I HAVE just returned from visiting your friend Clare at Helpstone, and one of the pleasantest days I ever spent, was passed in wandering with him among the scenes which are the subject of his poems. A flatter country than the immediate neighbourhood can scarcely be imagined, but the grounds rise in the distance clothed with woods, and their gently swelling summits are crowned with village churches; nor can it be called an uninteresting country, even without the poetic spirit which now breathes about the names of many of its most prominent objects, for the ground bears all the traces of having been the residence of some famous people in early days. "The deep sunk moat, the stony mound," are visible in places where modern taste would shrink at erecting a temporary cottage, much less a castellated mansion; fragments of Roman brick are readily found on ridges which still hint the unrecorded history of a far distant period, and the Saxon rampart and the Roman camp are in some places seen mingled togegether in one common ruin. On the line of a Roman road, which passes within a few hundred yards of the village of Helpstone, I met Clare, about a mile from home. He was going to receive his quarter's salary from the Steward of the Marquis of Exeter. His wife Patty, and her sister were with him, and it was the intention of the party, I learned, to proceed to their father's house at Casterton, there to meet such of the family as were out in service, on their annual re-assembling together at Michaelmas. I was very unwilling to disturb this arrangement, but Clare insisted on remaining with me, and the two chearful girls left their companion with a "good bye, John!" which made the plains echo again, and woke in my old-bachelor heart the reflection" John Clare, thou art a very happy fellow."

As we were within a hundred yards of Lolham Brigs, we first turned our

Wansford, Oct. 12, 1821. steps there. "Tradition gives these brigs renown," but their antiquity is visible only to the poet's eye-the date of the present structure is 1641; still, the Roman road crossed over on the same foundation, and that is enough; or if more certain evidence of Roman origin were wanted, a fragment of a most ancient wall runs into the road diagonally at this place, leaving the mind in that degree of obscurity, with respect to its age or use, which Burke esteems to be essentially connected with the sublime. Of the Poem, Clare gave me the following account. He was walking in this direction on the last day of March, 1821, when he saw an old acquaintance fishing on the lee side of the bridge. He went to the nearest place for a bottle of ale, and they then sat beneath the screen which the parapet afforded, while a hasty storm passed over, refreshing themselves with the liquor, and moralizing somewhat in the strain of the poem. I question whether Wordsworth's pedlar could have spoken more to the purpose. But all these excitations would, I confess, have spent their artillery in vain against the woolpack of my imagination; and after well considering the scene, I could not help looking at my companion with surprise to me, the triumph of true genius seemed never more conspicuous, than in the construction of so interesting a poem out of such common-place materials. With your

own eyes you see nothing but a dull line of ponds, or rather one continued marsh, over which a succession of arches carries the narrow highway: look again, with the poem in your mind, and the wand of a necromancer seems to have been employed in conjuring up a host of beautiful accompaniments, making the whole waste populous with life, and shedding all around the rich lustre of a grand and appropriate sentiment. Imagination has, in my opinion, done wonders here, and especially in the concluding verse, which contains as lovely a groupe as

which he addressed to this Bush, that chimes on my ear whenever its name is mentioned, and seems to attach me to it as to a rational object, though I know nothing further of its history than is contained in the following lines.

What truth the story of the swain allows,

days knew,

Of "Langley Court" being kept beneath thy boughs

I cannot tell thus much I know is true, That thou art reverenc'd: even the rude clan Of lawless gipsies, driven from stage to

The discretion which makes Clare hesitate to receive as canonical all the accounts he has heard of the former honours of Langley Bush, is in singular contrast with the enthusiasm of his poetical faith. As a man, he cannot bear to be imposed upon,— his good sense revolts at the least attempt to abuse it;-but as a poet, he surrenders his imagination with most happy ease to the illusions which crowd upon it from stories of fairies and ghosts. The effect of this distinction is soon felt in a conversation with him. From not considering it, many persons express their surprise that Clare should be so weak on some topics and so wise on others. But a willing indulgence of what they deem weakness is the evidence of a strong mind. He feels safe there, and luxuriates in the abandonment of his sober sense for a time, to be the sport of all the tricks and fantasies that have been attributed to preternatural agency. Let them address him on other subjects, and unless they entrench themselves in forms of language to which he is unaccustomed, or take no pains to understand him according to the scuse rather

no reason to undervalue his judgment. His language, it is true, is provincial, and his choice of words in ordinary conversation is indifferent, because Clare is an unpretending man, and he speaks in the idiom of his neighbours, who would ridicule and despise him for using more or better terms than they are familiar with. But the philosophic mind will strive to read his thoughts, rather than catch at the manner of their utterance; and will delight to trace the native nobleness, strength, and beauty of his conceptions, under the tattered garb of what may, perhaps, be deemed uncouth and scanty expres sions. But why do I plead for his language? We have nothing in our poetry more energetic or appropriate than the affecting little poem of

sume;

Wert thou but a rose in thy garden, sweet fairy,

And I a bold bee for to rifle its bloom,

A whole summer's day would I kiss thee, my Mary!

I long to be with thee, but cannot tell how; Wert thou but the elder that grows by thy dairy, And I the blest woodbine to twine on the bough,

I'd embrace thee and cling to thee ever, my Mary! (V. i. p. 195.)

One more quotation, and I return to my companion. Is it possible, that any mode of education, or any rank in life, could have taught Clare to express, in better language than he has chosen, the lovely images under which he commemorates

I have dwelt more at length than may be necessary in a letter to you, on the subject of Clare's power of language, but some of his friends obto his choice of words: one wishes ject, in my opinion most unreasonably, that he would thresh and not thump the corn, another does not like his eliding the first syllable of some of his words, as "'proaching, &c." Every one seems to think that the words or phrases which are in common use in his native place, or where he happened to pass the greater part of his life, ought to be reckoned the true and entire world of words" for all Englishmen; and so each disallows by turns almost every expression which has not received the sanction of the court. At this rate, Spenser and Shakspeare ought to be proscribed, and Clare may be well content to But in reality,

endure their fate. Clare is highly commendable for not affecting a language, and it is a proof of the originality of his genius. Style at second-hand is unfelt, unnatural, and common-place, a parrot-like repetition of words, whose individual weight is never esteemed,—a clusterlanguage framed and cast into set forms, in the most approved models, and adapted for all occasions,— an expedient, in fact, to give an appearance of thinking, without "the insupportable fatigue of thought." It suits the age, for we abound with machinery, invented to supersede man's labour; and it is in repute, for it" is adapted to the meanest capacities;" but there neginal thinker in prose, who did not ver was a great poet, or grand oricompose his phraseology for himself; words must be placed in order with great care, and put into combinations which have been unknown before, if the things which he is solicitous to express, have not been discovered and expressed before. In poetry, especially, you may estimate the originality of the thoughts is a canon to which our approved by that of the language; but this critics will not subscribe: they allow of no phrase which has not received the sanction of authority, no expression for which, in the