blank verse poem in the
manner of Cowper, with some of the observation of Crabbe, entitled "The
Village Curate," which is a record of his thoughts and impressions in
his Burwash days. One could hardly say that "The Village Curate" would
bear reprinting at the present time; we have moved too far from its
pensiveness, and an age that does not read "The Task" and only talks
about Crabbe is hardly likely to reach out for Hurdis. But within its
limits "The Village Curate" is good, alike in its description of
scenery, its reflections and its satire. The Burwash donkey race is
capital:--

Then comes the ass-race. Let not wisdom frown,
If the grave clerk look on, and now and then
Bestow a smile; for we may see, Alcanor,
In this untoward race the ways of life.
Are we not asses all? We start and run,
And eagerly we press to pass the goal,
And all to win a bauble, a lac'd hat.
Was not great Wolsey such? He ran the race,
And won the hat. What ranting politician,
What prating lawyer, what ambitious clerk,
But is an ass that gallops for a hat?
For what do Princes strive, but golden hats?
For diadems, whose bare and scanty brims
Will hardly keep the sunbeam from their eyes.
For what do Poets strive? A leafy hat,
Without or crown or brim, which hardly screens
The empty noddle from the fist of scorn,
Much less repels the critic's thund'ring arm.
And here and there intoxication too
Concludes the race. Who wins the hat, gets drunk.
Who wins a laurel, mitre, cap, or crown,
Is drunk as he. So Alexander fell,
So Haman, Caesar, Spenser, Wolsey, James.

[Sidenote: A STRATEGIC DUELLIST]

I find in the Sussex paper for 1792 the following contribution to the
history of Burwash: "A Hint to Great and Little Men.--Last Thursday
morning a butcher and a shopkeeper of Burwash, in this County, went into
a field near that town, with pistols, to decide a quarrel of long
standing between them. The lusty Knight of the Cleaver having made it a
practice to insult his antagonist, who is a very little man, the great
disparity between them in size rendered this the only eligible
alternative for the latter. The butcher took care to inform his wife of
the intended meeting, in hopes that she would give the Constables timely
notice thereof. But the good woman not having felt so deeply interested
in his fate as he expected, to make sure, he