sal. They will shew you at least that one of
our party is not willing to cut old friends. What to call
'em I don't know. Blank verse they are not, because of the
rhymes.--Rhimes they are not, because of the blank verse.
Heroics they are not, because they are lyric, lyric they are
not, because of the Heroic measure. They must be called EMMAICS.--

* * * * *

The full charm of the long early letters, with their pleasant
expatiations on literary themes can scarcely be sampled without doing
violence. The various editions in which the letters are obtainable
will be found referred to in the bibliographical list at the end of
this little book. In illustration of their continued appreciation it
may be mentioned that three editions have been published during the
past year or so, each of which contains letters denied to the others.
The latest edition--that of Mr. E. V. Lucas--is also the fullest, both
in the number of letters included and in the elaboration of its
annotatory matter.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Holograph letter to John Clare, "the Peasant Poet."
Reduced facsimile from the original in the British Museum.]

[Transcript of the Handwritten Letter To John Clare.]

India house 31 Aug 1822

Dear Clare, I thank you heartily for your present. I am an
inveterate old Londoner, but while I am among your choice
collections, I seem to be native to them, and free of the
country. The quantity of your observation has astonished me.
What have most pleased me have been Recollections after a
Ramble, and those Grongar Hill kind of pieces in eight
syllable lines, my favourite measure, such as Cowper Hill
and Solitude. In some of your story telling Ballads the
provincial phrases sometimes startle me. I think you are too
profuse with them. In poetry slang [underlined] of every
kind is to be avoided. There is a rustick Cockneyism
as little pleasing as ours of London. Transplant Arcadia to
Helpstone. The true rustic style, the Arcadian English, I
think is to be found in Shenstones. Would his
Schoolmistress, the prettiest of poems, have been better, if
he had used quite the Goody's own language? Now and then a
home rusticism is fresh & startling, but where nothing is
gained in expression, it is out of tenor. It may make
people [crossed out] fo