year 1798, under the title of "The Female Vagrant." The extract is of such length that an apology seems to be required for reprinting it here but it was necessary to restore it to its original position, or the rest would have been unintelligible. The whole was written before the close of the year 1794, and I will detail, rather as matter of literary biography than for any other reason, the circumstances under which it was produced.

During the latter part of the summer of 1793, having passed a month in the Isle of Wight, in view of the fleet which was then preparing for sea off Portsmouth at the commencement of the war,

I left the place with melancholy forebodings.

While thus he journeyed, step by step led on,

He saw and passed a stately inn, full sure
That welcome in such house for him was

none.

No board inscribed the needy to allure Hung there, no bush proclaimed to old and poor

The American war was still fresh in memory. The struggle which was beginning, and which many thought would be brought to a speedy close by the irresistible arms of Great Britain being added to those of the Allies, I was assured in my own mind would be of long continuance, and productive of distress and misery beyond all possible calculation. This conviction was pressed upon me by having been a witness, during a long residence in revolutionary France, of the spirit which prevailed in that country. After leaving the Isle of Wight, I spent two days in wandering On he must pace, perchance till night on foot over Salisbury Plain, which, though cultivation was then widely spread through parts of it, had upon the whole a still more impressive appearance than it now retains.

And desolate, "Here you will find a The pendent grapes glittered above the friend!" 15 door ;

descend,

Where'er the dreary roads their bare white lines extend.

The

III.

gathering clouds grew red with stormy fire,

The monuments and traces of antiquity, scattered in abundance over that region, led me unavoidably to compare what we know or guess of those remote times with certain aspects of modern society, and with calamities, principally In streaks diverging wide and mounting those consequent upon war, to which, more than other classes of men, the poor are subject. In those reflections, joined with particular facts that had come to my knowledge, the following stanzas originated.

In conclusion, to obviate some distraction in the minds of those who are well acquainted with Salisbury Plain, it may be proper to say that, of the features described as belonging to it, one or two are taken from other desolate parts of England.

I.

high;

20

That inn he long had passed; the distant Which oft as he looked back had fixed his spire,

eye,

Was lost, though still he looked, in the blank sky.

Perplexed and comfortless he gazed around,

And scarce could any trace of man descry, Save cornfields stretched and stretching without bound;

26

A TRAVELLER on the skirt of Sarum's But where the sower dwelt was nowhere

Long files of corn-stacks here and there Her dwelling in his dreams. By Fancy's

were seen,

30

But not one dwelling-place his heart to cheer.

aid

The happy husband flies, his arms to throw 60

Some labourer, thought he, may per- Round his wife's neck; the prize of victory

In her full lap, he sees such sweet tears flow

And so he sent a feeble shout-in vain ;
No voice made answer, he could only hear
Winds rustling over plots of unripe grain, As if thenceforth nor pain nor trouble she
Or whistling thro' thin grass along the

And rest; but now along heaven's darkening cope

The crows rushed by in eddies, homeward borne.

could know.

VIII.

Vain hope! for fraud took all that he had earned.

The lion roars and gluts his tawny brood Even in the desert's heart; but he, returned, 66

Bears not to those he loves their needful

food.

His home approaching, but in such a mood That from his sight his children might have run,

40 Thus warned he sought some shepherd's spreading thorn Or hovel from the storm to shield his head, He met a traveller, robbed him, shed his But sought in vain; for now, all wild, forlorn,

blood;

70

And when the miserable work was done And vacant, a huge waste around him He fled, a vagrant since, the murderer's spread;

fate to shun.

IX.

From that day forth no place to him could be

And be it so-for to the chill night shower So lonely, but that thence might come a And the sharp wind his head he oft hath bared;

Nor only did for him at once renew All he had feared from man, but roused a train 85 Of the mind's phantoms, horrible as vain. And hope returned, and pleasure fondly The stones, as if to cover him from day, Rolled at his back along the living plain;

lease,

made

་

He fell, and without sense or motion lay; He turned, while rain poured down But, when the trance was gone, feebly smoking on every side.

Hurtle the clouds in deeper darkness Within that fabric of mysterious form

All, all was cheerless to the horizon's No swinging sign-board creaked from cotbound; tage elm

The weary eye-which, wheresoe'er it To stay his steps with faintness overstrays,

Marks nothing but the red sun's setting 'Twas dark and void as ocean's watery round,

Or on the earth strange lines, in former Roaring with storms beneath night's stardays

Left by gigantic arms—at length surveys No
What seems an antique castle spreading

A structure stands, which two bare slopes Rock to incessant neighings shrill and

And saw a woman in the naked room 165 Outstretched, and turning on a restless But soon his voice and words of kind bed:

The moon a wan dead light around her Banished that dismal thought; and now shed.

He waked her-spake in tone that would In fainter howlings told its rage was

He hoped, to calm her mind; but ill he Meanwhile discourse ensued of various

With which, though bent on haste, myself We seemed still more and more to prize