KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



201 



11 There's a world of buxom beauty, young 

 fellows, flourishing in the shades of the 

 country. ' Aye, marry is there !' Above 

 all things, avoid farm-houses. Farm-houses 

 are dangerous places. As you are thinking 

 only of sheep or of curds, you may be sud- 

 denly shot through by a pair of bright eyes, 

 and melted away in a bewitching smile that 

 you never dreamt of till the mischief was 

 done. 



" In towns, and theatres, and thronged as- 

 semblies of the rich and titled fair, you are on 

 your guard ; you know what you are exposed 

 to, and put on your breast-plate, and pass 

 through the most deadly onslaught of beauty 

 — -safe and sound. But in those sylvan re- 

 treats, dreaming of nightingales, and hearing 

 only the lowing of oxen, you are taken by 

 surprise. Out steps a fair creature, crosses 

 a glade, leaps a stile ; you start, you stand 

 by, lost in wonder and silent admiration. 

 You take out your tablets to write a sonnet 

 on the return of the nymphs and dryads to 

 earth, when up comes John Tomkins, and 

 says, ' It's only the farmer's daughter !' 



" ' What ! have farmers such daughters now - 

 a-days ? ' 



" Yes : I tell you they have such daughters 

 — those farm-houses are dangerous places. 

 Let no man with a poetical imagination — 

 which is but another name for a very tindery 

 heart, flatter himself with fancies of the calm 

 delights of the country ; with the serious idea 

 of sitting with the farmer in his old-fashioned 

 chimney corner, and hearing him talk of corn 

 and mutton ; of joining him in the pensive plea- 

 sures of a pipe, and brown jug of October ; 

 of listening to the gossip of the comfortable 

 farmer's wife ; of the parson and his family, 

 of his sermons and his tenth pig. Over a 

 fragrant cup of young hyson, or whilst you 

 are lapt in the delicious luxuries of custards 

 and whipt creams, in walks a fair vision of 

 wondrous witchery ; and. with a curtsey and 

 smile of most winning and mysterious magic, 

 takes her seat just opposite. It is the far- 

 mer's daughter ! A lovely girl of eighteen. 

 Fair as the lily, fresh as May-dew, rosy as 

 the rose itself; graceful as the peacock 

 perched on the pales there by the window ; 

 sweet as a posy of violets and " clove gilli- 

 vers ;" modest as early morning, and amiable 

 as the imagination of Desdemona or Gertrude 

 of Wyoming. 



" You are lost ! It's all over with you. I 

 wouldn't give an empty filbert or a frog-bitten 

 strawberry for your peace of mind, if that 

 glittering creature be not as pitiful as she is 

 fair. And that comes of going into the 

 country, out of the way of vanity and temp- 

 tation ; and fancying farm-houses only nice 

 old-fashioned places of old-fashioned content- 

 ment. — Young fellows! again I say — beware!" 



Now, Mr. Editor, what can I — what shall 



I do ? I want to love the country, but fear 

 to risk the danger that lurks among the farm- 

 houses. Will you kindly give me a hint ? 

 Yours, Tyro. 



[Your question is an odd one; and had 

 you lived in the country so long as we have 

 done, you needed not to have asked it. 

 Come down, Sir, and get " used" to the sight 

 of these lovely faces. What would the 

 country be without them ? Never mind the 

 " mysterious magic " lurking beneath a witch- 

 ing smile. If, after beholding it once, you 

 shotild require our aid — you will not — we will 

 then gladly assist you.] 



POETS AND VERSIFIERS. 



All men, women, and children, are mani- 

 festly poets — except those who write verses. 

 But why that exception ? Because they alone 

 make no use of their minds. 



Versifiers— and we speak but of them — are the 

 sole living creatures that are not also creators. 

 The inferior animals, as we are pleased to call 

 them, — and as indeed in some respects they 

 are, modify matter much in their imaginations. 

 Rode ye never a horse by night through a 

 forest? That most poetical of quadrupeds 

 sees a spirit in every stump ; else why by 

 such sudden start should he throw his mas- 

 ter over his ears ? 



The blackbird on the tip-top of that pine- 

 tent is a poet, else never could his yellow bill 

 so salute with rapturous orisons the re-ascend- 

 ing sun, as he flings over the woods a lustre 

 agai n gorgeous from the sea. And what 

 induces those stock-doves, think ye, to fill 

 the heart of the grove with soft, deep, low, 

 lonely, far-away, mournful, yet happy — 

 thunder f What, but love and joy, and delight 

 and desire ? In one word, poetry. Poetry, 

 which confines the universe to that wedded 

 pair, within the sanctuary of the pillared 

 shade impervious to meridian sunbeams, and 

 brightens and softens into splendor and into 

 snow divine the plumage beautifying the 

 creatures in their bliss, as breast to breast 

 they crood-en-doo on their shallow nest. 



Thus all men, women, and children, birds, 

 beasts, and fishes, are poets, — except versifiers, 

 Oysters are poets. Nobody will deny that, 

 whoever in the neighborhood of Preston-pans 

 has beheld them passionately gaping, on their 

 native bed, for the flow of the tide coming 

 again to awaken all their energies from the 

 wide Atlantic. Nor less poetical are snails. 

 See them in the dewy stillness of eve, as they 

 salute the crescent Dian ; with horns humbler 

 indeed, but no less pointed than her own. 

 The beetle, u against the traveller borne in 

 heedless hum," if we knew all his feelings in 

 that soliloquy, might safely be pronounced 

 a Wordsworth. 



Thus are we all poets, high and low, — 



