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not speak too much of themselves→→→ and they never please us better than when they prose and prattle like grown children. There ought to be, and there is, much bonhommie in the character of all poets. Mr Bowles has his proper share of it-without it he might be still Rector of Bremhill and Archdeacon of Bath and Wells, but no longer the Reverend William Lisle Bowles. In a former part of the poem, he spoke, as we have seen, of his old tutor, the Reverend Mr Norman, who was, he tells us in a note, the Parson Adams of the county. The note is a rich one -here it is.

"I find, in a letter to my father, dated Bleadon, 1779, this passage, expressing his surprise at some juvenile indifferent verses, which my father, at the time, thought prodigious :

"Master Bowles appears already to have acquired, under his incomparable master, a fund of learning and humour, visible in his representation of Sir Tobit ; and if the blossoms are so fair at his early age, what unparalleled fruit may we not hope for, when he is got on the Top of A prospect grand enough to make so dull a mortal as your humble servant proud!'

Parnassus!

"Master' Bowles laid his hand by accident on this passage, looking over some old letters to his father, while this poem was in the press; and he extracts it, thinking the reader might possibly smile, as he did, when, after forty years communing with the Muse, he concludes this poem on the same scenes, with recollections of that first good old schoolmaster, who in the second-sight of prophecy, among the hills of the lonely village of Bleadon, prophesied for him a prospect of the hill of Parnassus, which undoubtedly meant this Poem on Banwell Hill!!

"One little incident, which has been called up by these recollections, had very nearly destroyed the prophecy; for, coming through Bristol, from Northamptonshire, we changed horses. Having never before seen a place greater than Ayno in Northamptonshire, the moment we got out of the chaise, I took advantage, and instantly wandered away. The carriage was waiting, scouts were sent in every direction; and it was not long before Master Bowles,' the future Bard of Banwell, was found, sitting composedly, on the steps leading to Redcliffe Church!

"These verses on Sir Tobit were most unfortunate for me; for, in consequence, my father, lest my humour' should be

lost, set me, when I came home, to turn Joe Miller's selected Jests' into verse! And this was not the worst; for, whenever company came, my translation of the Jests was brought forth. Whether this gave me a turn to Elegy, I cannot say."

In a subsequent part of the poem,. he speaks of his having been proud of Wintonian scholarship-and here is another note amusingly illustrative of the simple and single-heartedness of the amiable bard.

"To the circumstance which had near

ly proved fatal to the writer's future poem on Banwell Hill, I might add another circumstance which nearly proved fatal to his progress 'in humour,' and 'scholarship,' at Winchester; and this I shall record for the use of parents.

"Every boy in the school had a whip, and pair of boots, which they were particularly fond of displaying-comparing the The cost, workmanship, neatness, &c. Author was sent from Shaftesbury, on a little pony, with a servant, not with a pair of new boots, but ingloriously in a pair of worsted boot-stockings, which, my father observed, would keep my under-stockings from the dirt, as well as the best pair of boots in Shaftesbury! I said nothing, but wofully proceeded thus to equip myself, having a guinea as pocket-money.

"In my equestrian character, with a heavy heart, I set out to cross the downs to Salisbury, under conscious humiliation at my equipment in the odious boot-stockings! In passing over the downs, as I was not seen by any one, I bore up tolerably well, but deigned not a syllable to the servant, who assured me, in vain, that bootstockings, in summer, were just as good as boots. I was, as is expressively called in Wiltshire, stomachy!

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"The moment I dismounted, at the White Hart, I had determined on making my escape, and never return to school or home. I had a guinea in my pocket: I. set out from the inn on my forlorn hope.' I passed by the Cathedral churchyard, looked at the beautiful spire, little thinking what would be my future connexion with that interesting edifice, though, had the bells struck out, I might have thought they said to me-as to another Whitting

ton

Turn again, Whittington!'

"By the farther gate of the Close, just in the corner, was a handsome shoe and boot shop, and the same shop is there at this day, with the same articles. As good luck would have it, a tempting pair of new

boots, which I thought would fit me, hung at the door. I walked backwards and forwards for twenty minutes, first looking at the boots, then feeling my money then looking again at the boots. At last I went boldly into the shop, and said to the shopman, 'What is the price of these boots? The price of these boots, young gentleman, is just twenty shillings!' I had a guinea in my pocket, so that if I bought them, I should have only one shilling, with which to go to school; and that was almost as bad as wearing boot-stockings! I therefore walked out of the shop, and with my first intention, got as far as old Easton's shop, when, though I heard no bells, like Whittington, I thought I would return and look at the boots again. In fact, I had made up my mind. I went into the shop again :- You could not let me have those boots a shilling cheaper?' -No! they are back-strapped !' (pavarтa συνετοίσιν.) Will they fit?' I asked. I sat down to try: they fitted delightfully! I looked at one leg in the new boot, and the other with the boot-stocking on. They fitted as if made for me; and, heavens, what a difference! I put down the guinea; took the shilling; felt a triumph at heart, which, in all my changes in life, I have never felt since; and was just strutting out of the shop, when I spied the inglorious stockings. I took them up with some loftiness of scorn, threw them into the canal, and stood to see them swim gloriously down the canal, with other inglorious substances, till they were completely out of sight; and then returned, with one shilling, and my new boots, to the inn."

It would not do for every man to publish anecdotes like this of his boyish days; but as "the child is father of the man," it is interesting to be made acquainted, in this way, with a poet's father; and Mr Bowles's appears to have been, as might have been conjectured, a nice little fellow -a spirited lad-none of your grave,

we saw a few lines from it quoted by one of the ablest writers in the Quarterly Review, who entertains, however, different sentiments and opinions respecting some of its positions. A perfectly fair and full estimate of the influence of the commercial and manufacturing system on the character of the people of England is yet a desideratum in Moral and Political Philosophy. Mr Bowles, as a poet, cannot, perhaps, be expected to give it; he here takes one side, and let us hope that he may have coloured it too darkly; but, however that may be, he poetizes on a subject of paramount interest to the statesman who loves his country and his kind.

"A village, then, Was not as villages are now. The hind, Who delved, or 'jocund drove his team afield,'

Had then an independency of look, And heart; and, plodding in his lowly path,

Disdain'd a parish dole, content, though

poor.

He was the village monitor: he taught His children to be good-and read their book,

And in the gallery took his Sunday place,— To-morrow, with the bee, to work :— 'So pass'd

His days of cheerful, independent toil! And when the Pastor came that wayat eve,

He had a ready present for the child, Who read his book the best ;—and that poor child

Remember'd it, when treading the same path

In which his father trod, he so grew up Contented, till old Time had blanch'd his locks,

And he was borne-while the bell toll'd -to sleep

In the same churchyard where his father slept !

cent,

As lovely, in her lowly path:-She turn'd The hour-glass, while the humming wheel

went round,

sedate, dull, studious, dress-despi- His daughter walk'd content and innosing, dusty-haired, bubbly-nosed, grimey-faced urchins, at once the pride and opprobrium of his parents -the dux in school, and the booby out of it--who, as he grows up, keeps degenerating and degenerating, till he ends, perhaps, with being buried as Chairman of Quarter-sessions.

But look again to the poem-and to the best passage in it-a passage pregnant with important truths, most eloquently enforced. With pleasure

Or went 'a-Maying,' o'er the fields, in
Leading her little brother, by the hand,
spring,
Along the village-lane, and o'er the stile,
To gather cowslips; and then, home again
To turn her wheel, contented, through the
day.

Or, singing low, bend where her brother
slept,

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Denies he stands aloof, with clownish leer,

The constable, behind, and mark his brow, Beckons the nimble clerk,-the Justice, grave,

Turns from his book a moment, with a look

Of pity, signs the warrant for her pay,
A weekly eighteen pence,-she, unabash'd,
Slides from the room, and not a transient
blush,

Far less the accusing tear, is on her cheek! A different scene comes next :- -That village maid

Approaches timidly, yet beautiful;
A tear is on her lids, when she looks down
Upon her sleeping child. Her heart was

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Over a little smoke the aged Sire Holds his pale hands-and the deserted hearth

Is cheerless as his heart :-But Piety Points to the BIBLE! Shut the book again: The Ranter is the roving Gospel now, And each his own Apostle! Shut the book,

A locust-swarm of tracts darken its light, And choke its utt'rance; while a Babel

rout

Of mock-religionists-turn where we

will

Have drown'd 'THE SMALL STILL VOICE,' till Piety,

Sick of the din, retires to pray alone.

But though abused Religion, and the
dole

Of pauper-pay, and vomitories huge,
Of smoke, are each a STEAM-ENGINE OF
CRIME,

Polluting, far and wide, the wholesome air, And with'ring Life's green verdure underneath,

Full many a poor and lowly flower of

want

Has Education nursed, like a pure rill, Winding through desert glens, and bade it live

To grace the cottage with its mantling

sweets.

There was a village girl-I knew her well, From five years old and upwards—all her

friends

Were dead, and she was to the workhouse left,

And there a witness to such sounds profane

As might turn virtue pale! When Sunday came,

Assembled with the children of the poor, Upon the lawn of my own parsonage, She stood among them: they were taught

to read

In companies, and groups, upon the green, Each with its little book; her lighted eyes Shone beautiful, where'er they turn'd;

her form

Was graceful; but her book her sole delight!

Instructed thus, she went a serving-maid, Where fumed the neighb'ring town—ah! who shall guide

A friendless maid, so beautiful and young, From life's contagions? But she had been

taught

The duties of her humble lot-to pray To God, and that one Heav'nly Father's

eye

Was over rich and poor! On Sunday night She read her Bible, turning still away From those who flock'd, inflaming and

inflam'd,

To nightly meetings; but she never clos'd

U

Her eyes, or raised them to the light of

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This is worthy of Cowper or Wordsworth. It is in their very best spirit-yet it is all over original—and Bowles. Set ever so many men of genius to work on the same subject, and they will say ever so many the same things-but in what various lights will they place them-as they fall in different positions under the sun of truth? It is the glory of much of the best poetry of this age, that, 'full of imagination though it be, it deals nevertheless with man's homeliest interests-because that our best poets" have all one human heart." They do not take wings to themselves to soar away into the far-off skies, forgetful of the agitated bosom of their mother-earth; but high as they float above her, with eagle-eyes they see all that is passing on that moving surface-and never are they happier than when they fold their wings, and drop down beside the cottage-door, and walk, no ways distinguished from its humblest inmate, towards the cottage hearth. Therefore,

"Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,

The poets who on earth have made us fain Of Truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!"

We have seen from his Preface that Mr Bowles is friendly to the interspersion of the comic, provided the due mock-heroic stateliness be kept up in the language, thinking justly that it has often the effect of light and shade. We do not exactly know whether his comic be very good or not, yet we feel it to be amusing, and therefore are inclined to believe that it is meritorious. Here is a speci

men:

"No villager was then a disputant In Calvinistic and contentious creeds;

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Of steam, and rank debauchery, and smoke,

Crawl'd forth upon a Sunday morn—
with looks

Sadd'ning the very sunshine-to instruct
The parish poor in Evangelic lore :-
To teach them to cast off-as filthy rags'—
'Good works!' and listen to such mi-
nisters,

Who all (be sure) are worthy of their
hire,'

Who only preach for good of their poor souls,

That they may turn "from darkness un-
to light,"

And-above all-fly, as the gates of Hell,
Morality! and Baal's steeple house,
Where, without "heart-work," Doctor
Littlegrace

Drones his dull requiem to the snoring
clerk !'

True he who drawls his heartless ho

:

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And 'so conclude!'

But save me from the sight
Of Curate-fop, half jockey and half clerk,
The Tandem-driving Tommy of a town,
Disdaining books, omniscient of a horse,
Impatient till September comes again,
Eloquent only of the pretty girl
With whom he danced last night!' Oh!
such a thing

Is worse than the dull doctor, who per-
forms

Duly his stinted task, and then to sleep,
Till Sunday asks another Homily
Against all innovations of the age-
Mad Missionary zeal, and Bible Clubs,
And Calvinists and Evangelicals!"

The difficulty is, as he says, to back again; and certainly his return steer happily from grave to gay—and from that playful to the following serious passage is felicitous.

"Yes! Evangelicals!

Oh glorious

word!
But who deserves that awful name? Not
he,

Who spits his puny Puritanic spite
On harmless recreation: who reviles
All who, majestic in their distant scorn,

-Bear on, in silence, their calm Christian

course.

He only is the Evangelical,
Who holds in equal scorn dogmas and

dreams,

The Shibboleth of saintly Magazines,
Deck'd with most grim and godly visages;
The cobweb sophistry, or the dark code
Of Commentators, who, with loathsome
track,

Crawl o'er a text, or on the lucid page,
Beaming with heavenly love and God's
own light,

Sit, like a night-mare! Soon a deadly mist Creeps o'er our eyes and heart, till angel forms

Turn into hideous phantoms, mocking us, E'en while we look for comfort at the spring

And well of life, while dismal voices cry, 'Death!-Reprobation!-Woe! eternal

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And Charity,'' these three,' and not ' that one!'

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And Charity,' the greatest of these three!'

Give me an Evangelical like this!"

Mr Bowles has, we understand, by his righteous boldness in the cause of Christianity, enraged against him a set of sanctified wasps and hornets, whose stings, though not deadly, cause swellings and irritation in the face and hands, wherein they have darted their venom. But the Muse herself, whom Religion loves, will drop honey on such slight wounds, and assuage their smart. The cant of Evangelism (what hideous profanation of a holy word!) can be written down in no way more effectually than by genius such as his, kindled at the altar of religion. He does well to be angry-to be scornful-on such

a theme-and here his satire is strong indeed-it smites and withers. Yet through its darkness he "scatters gleams of a redeeming tenderness!"

"But now,

The blackest crimes, in tract-religion's code,

Are moral virtues !-Spare the prodigal,

He may awake when God shall call ;'
but Hell,

Roll thy avenging flames, to swallow up
The Son, who never left his father's home,
Lest he should trust to Morals when he
dies!

Let him not lay the unction to his soul,
That his upbraiding conscience tells no tale
At that dread hour-bid him confess his
sin,

The greatest that, with humble hope, he
looks

Back on a well-spent life! Bid him confess

That he hath broken ALL God's holy laws,
In vain hath he done justly,-loved, in
vain,

Mercy, and hath walk'd humbly with his
God!

These are mere Works!-but Faith is
every thing,

And all in all! The Christian code contains
No, if,' or but!' Let tabernacles ring,
And churches too, with sanctimonious

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