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S editions in which the letters are obtainable will be found referred to
in the bibliographical list at the end of this little book. In
illustration of their continued appreciation it may be mentioned that
three editions have been published during the past year or so, each of
which contains letters denied to the others. The latest edition--that of
Mr. E. V. Lucas--is also the fullest, both in the number of letters
included and in the elaboration of its annotatory matter. * * * * *
[Illustration: Holograph letter to John Clare, "the Peasant Poet."
Reduced facsimile from the original in the British Museum.] [Transcript
of the Handwritten Letter To John Clare.] India house 31 Aug 1822 Dear
Clare, I thank you heartily for your present. I am an inveterate old
Londoner, but while I am among your choice collections, I seem to be
native to them, and free of the country. The quantity of your
observation has astonished me. What have most pleased me have been
Recollections after a Ramble, and those Grongar Hill kind of pieces in
eight syllable lines, my favourite measure, such as Cowper Hill and
Solitude. In some of your story telling Ballads the provincial phrases
sometimes startle me. I think you are too profuse with them. In poetry
slang [underlined] of every kind is to be avoided. There is a rustick
Cockneyism as little pleasing as ours of London. Transplant Arcadia to
Helpstone. The true rustic style, the Arcadian English, I think is to be
found in Shenstones. Would his Schoolmistress, the prettiest of poems,
have been better, if he had used quite the Goody's own language? Now and
then a home rusticism is fresh & startling, but where nothing is gained
in expression, it is out of tenor. It may make people [crossed out]
folks smile and stare, but the ungenial coalition of barbarous with
refined phrases will prevent you in the end from being so generally
tasted, as you deserve to be. Excuse my freedom, and take the same
liberty with my puns [underlined]. I send you two little volumes of my
spare hours. They are of all sorts, there is