d
contentments of lowly life.

England has singled out John Clare from among her humble sons (Ebenezer
Elliott belongs altogether to another order)--as the most conspicuous
for poetical genius, next to Robert Bloomfield. That is a proud
distinction--whatever critics may choose to say; and we cordially
sympathise with the beautiful expression of his gratitude to the Rural
Muse, when he says--

"Like as the little lark from off its nest,
Beside the mossy hill, awakes in glee,
To seek the morning's throne, a merry guest--
So do I seek thy shrine, if that may be,
To win by new attempts another smile from thee."

Now, England is out of all sight the most beautiful country in the whole
world--Scotland alone excepted--and, thank heaven, they two are one
kingdom--divided by no line, either real or imaginary--united by the
Tweed. We forget at this moment--if ever we knew it--the precise number
of her counties; but we remember that one and all of them--"alike, but
oh! how different"--are fit birthplaces and abodes for poets. Some of
them, we know well, are flat--and we in Scotland, with hills or
mountains for ever before our eyes, are sometimes disposed to find fault
with them on that ground--as if nature were not at liberty to find her
own level. Flat indeed! So is the sea. Wait till you have walked a few
miles in among the Fens--and you will be wafted along like a little
sail-boat, up and down undulations green and gladsome as waves. Think ye
there is no scenery there? Why, you are in the heart of a vast
metropolis!--yet have not the sense to see the silent city of mole-hills
sleeping in the sun. Call that pond a lake--and by a word how is it
transfigured? Now you discern flowers unfolding on its low banks and
braes--and the rustle of the rushes is like that of a tiny forest--how
appropriate to the wild! Gaze--and to your gaze what colouring grows!
Not in green only, or in russet brown, doth nature choose to be
apparelled in this her solitude--nor ever again will you call her dreary
here--for see how every one of those fifty flying showers lightens up
its own line of beauty along the plain--instantaneous as dreams--or
stationary as waking thought--till, ere you are aware that all was
changing, the variety has all melted away into one harmonious glow,
attempered by that rainbow.

Let these few words suffice to show that we understand and feel the
flattest--dullest--tamest places, as they are most ignora