BOOKS.

MR. BARNES'S NEW POEMS.* MR. BARNES expresses in his preface a modest fear that he may have made a mistake in exchanging for a while his "Dorset mother tongue" for common English, and that "what he has done for a wider range of readers may win the good opinion of fewer." There can be no readers, we should imagine, whose good opinion will not be won by poems so fresh, tender, and pure, and none who, apart from all question of comparison between Mr. Barnes's two styles, so to call them, will not rejoice that he has shown us with what force and skill he can use the national speech. The Dorset dialect, besides the peculiar charm which all dialects possess for ears that have heard them in childhood, and the wider philological interest which attaches to it as a singularly pure form of Saxon speech, has distinct claims of its own, and is worthy of, while it is fortunate in finding, such a vales sacer as Mr. Barnes. It may be said to be the only one of the better known and more distinct forms of English of which the associations are wholly rural, Job g 6Epso;, &edu 61ruipvg. It used to be, if we remember right, the language of the typical bumpkins of Punch, even before Mr. Barnes made it famous. Poems which describe rural life, as distinguished from rural scenes, that is, the thinking and talking of ploughmen, shepherds, dairymaids, and the like, gain greatly in naturalness and vividness from presenting the very speech-forms which these people use, and which themselves suggest a picture to the reader's mind. But in one most import- ant respect " Dorset " fails in the comparison which we naturally make between it and the Doric of Greek literature and the Scotch of our own. The Doric was a national speech, and so is the Scotch. The Athenian very likely was accustomed to sneer at the broad speech which often betokened an inferior civilization to his own, but he could not forget that it was the language of States which met his own on equal terms, and which, in some cases, possessed a literature and an intellectual cultivation of distinct and recognized value. The South Briton must make the same conces- sion about the speech of his Northern neighbours. "Dorset," on the other hand, is provincial, and it shares the disadvantages, and must before long meet the fate which, in a country like this, awaits all that is provincial. Doric lasted as long as Greece lasted, and the extinction of Scotch is probably a very remote event ; but Mr. Burnes himself feels that the dialect which is so dear to him is passing away. The poor of the towns speak, he tells us, a mixed jargon, and the home of the true " Dorset " is in the "villages and hamlets of the secluded and beautiful Vale of Blackinore." Mr. Barnes must be content with having rendered to his " mother-speech" the great service of having given it a literary expression which will not, we think, ever be forgotten. It may pass away from the actual lips of men, but it will still be able, in the poetical sense, volitare per era viriim. Still, as those who can take pleasure in languages dead or obsolete will always be the few, Mr. Barnes has done well for his personal fame in writing in the language of the beat national poets, with whom he is not unworthy to be ranked. And he will have earned the gratitude of many of his admirers, to whom, as to ourselves, the " Dorset " peculiarities are something of a stumbling-block, who like to realize the delight of poetry by the ear as well as by the eye, and who will now be able to enjoy without hindrance or drawback the exquisite melody of his verse.

• Poems of Rural Life in Common English. By William Barnes, author of Poems of Rural Life in the Dorsd Dialed. London: Macmillan and Co. 1868.

At the risk of offending Mr. Barnes's patriotism, we must say that we are particularly glad to be rid of one Dorset peculiarity which always offended our ear, the " da " and " did " which are the commonly used signs of the present and imperfect tenses. We are quite aware of their grammatical value, but it is impossible for an ordinary Englishman, at least, to help confounding them with the "feeble expletives" with which he is familiar in ordinary versification. We give as an example two stanzas which no one will be sorry to read for their own sake :—

"The evemen air did fan, in turn, The cheiiks the middas zun did burn, And zet the ruslon leaves at play, And miako the red-stemm'd brambles sway

In bows below the snow-white May ; An' whirlen noun' the trees, did shiake Jiane's raven curdles ronn' her neck, They evemens in the twilight.

An' there the yeller light did rest Upon the bank toward the west, An' twitt'ren birds did hop in droo The hedge, an' many a-skippen shoe Did beat the flowers wet wi' dew, As underneath the tree's wide limb Our merry shiapes did jumpy, dim, They evemens in the twilight."

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Generally speaking, Mr. Barnes's poetry retains in its new form all the features with which we are familiar in the old,—the same exqui- site faithfulness of description; the same tenderness of pathos, the same purity and simplicity. If, as many will think, his language has lost, with its local peculiarities, something of its old raciness and strength, it must be allowed to have gained something in flexibility and grace. But there is little use in prolonging a com- parison of which most readers will form their judgment from per- sonal reasons which criticism does not touch. We will give two specimens on somewhat kindred topics. Here is Mr. Barnes's old style :—

" An' zoo smile, happy maidens, var every Saco, As the zummors da come an' the years da roll by, Wall soon sadden, ar goo vur awoy vrom the pliace, Ar else, ilk' my Fanny, wall wither an' die.

"But when you be a-lost vrom the parish, some muore Wull come on in y'ur pliazen to bloom an' to die; An' zoo zummer wall always have maidens afore Thor doors, var to chatty an' zee vo'ke goo by.

" Var da'ters ha' mornen when mothers ha' night, An' there's beauty alive when the fiairest is dead ; As when oon sparklen wiave da zink down vrom the light, Another da come up an' catch it instead."

And here is the new :— " Oh ! now could she come, as we all have been told,

She walked in her time, of the comeliest mould, And show us, as what we may see in a dream, Her looki and her smiles by tho twilighted stream, Where star beams may twinkle through leaves of the oak, And toll us her tales of her old fellow folk That hero have lived on, In joy or in woe, From sprightly to slow, And from blooming to wan,— " What maid was beloved or what woman was bride, Who drooped in their grief, or upstraightened with pride, Who knelt in the church, putting head beside head, Who stood to the children or mourned for the dead, Who milked at the dairy in long-shaded light, Who knelt up to thatch the round rick's peaked height, What mower was strong, Or what haymaker quick, Who played the best trick, Or who sang the best song."

This subject, the succession of human generations, passing through the comparatively unchanging scenes of nature, is a favourite one with Mr. Barnes, and he treats it with great skill and beauty. So in "The Stonen Steps ?"—

" But which the last may beat a shoe, On these old stones, shall I or you ? Which little boy of mine shall climb These well-worn stops, the last in time ? Which girl, child-quick or woman-slow, Shall walk the last these stones in row ?

. . . . . . . . "And up these well-worn blocks of stone I came when I first ran alone;

The Stonen Stairs beclimbed the mound, Ere father put a foot to ground ; 'Twas up the steps his father came To make his mother change her name."

When the pathos deepens into sadness it is very affecting in its quietness and simplicity. Here is a little true touch,—

" Or when my wife to my hands left Her few bright keys, a doleful heft."

Again, how beautiful is this !—

"I went to door, and out from trees, above My head, upon the blast by me, Sweet blossoms there were cast by me, As if my love passed by me,

And flung them down, a token of her love, "Sweet blossoms of the tree where now I mourn.

I thought if you did blow for her,

For apples that should grow for her, And f..11 red ripe below for her,

Oh! then how happy I should see yon kern.

"But no. Too soon my fond illusion broke, No comely soul in white like her, No fair one tripping light like her, No wife of comely height like her,

Went by, but all my grief again awoke."

Mr. Barnes's country men and women have all the look of reality. He uses, indeed, the privilege of art in choosing such features as suit his picture. He ignores the coarseness and brutality which may be found in the village, as in the town ; but, as far as it may be done with colours uniformly bright, he paints to the life. In this respect he seems to us to excel all the poets of rural life. Theocritus, with whom one naturally compares him, was himself a dweller in cities, though he must have known and loved the country well ; and his pictures of country people, though free from the affectations of his imitators, are yet wanting in reality, are not so life-like, for instance, as the chattering Greek women of Alexandria in the Adoniazusx.

Mr. Barnes's love-poems are exquisitely simple and pure, and he rivals Mr. Patmore—some people who like the less transcendental will think that he excels him—in his treatment of a subject which few poets have touched, the love of married life. His verse is al- most uniformly melodious, though we may venture to suggest that it sometimes wearies us with its burdens or refrains. His style is enriched with many very pretty compound epithets, as woman- slow," woman-tall ;' and it certainly contains some words which we, at least, cannot recognize as belonging to common English,' as parrock," stonen," tump," knap,' ' dwm.'

We have said nothing about his descriptions of scenery, not because they are not worthy of study, but because, to our minds, there is nothing very peculiar or characteristic about them. He paints very faithfully and accurately, but he paints, if the expres- sion may be allowed, only foregrounds, and foregrounds done by a skilful and conscientious hand must always be alike. Here is a specimen of his manner:— " Then the horse would prance by with his neck a high bow, And would toss up his nose over out-springing knees, And the ox, with sleek hide and with low-swimming head, And the sheep, little kneed, with a quick dipping nod, And a girl, with her head carried on in a proud Gait of walking, as smooth as an air-swimming cloud."

With another specimen we must conclude. It is called "Hill and Dell : "—

"At John's, upon Sandhills 'tis healthy and dry,— Though I may not like it, it may be, not I,— Where fir trees are spindling with tapering tops, From leafy-leav'd fern in the cold stunted copse, And under keen gorse brakes all yellow in bloom, The skylark's brown nest is deep hidden in gloom; And high on the cliff, where no foot ever wore A path to the threshold, 's the sand-martin's door, On waterless heights, while the winds lowly sigh, On tree-climbing ivy, before the blue sky.

"I think I could hardly like his place as well

As my own sheltered home in the timbery dell, Where rooks come to build in the high-swaying boughs, And broad-headed oaks yield a shade for the cows ; Where grey-headed withy-trees lean o'er the brook Of grey-lighted waters that whirl by the nook, And only the girls and the swans are in white, Like snow on grey moss in the mid-winter's light, And wind softly drives with a low rustling sound, By waves on the water and grass on the ground."