perusal of the poem, a
right understanding and feeling of that pleasant epithet--Rustic.
Rusticity and Urbanity are polar opposites--and there lie between many
million modes of Manners, which you know are Minor Morals. But not to
puzzle a subject in itself sufficiently simple, the same person may be
at once rustic and urbane, and that too, either in his character of man
or of poet, or in his twofold capacity of both; for observe that, though
you may be a man without being a poet, we defy you to be a poet without
being a man. A Rustic is a clodhopper; an Urbane is a paviour. But it is
obvious that the paviour in a field hops the clod; that the clodhopper
in a street paces the pave. At the same time, it is equally obvious that
the paviour, in hopping the clod, performs the feat with a sort of city
smoke, which breathes of bricks; that the clodhopper, in pacing the
pave, overcomes the difficulty with a kind of country air, that is
redolent of broom. Probably, too, Urbanus through a deep fallow is seen
ploughing his way in pumps; Rusticus along the shallow stones is heard
clattering on clogs. But to cease pursuing the subject through all its
variations, suffice it for the present (for we perceive that we must
resume the discussion another time), to say, that Allan Cunningham is a
living example and lively proof of the truth of our Philosophy--it being
universally allowed in the best circles of town and country, that he is
an URBANE RUSTIC.

Now, that is the man for our love and money, when the work to be done is
a Poem on Scottish Life.

We can say of Allan what Allan says of Eustace,--

"Far from the pasture moor
He comes; the fragrance of the dale and wood
Is scenting all his garments, green and good."

The rural imagery is fresh and fair; not copied Cockney wise,
from pictures in oil or water-colours--from mezzotintoes or
line-engravings--but from the free open face of day, or the dim retiring
face of eve, or the face, "black but comely," of night--by sunlight or
moonlight, ever Nature. Sometimes he gives us--Studies. Small, sweet,
sunny spots of still or dancing day-stream-gleam--grove-glow--
sky-glimpse--or cottage-roof, in the deep dell sending up its smoke to
the high heavens. But usually Allan paints with a sweeping pencil. He
lays down his landscapes, stretching wide and far, and fills them with
woods and rivers, hills and mountains, flocks of sheep and herds of
cattle; and of all sights i