TO AUTUMN. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring! Ay, where are they? Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 483 WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED. As a graceful lyrical poet and writer of light satires, and vers-desociété, few have surpassed Mr. Winthrop Mackworth Praed, son of Mr. Sergeant Praed, and early distinguished at Eton and Cambridge for his talents and scholastic attainments. Having finished his brilliant career at Trinity College (where he was the contemporary of Macaulay, and associated with him as a contributor to Knight's "Quarterly Magazine"), Mr. Praed entered on public life, and in 1830 and 1831 was returned to Parliament for St. Germans. He afterwards sat for Great Yarmouth and Aylesbury, and was for a short time Secretary to the Board of Control. Had his life been longer spared, he would have distinguished himself as a Conservative statesman and parliamentary debater, in which he gave promise of great excellence. His poetical pieces were collected and published at New York in 1844, and in 1864 a more complete edition, with a memoir by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, was published in this country. Mr. Coleridge characterises his friends works as possessing wit and grace, refined and tender feeling, inventive fancy, and acute observation. THOMAS HOOD. (1798-1845.) WHO has not laughed with laughter-loving Thomas Hood? But wit was not his best quality; he possessed sterling benevolence and genial philanthropy. He could twist our language into every comical shape of pun and quibble; but he could also move the best feelings of our nature by genuine tenderness and compassion. The flesh creeps as his reader follows him step by step over his "Haunted House," or through the windings of remorse in the mind of Eugene Aram. "The Elm Tree," though fanciful in its construction, is full of pregnant feeling; and numbers of his smaller pieces are stamped with the purest characters of poetry; all must remember the excitement produced by his "Song of the Shirt." Mr. Hood was the son of a bookseller in London; he abandoned his original profession of an engraver when he witnessed the popularity of his sportive muse. The last hours of the poet's lingering illness were cheered by the knowledge of the Queen's generous intention to pension his widow. For The style by which Hood first attracted attention and gained popu. larity was a light, fanciful, punning vein, peculiarly his own. example, he thus commences "A Paternal Ode to my Son, aged Three Years and Five Months :" Thou happy, happy elf! (But stop-first let me kiss away that tear) (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) With spirits feather light, Untouched by sorrow and unsoiled by sin, Thou little tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing-bird that wings the air, (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore a-fire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, And in a burlesque "Lament for the Decline of Chivalry :”— Is ended now and past! That iron age, which some have thought Is now all overcast. SONG OF THE SHIRT. 485 Two of the grave productions of Hood-"Eugene Aram" and "The Song of the Shirt"-have taken a firmer hold of the public mind than even his rich "whims and oddities." This is greatly owing to the subjects selected by the poet. The story of Eugene Aram is one of striking interest; and the Song of the Shirt is the lament of a poor overwrought sempstress crying aloud in her misery : With fingers weary and worn, In hunger, poverty, dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch Work-work-work! While the cock is crowing aloof! Till the stars shine through the roof! It's oh! to be a slave, Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian work! After painting the misery of this incessant and ill-requited labour, the poet heightens the effect of his gloomy picture by contrast: Work-work-work! In the dull December light, When the weather is warm and bright. The brooding swallows cling, As if to show me their sunny backs, And twit me with the spring. 1 Eugene Aram, a schoolmaster, was executed at York in 1759, for the murder of Daniel Clarke near Knaresborough. Aram was a man of considerable intellectual acquirements; his defence, which he conducted himself, displays singular ingenuity, resource, and command of expression. The motive of the murder of his miserable associate was alleged to be the procuring of money to contribute to his education. Admiral Burney (the brother of the authoress of "Evelina," etc.) "used to tell of school-days under the tutelage of Eugene Aram; how he remembered the gentle usher pacing the play-ground, arm-in-arm with some one of the elder boys, and seeking relief from the unsuspected burden of his conscience by talking of strange murders: and how he (the admiral), a child, had shuddered at the handcuffs on his teacher's hands, when taken away in a post-chaise to prison."-Talfourd's Final Memorials of Charles Lamb. Oh! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet- And the grass beneath my feet, To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want, And the walk that costs a meal! JOHN CLARE. IN 1820, a small volume was published, entitled "Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, by John Clare, a Northamptonshire Peasant." A brief account of the author was prefixed, from which it appeared that the parents of the poet were in the most destitute condition, and that he himself, by extra work as a plough-boy, and by helping his father morning and evening at threshing, had earned the money which paid for his education. From the labour of eight weeks he generally acquired as many pence as paid for a month's schooling, and thus, in the course of three years, he received instruction enough to enable him to read. A kind neighbour instructed him in writing and arithmetic. The volume attracted attention; friends came forward, and, through the assistance of Earl Fitzwilliam, the Marquis of Exeter, and Earl Spencer, an income of about 30 per annum was secured. In 1821, Clare published "The Village Minstrel, and other Poems ;" and these were followed by "The Shepherd's Calendar," "The Rural Muse," etc. Clare unfortunately speculated in farming, and got into pecuniary difficulties, in consequence of which he sank into despondency and despair. The latter years of his life were spent in a private asylum. A memorial is to be erected over the grave of the poet in his native village of Helpstone, near Peterborough. Clare was a faithful describer of rural life and scenery, and had true poetic fancy and feeling. DAWNINGS OF GENIUS. IN those low paths which poverty surrounds, The rough rude ploughman, off his fallow grounds While moiled and sweating, by some pasture's side, Will often stoop, inquisitive to trace The opening beauties of a daisy's face; The brook's sweet dimples o'er the pebbles rise; He'll pause and pick his shapéd stone and shell: THE THRUSH S NEST. Ideas picture pleasing views to mind, Dim burns the soul, and throbs the fluttering heart, Till by successless sallies wearied quite, The memory fails, and Fancy takes her flight: Borne down and smothered in a thousand sighs. 487 THE THRUSH'S NEST-A SONNET. Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush, I watched her secret toils from day to day; And there I witnessed in the summer hours, A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky. |