no more worth than an
old song. But as Wordsworth says,

"Pleasures newly found are sweet,
Though they lie about our feet;"

and if stately people would but stoop and look about their paths, which,
do not always run along the heights, they would often make discoveries
of what concerned them more than speculations among the stars.

It is not to be thought, however, that the Northamptonshire Peasant does
not often treat earnestly of the common pleasures and pains, the cares
and occupations, of that condition of life in which he was born, and has
passed all his days. He knows them well, and has illustrated them well,
though seldomer in his later than in his earlier poems; and we cannot
help thinking that he might greatly extend his popularity, which in
England is considerable, by devoting his Rural Muse to subjects lying
within his ken, and of everlasting interest. Bloomfield's reputation
rests on his "Farmer's Boy"--on some exquisite passages in "News from
the Farm"--and on some of the tales and pictures in his "May-day with
the Muses." His smaller poems are very inferior to those of Clare--but
the Northamptonshire Peasant has written nothing in which all honest
English hearts must delight, at all comparable with those truly rural
compositions of the Suffolk shoemaker. It is in his power to do
so--would he but earnestly set himself to the work. He must be more
familiar with all the ongoings of rural life than his compeer could have
been; nor need he fear to tread again the same ground, for it is as new
as if it had never been touched, and will continue to be so till the end
of time. The soil in which the native virtues of the English character
grow, is unexhausted and inexhaustible; let him break it up on any spot
he chooses, and poetry will spring to light like clover from lime. Nor
need he fear being an imitator. His mind is an original one, his most
indifferent verses prove it; for though he must have read much poetry
since his earlier day--doubtless all our best modern poetry--he retains
his own style, which, though it be not marked by any very strong
characteristics, is yet sufficiently peculiar to show that it belongs to
himself, and is a natural gift. Pastorals--eclogues--and idyls--in a
hundred forms--remain to be written by such poets as he and his
brethren; and there can be no doubt at all that, if he will scheme
something of the kind, and begin upon it, without waiting to know fully
or clearly what h