PRATT’S GLEANIN GS IN ENGLAND. 
critical severity upon the Gleanings of 
this gentleman. Some talents, sui generis, 
he does indeed possess; and in an ‘age 
when the indulgence of private malig- 
nity, whether im prose or verse, never 
fails to obtain public approbation, Mr. 
Pratt has some’ claim to indulgence for 
the indiscriminating good will with which 
he flatters all his contemporaries. They 
who will read his volumes would pro- 
bably not have employed their hours 
better, and they will not rise the worse 
from the perusal of sentiments uniformly 
friendly to good morals and kindly feel- 
ings. Of the summer insects who come 
within our reach we destroy without 
-compunction such as are noxious, but it 
were cruel to shorten the life of the 
golden-chafer or the butterfly ; let them 
enjoy the summer while it lasts. 
With these feelings we proceed to give 
that attention to this volume which is 
due to the popularity oi the author. 
The first letter is chiefly designed as 
introductory to what Mr. Pratt calls Na- 
tive Sonnets. Of these we extract two, 
which are characterised by an individual 
“feeling, and have therefore an interest 
superior to what is commonly found in 
such compositions. 
«« Sacred to a first Impression. 
«© Primeval object of my spotless heart, 
In life’s fresh morn, ev'n in my tend’rest 
~ youth, 
When it was pure as thine, and not an art; 
The world calls wise, had warp'd fair na- 
ture’s truth. 
« O, by what various fate and fortune hurl’d, 
What giddy turns of human weal and woe, 
Since those blest times, my wand'ring steps 
have hurl’d, 
Thro’ all the strange diversities below! 
«* Yet, tho’ ten years have thrice been told, 
sweet maid! 
Sincelast we met—ev’n in thy dying hour— 
To the chill grave where I beheld thee laid, 
How oft has mem’ry flown and own'd thy 
pow'r? 
«Paid thee the tribute of a heart-sprung tear 
Tn climes remote, yet hop’d thy spirit near |” 
* * * > 
, “To the River Ouze. 
*« What tho’ fair stream, from prouder deeps 
. _ lcome— ” 
The wealthy Maeze, and the Imperial Rhine! 
On thy green banks J find myself at home ; 
My wonder theirs, but my afiection thine. 
« Amidst the oziers that evaich thy side, 
ln times long past, my carliest lyre I strung ; 
667 
At the rude numbers felt a poet’s pride, 
And thy still wave listen’d to my song ; 
*« And fancy smil'd, alas! and I was blest ; 
But, ah! how soon thy ready aid I sought, 
Wild with the anguish throbbing in my breast, 
O God! forgive the still repented. thought! 
‘« Grief’s madd’ning thought, in passion’s 
phrenzied hour, 
Ere sorrow own’d the sway of reason’s god- 
like power.” ; 
Mr. Pratt dates at the commencement 
of his volume from the fens of Hunting- 
donshire, where he leads us to the cot- 
tage of his father’s old huntsman, now a 
mole-catcher, at the age of ninety-three! 
** And, lo! seated on a brown bench, cut 
in the wall within the chimney place, ina 
corner of yon rude cottage, he presents him- 
self to your view. Behold his still ruddy 
cheeks, his milk-white locks, partly curled 
and partly strait—see how correctly they are 
separated in the middle, almost to the equal 
division of a hair—a short pipe in his mouth 
—his dame’s hand folded tn his own—a jug 
of smiling beer warming in the wood ashes— 
a cheerful blaze shining upon two happy old 
countenances, in which, though you behold 
the indent of many furrows, they have been 
made by age, not sorrow—the good sound 
age of health, without the usual infirmities of 
long life—exhibiting precisely the unperecived 
decay so devoutly to be wished. On the ma- 
tron’s knee sits a purring cat; at the veteran’s 
foot, on the same hearth, sleeps an aged 
hound, of my father’s breed, in the direct line 
of unpolluted descent; or a ‘ true chip ‘of 
the old block,’ as John phrased it; and whos 
by its frequent and quick-repeated wh2ffle, 
or demi-bark, seems to be dreaming of the 
chace—an antique gun is pendent over the 
chimney—a spinning-wheel occupies the va- 
cant corner by the second brown bench, and 
a magpie, with closed eyes and his bill nestled 
under his wing, is at profound rest in his 
wicker cage. ‘lo close the picture, the mole- 
bag, half filled with captives of the day, 
thrown into a chair, on which observe a 
kitten has clambered, and is in the act of 
playing with one of the soft victims which 
it has contrived to purloin from the bag for 
its pastime, while the frugal but sprightly 
light from the well-stirred faggot, displays. on 
the mud, but clean walls, many a time-em- 
browned ditty, as well moral as professional ; 
such, as ‘God rest you, Merry Gentlemen’ 
—‘ The Morning is up, sa the cry of 
the Hounds’—‘ The Sportsman’s Delight 
* Chevy Chace’—and ‘The Jolly Huntsmen.” 
Omit the sentence ‘his dame’s hand 
folded in his own,’ which savours more 
of the sentimental than the natural, and 
this description would appear well if 
tranferred by Barker to the canvass.* 
* We had written this as a deserved compliment to the author and the artist befpre we 
knew that Mr. Barker actually designed to make the portrait, 
