his brains, but still to preserve his "natural art," describing him self as in poesy an artless creature, That have no learning but the book of nature, But homespun medley of my motley brains."" His works were first collected and published in 1630, in one volume, folio, containing about six hundred pages. He lived twenty-four years after this period, and wrote and published a great deal more, the collection of which Mr. Southey recommends. His manner of vending his compositions was to print them at his own cost, and then make presents of them to persons, from whom he might expect to receive, in return, another present, equal in value, at least, to that of his book. He was, in fact, a kind of poetical mendicant, and took any thing he could get; sometimes it was more than he could reasonably have looked for, sometimes less, and he complains that he had had often nothing beyond "nodds and looks for his pains." He had always, on great occasions, elegies, and epitaphs ready made, which he hawked about, and, occasionally, he undertook, for a wager, expeditions into the country, and even abroad, upon this principle, he, as it were, paying a premium, for which he was to receive so much more upon his return--a gambling kind of insurance. Some of these expeditions were attended with difficulty and danger, and he found his account in also making them the subjects of poetical description. Another of the uneducated poets was Stephen Duck, who was born at Great Charlton, a little village in Wiltshire, in the beginning of the last century, of parents in the lowest rank of life. His schoolmaster having complained that the boy took in his learning too fast, "even faster than it could be bestowed upon him," his mother thought that she was providing best for him by putting him at once to the plough, "lest he should become too fine a gentleman for the family that produced him. 'He was a boy,' says Mr. Southey, paying an involuntary compliment to those ancient institutions which he has so often, on other occasions, most bitterly abused, who, in old times, would have been noticed by the monks of the nearest monastery, would then have made his way to Oxford, or, perhaps, to Paris, as a begging scholar, have risen to be a bishop or mitred abbot, have done honour to his station, and have left behind him good works, and a good name.' Strange to say, all his early tastes were for arithmetic and mensuration. Accident put in his way a small but select library, in which he found most of our poets, and then it was that that" cast in his mind appeared," towards the muses, which Spence had noted in him from his infancy. Though much engaged as a labourer in the hardest employment of rustic life, and married (all from love) to a woman that did not much encourage the attention which he paid to books, she considering it, doubtless, as so much valuable time “Let those who feast at ease on dainty fare And what we act awake she acts in dreams. "But soon we rise the bearded crop again, Thus, as the year's revolving course goes round, Like Sisyphus, our work is never done: Attempts in Verse, pp. 103-105. This poem attracted the notice of Queen Caroline, who was so much pleased with it, that the author was invited to Windsor, and comfortably provided for, first by a pension of thirty pounds a year, and other appointments, and next, by being settled in the church. Every body knows that the attention paid to Duck by the queen drew forth from Swift some very ill-natured lines. After having been taken from his barn, Duck lived thirty years in apparent ease and happiness; unfortunately he became insane, and threw himself into the water, near Reading, in 1756, and was drowned. Mr. Southey adds notices of James Woodhouse and John Bennett, two poetical village shoemakers; of the poetical milk woman, Ann Yearsley, and of the pipe-maker, John Frederick Bryant, whose works, however, scarcely entitle them to the attention which they have received at his hands. He has promised also to shew his respect, on some future occasion, to the memory of Robert Bloomfield, whose talents,' he very justly says, 'were of no common standard, and whose character was, in all respects, exemplary.' With equal justice, he observes, 'It is little to the credit of the age, that the latter days of a man whose name was at one time so deservedly popular, should have been past in poverty, and perhaps shortened by distress, that distress having been brought on by no misconduct of his own.' We have no reason for supposing, that any one of the four other collections included in our list, has proceeded from the pen of an uneducated poet. Indeed, we should rather suppose the contrary, for they all bear the marks of well-cultivated minds, and, with one exception, of minds always attuned to religious and very amiable feelings. The united efforts of a brother and sister harmonize so perfectly in both these respects, that it would be difficult to detect any difference of sentiment between them. And although we cannot find, in their little volume, any thing sufficiently finished to bear the more scrutinizing gaze to which it would be exposed, if it were transferred to the pages of this journal, yet we must say, that such efforts are laudable in every way, and entitled to the utmost measure of indulgence. It is our fate never to meet with any of the works of the author of Corn-law Rhymes,' until after they have reached the honours of a third edition. Our office as critics, with respect to his labours, may therefore be considered as merely honorary, since the patronage which they must have received, may be supposed to have already placed them beyond the reach either of our censure or applause. But is there not a paltry trick lurking in the title pages of this writer's productions? Does he imagine that a book will sell better, if even the first impression of it be ushered into the world as one already well known as one that had already gone twice through the press? Or if these third editions be genuine, might one be at liberty to ask how many numbers of the preceding editions, and in what part of the world, have been sold? We last month noticed, in terms of moderate praise, but though moderate, just, as far as it went, a poem, entitled 'Love,' by this author; and we own that, tedious as that composition was, it appears, in our opinion, to be much superior in all the requisites of good poetry, and what is of greater consequence, of good feeling, to the rhymes now before us, the main object of which seems to be, to excite the poor against the rich, and to provoke, not only a servile war, but a war of the most atrocious cruelty, attended by every species of outrage, in language and in act, by which the horrors of such a strife could possibly be aggravated. One specimen will shew the spirit in which these rhymes are written: 'What is bad government, thou slave, What is bad government, thou knave, Corn-law Rhymes, p. 31. It was by putting propositions, which, in fair dealing, require a good deal of cautious explanation, in this dishonest and abstract form, that the mind of the multitude became maddened in the early stages of the French revolution. What effect such verses may have in the manufacturing towns, where we perceive, from another copy of them that has been sent to us, they are distributed upon the cheapest terms, we have no means of judging. Of the tendency of such productions, however, we can entertain no doubt. The author of them cannot be more zealous for the rights of the people of England than we are. Does he wish corn to be cheap, labour to be adequately rewarded, civil franchises to be extended, the abuses of bad government to be eradicated? So do we. we hope never to see the day, when the people shall listen to those demagogues, who teach them to wade their desperate way to all these valuable objects, through deluges of blood, and with language in their mouths, which must altogether unfit them for the exercise of any rational functions. But The author of the poem entitled 'Omnipotence,' has also, we fear, been initiated in the little trick of introducing he first impression of his work in the shape of a second edition. This unworthy practice, if he have been really guilty of it, would be strangely at variance with the moral tone which it is the great object of his pages to sustain. We regret to say, that in a poeti e t d cal point of view, they are beneath criticism. An aspirant who, with all his experience as a contributor to the periodicals, can yet find no better rhyme for wish than bliss, for death than health, for turn than learn, for forget than step, for air than spear, for worth t than earth, for rock than crop, for rehearse than curse, for reward than appeared, for within than sing, and for the common word scene, no rhyme at all (vide p. 128), can hardly be yet considered as sufficiently fledged, to be admitted into the society even of the minor poets. He seems to be ignorant of the number of syllables necessary to constitute the measure which he has adopted, and with respect to melody, he has committed so many errors, that he must be altogether unacquainted with the effect which it produces in poetical composition. With all these sins upon his head, Mr. Jarman has attempted a mighty theme, which, at least, indicates ambition; but before he flies so high, he would do well to creep through the rudiments of the English grammar. Mr. Fletcher's Hymns for Children' do not come strictly under the head of minor poetry; but they are not therefore the less valuable, considering the very useful purpose for which they are destined. The author desires to attain no more than such combinations of phraseology, as are best calculated to impress devotional thoughts upon the infant memory. This little book is extremely well adapted to attain his object. The language is simple, without being too childish; the ideas are such as the young mind may easily comprehend, without being involved in any of the mysteries of religion; and the subject chosen for each hymn, is generally connected with one or other of the duties which fall within the daily practical observances of children, who have the happiness to be properly brought up. ART. V.-The Life of Archbishop Cranmer. By the Rev. Henry John "CRANMER'S martyrdom is his monument, and his name will "damned to everlasting fame." The line is, in fact, much more forcibly applicable to Cranmer than to Wolsey, for with all the errors of his life, and they were neither few nor unimportant, it cannot but be acknowledged |