O, had I but the envied power to choose Embowered in woods where many a songster chants." Genuine good taste, as well as moral sensibility, has often led the poet feelingly to denounce that frozen spirit of aristocracy which sweeps away the dwellings of the poor-even whole hamletsshuts up old paths, and destroys ancient rural memorials, only to extend the bounds of monotony, and of "dreary selfish pride:" "Curse on the heartless taste that, proud, exclaims, If this be not fine poetry, it is something better. After lamenting the misery, and describing the horrors of war, Grahame reverts to this heart-felt theme in a beautiful passage: "But let me fly such scenes, which, even when feigned, Distress. To Scotia's peaceful glens I turn, And rest my eyes upon her waving fields, Where now the scythe lays low the mingled flowers. Ah, spare, thou pitying swain! a ridge-breadth round The partridge nest: so shall no new-come lord— Thy cottage raze; but, when the toilsome day Thy weary limbs; there peace and health shall bless # * To me more sweet The greenwood path, half hid 'neath brake and brier, Than pebbled walks so trim; more dear to me The daisied plat, before the cottage door, Than waveless sea of widely-spreading lawn, 'Mid which some insulated mansion towers, Spurning the humble dwellings from its proud domain.' The same kindness of heart is everywhere visible, the same brotherly fellowship with the great family of man. Of the evils attending land monopoly, and the monstrous extension of the manufactories, Grahame has taken the same views as Goldsmith, and from honest conviction. His opinions are not consonant with the speculations of politicians; but, amid the periodical convulsions which agitate the commercial world, and the mass of human suffering which attends them, the painting of his verse assumes the solidity of wisdom. His pictures of the wretched children imprisoned in overgrown manufactories, and his rural groups of children brought . from their native fields to languish in squalor and disease, cooped up in the garrets of the city, contrasted with their blithe pastimes and attendance at their hamlet schools, are as touching as the Village Exiles of Goldsmith: "The low roof Where tiny elves are taught :-a pleasant spot No farther than the neighbouring cottage-hedge, To sport the happy interval away; While those from distance come, upon the sward, In midst of them poor Redbreast hops unharmed, ،، Behold the band With some small remnant of their household gear, Drawn by the horse which once they called their own; Behold them take a last look of that roof, From whence no smoke ascends, and onward move In silence; whilst each passing object wakes Remembrances of scenes that never more Will glad their hearts ; the mill, the smiddy blaze Heard once again. Ah, why that joyous bark And nibbling flock, thou'lt drive afield or home; While, knowing well thy eager yelp, she scorns "Oft from their high And wretched roof, they look, trying, through clouds "O! that heart-wringing cry, The flying down; no more, transported, rush From learning's humble door, with playmates blithe, To gather pebbles in the shallow burn." These passages are not selected as specimens of Grahame's poetry, but as traits of his turn of mind. While thus occupied in "delineating the manners and characters of birds, and the scenery which they frequent," grafting upon these sketches, as we have seen, his own affections and thoughts, two seasons more passed, and law never again reclaimed her tardy and reluctant disciple. It is not to be regretted that Grahame abandoned the bar, but that he spent so many precious years in a profession to which nothing could ever have reconciled his mind. The melancholy regrets which poets and men of letters have often expressed, on finding, when too late, that they have lost the game of life in attending to the bye-play of fancy, may be just as they respect the individual; but in the most illustrious instances, they are ungenerous as they affect the species. Is the world a loser, because the young vagrant Shakspeare did not become a staid respectable wool-stapler at Stratford on Avon, or because Samuel Johnson did not get a fat college living, which would have spared him the hard necessity of writing a single line? The severity of time and chance which brings forward the lights of mind, is never to be lamented, even though in its passing it be evil to the individual. Cowper, who was in many respects the congenial spirit of Grahame, in writing to an enthusiastic young admirer, whom his poetry, by the way, had gained for him, says, "Had I employed my time as wisely as you, in a situation very similar to yours, I had never been a poet, perhaps, but I might by this time have acquired a character of more importance in society, and a situation in which my friends would have been better pleased to see me." This was prudent counsel to give to Mr Rose; but it is false reasoning, and unfounded in fact. Who shall say, that the recluse Cowper was, on the whole, a less happy man in his obscure retirement, even as regards the present life, than if he had struggled into notice as a practitioner in the Court of King's Bench or Chancery? We know not what contemporary character the |