the ooze over which the tide was momentarily encroaching. By nature, as well as by discipline perhaps, he had a great dislike to most violent occasions of feeling and manifestations of it, whether in real life or story. Many years ago he entreated the author of May You Like It, who had written some tales of powerful interest, to write others "where the appeals for one's feelings were perhaps less. frequent-I mean one's sympathetic feelings with suffering virtue-and the more pleasurable emotions called forth by the spectacle of quiet, unobtrusive domestic happiness more dwelt on." And when Mr. Tayler had long neglected to answer a letter, Barton humorously proposed to rob him on the highway, in hopes of recovering an interest by crime which he supposed every-day good conduct had lost. Even in Walter Scott, his great favourite, he seemed to relish the humorous parts more than the pathetic; Bailie Nicol Jarvie's dilemmas at Glennaquoich, rather than Fergus MacIvor's trial; and Oldbuck and his sister Grizel rather than the scenes at the fisherman's cottage. Indeed, many, I dare say, of those who only know Barton by his poetry, will be surprised to hear how much humour he had in himself, and how much he relished it in others. Especially, perhaps, in later life, when men have commonly had quite enough of " domestic tragedy," and are glad to laugh when they can.

With little critical knowledge of pictures, he was very fond of them, especially such as represented scenery familiar to him-the shady lane, the heath, the cornfield, the village, the sea-shore. And he loved after coming away from the bank to sit in his room and watch the twilight steal over his landscapes as over the real face of nature, and then lit up again by fire or candle light. Nor could any itinerant picture-dealer pass Mr. Barton's door without calling to tempt him to a new purchase. And then was B. B. to be seen, just come up from the bank, with broad-brim and spectacles on, examining some picture set before him on a chair in the most advantageous light; the dealer recommending and Barton wavering, until partly by money, and partly by exchange of some older favourites, with perhaps a snuff-box thrown in to turn the scale, a bargain

was concluded-generally to B.'s great disadvantage and great content. Then friends were called in to admire ; and letters written to describe; and the picture taken up to his bedroom to be seen by candle-light on going to bed, and by the morning sun on awaking; then hung up in the best place in the best room; till in time perhaps it was itself exchanged for some newer favourite.

He was not learned-in language, science, or philosophy. Nor did he care for the loftiest kinds of poetry—" the heroics," as he called it. His favourite authors were those that dealt most in humour, good sense, domestic feeling, and pastoral description-Goldsmith, Cowper, Wordsworth in his lowlier moods, and Crabbe. One of his favourite prose books was Boswell's Johnson; of which he knew all the good things by heart, an inexhaustible store for a country dinner-table.1 And many will long remember him as he used to sit at table, his snuff-box in his hand, and a glass of genial wine before him, repeating some. favourite passage, and glancing his fine brown eyes about him as he recited.

But perhaps his favourite prose book was Scott's Novels. These he seemed never tired of reading and hearing read. During the last four or five winters I have gone through several of the best of these with him-generally on one night in each week-Saturday night, that left him free to the prospect of Sunday's relaxation. Then was the volume. taken down impatiently from the shelf almost before tea was over; and at last, when the room was clear, candles snuffed, and fire stirred, he would read out, or listen to, those fine stories, anticipating with a glance, or an impatient ejaculation of pleasure, the good things he knew were coming--which he liked all the better for knowing they were coming —relishing them afresh in the fresh enjoyment of his companion, to whom they were less familiar; until the modest supper coming in closed the book, and recalled him to his cheerful hospitality.

1 He used to look with some admiration at an ancient fellowtownsman, who, beside a rich fund of Suffolk stories vested in him, had once seen Dr. Johnson alight from a hackney coach at the Mitre.

Of the literary merits of this volume, others, less biassed than myself by personal and local regards, will better judge. But the Editor, to whom, as well as the Memoir, the task of making any observations of this kind usually falls, has desired me to say a few words on the subject.

The letters, judging from internal evidence as well as from all personal knowledge of the author's habits, were for the most part written off with the same careless ingenuousness that characterized his conversation. “I have no alternative," he said, "between not writing at all and writing what first comes into my head." In both cases the same cause seems to me to produce the same agreeable effect. The Letters on graver subjects are doubtless the result of graver "foregone conclusion,"--but equally spontaneous in point of utterance, without any effort at style whatever. If the Letters here published are better than the mass of those they are selected from, it is because better topics happened to present themselves to one who, though he wrote so much, had perhaps as little of new or animating to write about as most men.

The Poems, if not written off as easily as the Letters, were probably as little elaborated as any that ever were published. Without claiming for them the highest attributes of poetry (which the author never pretended to), we may surely say they abound in genuine feeling and elegant fancy expressed in easy, and often very felicitous, verse. These qualities employed in illustrating the religious and domestic affections, and the pastoral scenery with which such affections are perhaps most generally associated, have made Bernard Barton, as he desired to be, a household poet with a large class of readers—a class who, as they may be supposed to welcome such poetry as being the articulate voice of those good feelings yearning in their own bosoms, one may hope will continue and increase in England.

While in many of these Poems it is the spirit within that redeems an imperfect form-just as it lights up the irregular features of a face into beauty-there are many which will surely abide the test of severer criticism. Such are several of the Sonnets; which, if they have not (and they do not aim at) the power and grandeur, are also free from the

pedantic stiffness of so many English Sonnets. Surely that one "To my Daughter" is very beautiful in all respects.

Some of the lighter pieces-" To Joanna," "To a Young Housewife,” etc., partake much of Cowper's playful grace. And some on the decline of life, and the religious consolations attending it, are very touching.

Charles Lamb said the verses To the Memory of Bloomfield" were "sweet with Doric delicacy." May not one say the same of those "On Leiston Abbey," "Cowper's Rural Walks," On Some Pictures," and others of the shorter descriptive pieces? Indeed, utterly incongruous. as at first may seem the Quaker clerk and the ancient Greek Idyllist, some of these little poems recall to me the inscriptions in the Greek Anthology-not in any particualr passages, but in their general air of simplicity, leisurely elegance, and quiet unimpassioned pensiveness.

Finally, what Southey said of one of Barton's volumes "there are many rich passages and frequent felicity of expression "-may modestly be said of these selections. from ten. Not only is the fundamental thought of many of them very beautiful—as in the poems, "To a Friend in Distress," "The Deserted Nest," "Thoughts in a Garden, etc.-but there are many verses whose melody will linger in the ear, and many images that will abide in the memory. Such surely are those of men's hearts brightening us at Christmas like a fire new stirred,"-of the stream that leaps along over the pebbles "like happy hearts by holiday made light ❞—of the solitary tomb showing from afar like a lamb in the meadow. And in the poem called A Dream "-a dream the poet really had-how beautiful is that chorus of the friends of her youth who surround the central vision of his departed wife, and who, much as the dreamer wonders they do not see she is a spirit, and silent as she remains to their greetings, still with countenances of "blameless mirth," like some of Correggio's angel attendants, press around her without awe or hesitation, repeating Welcome, welcome!" as to one suddenly returned to them from some earthly absence only, and not from beyond the dead-from heaven.

E. F. G.

DEATH OF BERNARD BARTON

(From the Ipswich Journal, February 24, 1849)

AT Woodbridge, on the night of Monday last, February 19, between the hours of eight and nine, after a brief spasm in the heart, died Bernard Barton. He was born near London in 1784, came to Woodbridge in 1806, where he shortly after married, and was left a widower at the birth of his only child, who now survives him. In 1810 he entered as clerk in Messrs. Alexander's Bank, where he officiated almost to the day of his death. He had been for some months afflicted with laborious breathing which his doctor knew to proceed from disease in the heart, though there seemed no reason to apprehend immediate danger. But those who have most reason to lament his loss, have also most reason to be thankful that he was spared a long illness of anguish and suspense, by so sudden and easy a dismissal.

To the world at large Bernard Barton was known as the author of much pleasing, amiable, and pious poetry, animated by feeling and fancy, delighting in homely subjects, so generally pleasing to English people. He sang of what he loved-the domestic virtues in man, and the quiet pastoral scenes of Nature-and especially of his own county-its woods, and fields, and lanes, and homesteads, and the old sea that washed its shores; and the nearer to his own home the better he loved it. There was a true and pure vein of pastoral feeling in him. Thousands have read his books with innocent pleasure; none will ever take them up and be the worse for doing so. The first of these volumes was published in 1811.