The Bishop of Salisbury, in a letter to the Times
of Thursday week, states that a-meeting is to be held in the Town Hall of Dor- chesteron Thursday, December 2nd, at 3 p.m., for decidink on the best monument to the memory of the Rev. W. Barnes, the" Dor- setshire" poet, whom England has so recently lost. The Bishop, who had seen him twice during his last illness, tells us that in all his pictures of Dorsetshire life, Mr. Barnes drew from real figures, so that though his poems may appear to idealise the rustic manners and characters of his neighbourhood, the idealism consists rather in omitting what is commonplace than in magnify- ing or improving on the actual subjects of his pictures. Mr. Barnes's reputation is an English as well as a Dorsetehire possession, and we trust that the monument to his memory will be raised not only by Dorsetshire, but by England. We have not an English Burns ; but Mr. Barnes is perhaps the nearest approach to an English Burns of whom we can boast.
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