his hanging garden of flower-pots, uttering his melancholy O rus, quando te aspiciam? We dare not vouch, however, that every one of his readers will have true pastoral taste enough fully to relish his poetry, or be able to appreciate the nice observation which it discovers. To those who would think the country dull, John Clare's poetry must needs be insipid. He is professedly but a landscape-painter, and not of Turner's school; he might rather be compared to Morland, only that, in sentiment and feeling, he rises so far above him. But we are not sure whether we may not have said all this, or something like it before; and as it is only five years since we had the last occasion to speak of the merits of our Village Minstrel, our readers will doubtless have in recollection the critique which we then offered. We shall, therefore, without further prologue, advert to the contents of the present volume. We know not whether our Poet is aware that he has been forestalled in his title by Spenser, who has also a Shepherd's Calendar, written in the fantastic style which was then so fashionable. But his amorous shepherds and goatherds, Cuddy and Colin, Hobbinol and Diggon, are mere awkward maskers, while the scenery is all pasteboard. Nothing is more astonishing than the total absence of descriptive beauty, and rural feeling, and observation of nature, from these eclogues, and from almost all the pastorals of the old school. The scene is laid in a cockney Arcadia, and the lady and gentlemen shepherds are evidently pining for want of fresh air. As Dan Spenser singeth,

All as the sheep, such was the shepherd's look,
For pale and wan he was, alas! the while :
'May seem he lov'd, or else some care he took;
Well couth he tune his pipe and frame his stile,
Tho' to a hill his fainting flock he led,

And thus he plain'd the while his sheep there fed.'

Shepherd's Calendar, Jan.

Cowley, though by no means a natural poet, except in his prose, revels in his garden; and Milton, when he gets a holiday, plays L'Allegro to admiration, although he soon grows tired of Buckinghamshire, and

Towered cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men.'

Milton nevertheless loved nature, and could paint a paradise. But after him comes a dreary interval. From Dryden to

* Eclectic Rev. Jan. 1822. p. 31.

Thomson, it has been remarked, that scarcely a rural image drawn from life is to be found in any of the English Poets, except Gay. Thomson deserves great credit for the choice of his subject, and though his theme and his genius were not very well suited to each other, it was a fortunate match for the fame of the Poet: the Author of Liberty and Britannia would have been forgotten. Thomson undoubtedly takes us into the country, but we feel, in his philosophic company, too much like school-boys taking a walk with their master in rank and file, who long to run away from his sage lectures, to gather cowslips or go birds' nesting. Cowper was the first poet who taught his readers how to look at the country, and to love it for its own sake, and to turn to nature as a living fountain of consolation. Since Cowper, a wonderful revolution has taken place in English poetry. Our lakes and mountains have been vocal with poets; and the consequence has certainly been, the infusion of a most healthful vigour into our poetical literature. For nice observation, and fidelity, and native feeling, Clare, however, will stand a comparison with any of our descriptive poets. If we meet with few elevated sentiments or philosophic remarks, which in him could only be affectation, it is high praise, but well deserved, that he is always natural and in character, and never aims at a style above his compass.

The Shepherd's Calendar consists of twelve poems on the several months of the year, written in different measures, and with a happy variety of style. We take the fourth of the series, as being of convenient length; and it recommends itself also by a touching sort of beauty, like that of the spring leaf which seems to have lent its vivid colour to the verse.

'APRIL.

"Now infant April joins the Spring,
And views the watery sky,

As youngling linnet tries its wing,
And fears at first to fly.

With timid step she ventures on,
And hardly dares to smile,
Till blossoms open one by one,
And sunny hours beguile.

But finer days are coming yet,

With scenes more sweet to charm;

And suns arrive that rise and set

Bright strangers to a storm:

Then, as the birds with louder song
Each morning's glory cheer,
With bolder step she speeds along,
And loses all her fear.

In wanton gambols, like a child,
She tends her early toils,
And seeks the buds along the wild,
That blossoms while she smiles:
Or laughing on, with nought to chide,
She races with the Hours;
Or sports by Nature's lovely side,
And fills her lap with flowers.

The shepherd on his pasture-walks
The first fair cowslip finds,
Whose tufted flowers, on slender stalks
Keep nodding to the winds;

And though the thorns withhold the may,
Their shades the violets bring,
Which children stoop for in their play,
As tokens of the Spring.

Those joys which childhood calls its own,
Would they were kin to men!

Those treasures to the world unknown,
When known, are withered then!
But hovering round our growing years,
To gild Care's sable shroud,

Their spirit thro' the gloom appears,
As suns behind a cloud.

Since thou didst meet my infant eyes,
As through the fields I flew,
Whose distance, where they meet the skies,
Was all the world I knew ;

That warmth of Fancy's wildest hours,
Which fill'd all things with life,

Which heard a voice in trees and flowers,
Has swooned in Reason's strife.

Sweet Month! thy pleasures bid thee be
The fairest child of Spring;

And every hour that comes with thee,
Comes some new joy to bring.
The trees still deepen in their bloom,
Grass greens the meadow-lands,
And flowers with every morning come,
As dropt by fairy bands.

The field and garden's lovely hours
Begin and end with thee;

For what's so sweet as peeping flowers
And bursting buds to see,
What time the dew's unsullied drops,
In burnish'd gold, distil

On crocus flowers' unclosing tops,
And drooping daffodil?

To see thee come, all hearts rejoice;
And, warm with feelings strong,
With thee all Nature finds a voice,
And hums a waking song.
The lover views thy welcome hours,
And thinks of summer come,
And takes the maid thy early flowers,
To tempt her steps from home.
• Along each hedge and sprouting bush,
The singing birds are blest;

And linnet green and speckled thrush
Prepare their mossy nest.

On the warm bed thy plains supply,
The young lambs find repose,
And 'mid thy green hills basking lie
Like spots of lingering snows.

Thy opened leaves and ripened buds
The cuckoo makes his choice;
And shepherds in the greening woods
First hear his cheering voice:
And to thy ripened, blooming bowers
The nightingale belongs;

And, singing to thy parting hours,
Keeps night awake with songs.

With thee the swallow dares to come,
And cool his sultry wing;

And, urged to seek his yearly home,
Thy suns the martin bring.

Oh! lovely Month, be leisure mine
Thy yearly mate to be:

Though May-day scenes may brighter shine,
Their birth belongs to thee.

'I waked me with thy rising sun,
And thy first glories viewed,
And, as thy welcome hours begun,
Their sunny steps pursued.
And now thy sun is on thee set,
Like to a lovely eve,

I view thy parting with regret,

And linger, loath to leave.

Though, at her birth, the northern gale
Come with its withering sigh,

And hopeful blossoms, turning pale,

Upon her bosom die;

Ere April seeks another place,
And ends her reign in this,

She leaves us with as fair a face
As e'er gave birth to bliss.'
2 Y

VOL. XXVII. N.S.

A Syrian spring differs materially from an English one, passing more rapidly into summer; and its rains form a more peculiar feature; but still, how appropriate must appear the beautiful language in which the Son of Jesse describes with all a shepherd's feeling, heightened into devout rapture, the return of this delightful season! "Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it; thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof; thou crownest the year with thy goodness. The clouds drop fertility, they distil it upon the pastures of the desert; the hills on every side rejoice; the pastures are clothed with flocks; the vales are covered with corn; they shout, yea, they sing for joy."

In this climate, the months sometimes seem to change places, and those which belong to the Spring, quarrel who shall usher in their queen. Sometimes, March forestalls April in her office, as our Poet testifies.

'Often, at early seasons, mild and fair,

March bids farewell, with garlands in her hair,
Of hazel tassels, woodbine's bushy sprout,
And sloe and wild-plum's blossoms peeping out
In thick set knots of flowers, preparing gay,
For April's reign, a mockery of May.

The old dame then oft stills her humming wheel-
When the bright sun-beams thro' the window steal
And gleam upon her face, and dancing fall
In diamond shadows on the pictured wall;
While the white butterfly, as in amaze,
Will settle on the glossy glass to gaze-
And smiling, glad to see such things once more,
Up she will get and totter to the door,
And look upon the trees beneath the eaves-
Sweet-briar and lad's love-swelling into leaves;
And stooping down, cull from the garden beds
The early blossoms perking out their heads,
In flower-pots on the window-board to stand,
Where the old hour-glass spins its thread of sand.
And while the passing clown remarks with pride,
Days lengthen in their visits a "cock's stride,"
She cleans her candlesticks and sets them by,
Glad of the make-shift light that eves supply.'

'The insect world, now sunbeams higher climb,
Oft dream of Spring, and wake before their time.
Bees stroke their little legs across their wings,
And venture short flights where the snow-drop hings
Its silver bells, and winter aconite

Its butter-cup-like flowers that shut at night,
With green leaf furling round its cup of gold,
Like tender maiden muffling from the cold: