e than
hurtful and undermining to his health; while his constant recourse to
medicine--daily, as it appears, and in large quantities--both evinced,
and, no doubt, increased the derangement of his digestion. When to all
this we add the wasteful wear of spirits and strength from the slow
corrosion of sensibility, the warfare of the passions, and the workings
of a mind that allowed itself no sabbath, it is not to be wondered at
that the vital principle in him should so soon have burnt out, or that,
at the age of thirty-three, he should have had--as he himself drearily
expresses it--"an old feel." To feed the flame, the all-absorbing flame,
of his genius, the whole powers of his nature, physical as well as
moral, were sacrificed;--to present that grand and costly conflagration
to the world's eyes, in which,

"Glittering, like a palace set on fire,
His glory, while it shone, but ruined him!"[5]

[5] Beaumont and Fletcher.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURUNALS.

* * * * *

AN UNEDUCATED POET.

One of the best papers in the _Public Journals_ for the present
month is in the _Quarterly Review_, No. 87. It purports to be a
notice of "Attempts in Verse, by John Jones, an Old Servant. With some
Account of the Writer, written by himself: and an introductory Essay on
the Lives and Works of our Uneducated Poets. By Robert Southey, Esq."
We extract such portion of the paper as relates to JONES, reserving
a few notices of other uneducated poets for a future number.

In the autumn of 1827, Mr. Southey was spending a few weeks with his
family at Harrowgate, when a letter reached him from John Jones, butler
to a country gentleman in that district of Yorkshire, who, hearing that
the poet laureate was so near him, had plucked up courage to submit to
his notice some of his own "attempts in verse." He was touched by the
modest address of this humble aspirant; and the inclosed specimen of his
rhymes, however rude and imperfect, exhibited such simplicity of thought
and kindliness of disposition--such minute and intelligent observation
of Nature--such lively sensibility--and, withal, such occasional
felicities of diction--that he was induced to make further inquiries
into the history of the man. It turned out that Jones had maintained,
through a long life the character of a most faithful and exemplary
domestic, having been no fewer than twenty-four ye