "flat, stale, and " literally nor any of his elegant votaries, scowl with disgust while "unprofitable." The Shepherds of Les Bas Landes are I mention the unseemly ornaments which were exhibited on the stakes to which the deals of these particularly careful of their flocks, whose docility is resame fences were bound. Truly, they consisted of markable. Not less so is the good understanding subthe skeleton heads of horses and cattle in as great sisting between the sheep and the dogs. The celerity numbers as could be procured, stuck upon the afore- with which the shepherds draw their scattered flocks said poles. This was not mere ornament either, but around them is not more astonishing than the process by a most hospitable arrangement for the accommodation of which they effect it is simple and beautiful. If they are the small familiar birds before described. The jaws are fixed on the pole, and the skull uppermost. The wren, at no great distance from him, he gives a peculiar whistle, on seeing a skull thus placed, never fails to enter by the and they leave off feeding, and obey the call; if they are orifice, which is too small to admit the hand of an in- afar off and scattered, he utters a shrill cry, and instantly fant, lines the pericranium with small twigs and horse the flocks are seen leaping over the swamps, and scamhair, and there lays her eggs in full security. It is very pering towards him. When they have mustered around amusing to see the little creature carelessly go out and in at the aperture, though you should be standing immedi- him, the shepherd sets off on his return to the cabin, ately beside it. Not satisfied with providing these or resting place he has secured, and the flock follow singular asylums for their feathered friends, the behind, like so many well-trained hounds. Their fine negroes never fail to make a small round hole in the crown of every old hat they can lay their hands on, and nail it to the end of the kitchen for the same purpose. (1) From Mrs. Grant's Memoirs of an American Lady. morality. The Title and Index to the first Volume may be had, price 1d.; also, the Covers, price 18. 3d. CONTENTS. Page Page looking dogs, a couple of which are generally attached to the slightest dereliction from the strict paths of true to each flock, have nobler duties to perform, than that of chasing the animals together, and biting the legs of stragglers. To their protection is confided the flock from the predatory expeditions of wolves and bears, against whose approach they are continually on the watch, and to whom they at once offer battle. So well aware are the sheep of the fatherly care of these dogs, and that they themselves have nothing to fear from them, that they crowd around them as if they really sought their protection, and dogs and sheep may be seen resting together in perfect harmony. Thus habituated to scenes of such gentleness and magnanimity, the shepherds themselves are brave, generous, and humane, and though, as may be imagined, for the most part plunged in the deepest ignorance, are highly sensitive among themselves The Cinque Ports...... of Lyons............. 225 Rambling Rhymes (with 11lustration by Warren)...... 236 Effect of Small Birds in a newly cleared Country..... 238 The Shepherds of Les Bas Landes (with Illustration) 239 228 London:-Published by T. B. SHARPE, 15, Skinner Street, Snow Hill. Printed by R. CLAY, Bread Street Hill. |