against him, he aimed to teach the English
language by using words of Teutonic derivation only; but it is through
his four volumes of poems that he is better remembered. These include
'Hwomely Rhymes' (1859), 'Poems of Rural Life' (1862), and 'Poems of
Rural Life in Common English' (1863). The three collections of dialect
poems were brought out in one volume, with a glossary, in 1879.

"A poet fresh as the dew," "The first of English purely pastoral poets,"
"The best writer of eclogues since Theocritus,"--these are some of the
tardy tributes paid him. With a sympathy for his fellow-man and a humor
akin to that of Burns, with a feeling for nature as keen as
Wordsworth's, though less subjective, and with a power of depicting a
scene with a few well-chosen epithets which recalls Tennyson, Barnes has
fairly earned his title to remembrance.

'The Life of William Barnes, Poet and Philologist,' written by his
daughter, Mrs. Baxter, was published in 1887. There are numerous
articles relating to him in periodical literature, one of which, a
sketch by Thomas Hardy, in Vol. 86 of the 'Athenaeum,' is of
peculiar interest.

BLACKMWORE MAIDENS

The primrwose in the sheaede do blow,
The cowslip in the zun,
The thyme upon the down do grow,
The clote where streams do run;
An' where do pretty maidens grow
An' blow, but where the tow'r
Do rise among the bricken tuns,
In Blackmwore by the Stour?

If you could zee their comely gait,
An' pretty feaeces' smiles,
A-trippen on so light o' waight,
An' steppen off the stiles;
A-gwain to church, as bells do swing
An' ring 'ithin the tow'r,
You'd own the pretty maidens' pleaece
Is Blackmwore by the Stour?

If you vrom Wimborne took your road,
To Stower or Paladore,
An' all the farmers' housen show'd
Their daughters at the door;
You'd cry to bachelors at hwome--
"Here, come: 'ithin an hour
You'll vind ten maidens to your mind,
In Blackmwore by the Stour."

An' if you look'd 'ithin their door,
To zee em in their pleaece,
A-doen housework up avore
Their smilen mother's feaece;
You'd cry,--"Why, if a man would wive
An' thrive, 'ithout a dow'r,
Then let en look en out a wife
In Blackmwore by the Stour."

As I upon my road did pass
A school-house back in Ma