"
Now it is clear to me, that in the most interesting of the poems, in
which the author is more or less dramatic, as THE BROTHERS, MICHAEL,
RUTH, THE MAD MOTHER, and others, the persons introduced are by no
means taken from low or rustic life in the common acceptation of those
words! and it is not less clear, that the sentiments and language, as
far as they can be conceived to have been really transferred from the
minds and conversation of such persons, are attributable to causes and
circumstances not necessarily connected with "their occupations and
abode." The thoughts, feelings, language, and manners of the shepherd-
farmers in the vales of Cumberland and Westmoreland, as far as they
are actually adopted in those poems, may be accounted for from causes,
which will and do produce the same results in every state of life,
whether in town or country. As the two principal I rank that
independence, which raises a man above servitude, or daily toil for
the profit of others, yet not above the necessity of industry and a
frugal simplicity of domestic life; and the accompanying unambitious,
but solid and religious, education, which has rendered few books
familiar, but the Bible, and the Liturgy or Hymn book. To this latter
cause, indeed, which is so far accidental, that it is the blessing of
particular countries and a particular age, not the product of
particular places or employments, the poet owes the show of
probability, that his personages might really feel, think, and talk
with any tolerable resemblance to his representation.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293