The pliant bow he form'd, the flying ball,
The bat, the wicket, were his labours all;
Him now they follow to his grave, and stand
Silent and sad, and gazing, hand in hand;
While bending low, their eager eyes explore
The mingled relics of the parish poor :
The bell tolls late, the moping owl flies round,
Fear marks the flight and magnifies the sound;
The busy priest, detain'd by weightier care,
Defers his duty till the day of prayer;
And, waiting long, the crowd retire distress'd,
To think a poor man's bones should lie unbless'd.*

BOOK II.

Yet still, ye humbler friends, enjoy your hour,
This is your portion, yet unclaim'd of power;
This is Heaven's gift to weary men oppress'd,
And seems the type of their expected rest:
But yours, alas! are joys that soon decay;
Frail joys, begun and ended with the day;
Or yet, while day permits those joys to reign,
The village vices drive them from the plain.

See the stout churl, in drunken fury great,
Strike the bare bosom of his teeming mate!
His naked vices, rude and unrefined,
Exert their open empire o'er the mind;
But can we less the senseless rage despise,
Because the savage acts without disguise?

Yet here disguise, the city's vice, is seen, And Slander steals along and taints the Green: At her approach domestic peace is gone, Domestic broils at her approach come on; There are found, amid the Evils of a laborious Life, She to the wife the husband's crime conveys, some Views of Tranquillity and Happiness-The She tells the husband when his consort strays; Repose and Pleasure of a Summer Sabbath: in- Her busy tongue, through all the little state, terrupted by intoxication and Dispute-Village Diffuses doubt, suspicion, and debate; Detraction-Complaints of the 'Squire - The Peace, tim'rous goddess! quits her old domain, Evening Riots-Justice-Reasons for this un- In sentiment and song content to reign. pleasant View of Rustic Life: the Effect it should Nor are the nymphs that breathe the rural air have upon the Lower Classes; and the Higher-So fair as Cynthia's, nor so chaste as fair: These last have their peculiar Distresses: Exemplified in the Life and heroic Death of Lord Robert Manners - Concluding Address to His

Grace the Duke of Rutland.

No longer truth, though shown in verse, disdain,
But own the Village Life a life of pain :
I too must yield, that oft amid these woes
Are gleams of transient mirth and hours of sweet
repose,

Such as you find on yonder sportive Green,
The 'squire's tall gate and churchway-walk

tween;

be.

Where loitering stray a little tribe of friends,
On a fair Sunday when the sermon ends:»
Then rural beaux their best attire put on,
To win their nymphs, as other nymphs are won;
While those long wed go plain, and by degrees,
Like other husbands, quit their care to please.
Some of the sermon talk, a sober crowd,
And loudly praise, if it were preach'd aloud;
Some on the labours of the week look round,
Feel their own worth, and think their toil renown'd;
While some, whose hopes to no renown extend,
Are only pleased to find their labours end.

Thus, as their hours glide on, with pleasure
fraught,

Their careful masters brood the painful thought;
Mach in their mind they murmur and lament,
That one fair day should be so idly spent;

And think that Heaven deals hard, to tithe their

store

And tax their time for preachers and the poor.

*Some apology is due for the insertion of a circumstance by no means common: that it has been a subject complaint

evils which may happen to the poor, and which must happen to

These to the town afford each fresher face,
And the clown's trull receives the peer's embrace;
From whom, should chance again convey her down,
The peer's disease in turn attacks the clown.

Here too the 'squire, or 'squire-like farmer, talk,
How round their regions nightly pilferers walk;
How from their ponds the fish are borne, and all
The rip'ning treasures from their lofty wall;
How meaner rivals in their sports delight,
Just rich enough to claim a doubtful right;
Who take a license round their fields to stray,
A mongrel race! the poacners of the day.

And hark! the riots of the Green begin,
That sprang at first from yonder noisy inn;
What time the weekly pay was vanish'd all,
And the slow hostess scored the threat'ning wall;
What time they ask'd, their friendly feast to close
A final cup, and that will make them foes;
When blows ensue that break the arm of toil,
And rustic battle ends the boobies' broil.

Save when to yonder Hall they bend their way,
Where the grave justice ends the grievous fray;
He who recites, to keep the poor in awe,
The law's vast volume-for he knows the law :-
To him with anger or with shame repair
The injured peasant and deluded fair.

Lo! at his throne the silent nymph appears,
Frail by her shape, but modest in her tears;
And while she stands abash'd, with conscious eye,
Some favourite female of her judge glides by,
Who views with scornful glance the strumpet's fate,
And thanks the stars that made her keeper great;
Near her the swain, about to bear for life
One certain evil, doubts 'twixt war and wife;
But, while the falt'ring damsel takes her oath,

any place is a sufficient reason for its being reckoned among the Consents to wed, and so secures them both.
Yet why, you ask, these humble crimes relate,
Why make the poor as guilty as the great?
To show the great, those mightier sons of pride,

them exclusively; nevertheless, it is just to remark, that such
neglect is very rare in any part of the kingdom, and in many

parts is totally unknown.

How near in vice the lowest are allied ·

}

Is there a place, save one the poet sees,

THE PARISH REGISTER. A land of love, of liberty, and ease;

PART I.

BAPTISMS.

Tum porro puer (ut sævis projectus ab undis
Navita) nudus humi jacet infans, indigus omni
Vitali auxilio,

Vagituque locum lúgubri complet, ut æquum est,
Cui tantum in vita restat transire malorum.
Lucret. de Nat. Rerum, lib. 5.

INTRODUCTION.

Where labour wearies not, nor cares suppress
Th' eternal flow of rustic happiness;
Where no proud mansion frowns in awful state,
Or keeps the sunshine from the cottage-gate,
Where young and old, intent on pleasure, throng,
And half man's life is holiday and song ?
Vain search for scenes like these! no view appears,
By sighs unruffled or unstain'd by tears;
Since vice the world subdued and waters drown'd,
Auburn and Eden can no more be found.

Hence good and evil mix'd, but man has skill
And power to part them, when he feels the will!
Toil, care, and patience bless th' abstemious few,
Fear, shame, and want the thoughtless herd pursue.
Behold the cot! where thrives th' industrious
swain,

The Village Register considered as containing
principally the Annals of the Poor-State of the
Peasantry as meliorated by Frugality and In-Source of his pride, his pleasure, and his gain;
Justry- The Cottage of an industrious Peasant; Screen'd from the winter's wind the sun's last ray
its Ornaments-Prints and Books-The Gar- Smiles on the window and prolongs the day;
den; its Satisfactions-The State of the Poor, Projecting thatch the woodbine's branches stop,
when improvident and vicious The Row or
And turn their blossoms to the casement's top:
Street, and its Inhabitants-The Dwelling of
The Dwelling of
All need requires is in that cot contain'd,
one of these-A Public House Garden and its And much that taste untaught and unrestrain'd
Appendages Gamesters; rustic Sharpers, etc. Surveys delighted; there she loves to trace,
Appendages-Gamesters;
In one gay picture, all the royal race;
-Conclusion of the Introductory Part.
Around the walls are heroes, lovers, kings;
The print that shows them and the verse that sings
Here the last Lewis on his throne is seen,
And there he stands imprison'd, and his queen;
To these the mother takes her child, and shows
What grateful duty to his God he owes;
Who gives to him a happy home, where he
Lives and enjoys his freedom with the free;
When kings and queens, dethroned, insulted, tried,
Are all these blessings of the poor denied.

The Child of the Miller's Daughter, and Relation of her Misfortune-A frugal Couple: their Kind of Frugality-Plea of the Mother of a natural Child: her Churching-Large Family of Gerard Ablett: his Apprehensions: Comparison between his State and that of the wealthy Farmer his Master: his Consolation-An old Man's Anxiety for an Heir: the Jealousy of another on having many-Characters of the Grocer Dawkins and his friend: their different Kinds of Disappointment-Three Infants named-An Orphan Girl and Village Schoolmistress Gardener's Child: Pedantry, and Conceit of the Father: his Botanical Discourses: Method of fixing the Embryo

fruit of Cucumbers-Absurd Effects of Rustic Vanity: observed in the Names of their Children -Relation of the Vestry Debate on a Foundling; Sir Richard Monday-Children of various Inhab. itants-The poor Farmer-Children of a Profligate his Character and Fate-Conclusion.

THE year revolves, and I again explore
The simple annals of my parish poor;
What infant-members in my flock appear,
What pairs I bless'd in the departed year;
And who, of old or young, or nymphs or swains,
Are lost to life, its pleasures and its pains.

No Muse I ask, before my view to bring
The humble actions of the swains I sing.-
How pass d the youthful, how the old their days;
Who sank in sloth, and who aspired to praise;
Their tempers, manners, morals, customs, arts,
What parts they had, and how they 'mployed their
parts;
By what elated, soothed, seduced, depress'd,
Full well I know-these records give the rest.

There is King Charles, and all his Golden Rules,
Who proved Misfortune's was the best of schools:
And there his son, who, tried by years of pain,`
Proved that misfortunes may be sent in vain.

The magic-mill that grinds the gran'nams young,
Close at the side of kind Godiva hung;
She, of her favourite place the pride and joy,
Of charms at once most lavish and most coy,
By wanton act, the purest fame could raise,
And give the boldest deed the chastest praise.

There stands the stoutest Ox in England fed;
There fights the boldest Jew, Whitechapel-bred;
And there Saint Monday's worthy votaries live,
In all the joys that ale and skittles give.

Now lo! in Egypt's coast that hostile fleet,
By nations dreaded and by Nelson beat;
And here shall soon another triumph come,
A deed of glory in a day of gloom ;
Distressing glory! grievous boon of fate!
The proudest conquest, at the dearest rate.

On shelf of deal beside the cuckoo-clock,
Of cottage-reading rests the chosen stock;
Learning we lack, not books, but have a kind
For all our wants, a meat for every mind:
The tale for wonder and the joke for whim,
The half-sung sermon and the half-groan'd hymn.

No need of classing; each within its place,
The feeling finger in the dark can trace;
"First from the corner, furthest from the wall,"
Such all the rules, and they suffice for all.
Their pious works for Sunday's use are found;
Companions for that Bible newly bound;
That Bible, bought by sixpence weekly saved,
Has choicest prints by famous hands engraved;
Has choicest notes by many a famous head,
Such as to doubt have rustic readers led;
Have made them stop to reason why? and how?
And where they once agreed, to cavil now.
Oh! rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain;
Who from the dark and doubtful love to run,
And hold the glimmering tapers to the sun;
Who simple truth with nine-fold reasons back,
And guard the point no enemies attack:
Bunyan's famed Pilgrim rests that shelf upon-
A genius rare but rude was honest John:
Not one who, early by the Muse beguiled,
Drank from her well the waters undefiled;
Not one who slowly gain'd the hill sublime,
Then often sipp'd and little at a time;
But one who dabbled in the sacred springs,
And drank them muddy, mix'd with baser things.
Here to interpret dreams, we read the rules,.
Science our own! and never taught in schools;
In moles and specks we Fortune's gifts discern,
And Fate's fix'd will from nature's wand'rings learn.
Of Hermit Quarle we read, in island rare,
Far from mankind and seeming far from care;
Safe from all want and sound in every limb;
Yes! there was he, and there was care with him.
Unbound, and heap'd these valued works beside,
Lay humbler works the pedlar's pack supplied;
Yet these, long since, have all acquired a name :
The Wandering Jew has found his way to fame;
And fame, denied to many a labour'd song,
Crowns Thumb the Great, and Hickerthrift
Strong.

the

There too is he, by wizard-power upheld,
Jack, by whose arm the giant-brood were quell'd;
His shoes of swiftness on his feet he placed;
His coat of darkness on his loins he braced;
His sword of sharpness in his hand he took;
And off the head of doughty giants stroke :
Their glaring eyes beheld no mortal near;
No sound of feet alarm'd the drowsy éar;
No English blood their pagan sense could smell,
But heads dropp'd headlong, wondering why they

fell.

These are the peasant's joy, when placed at ease,
Half his delighted offspring mount his knees.

To every cot the lord's indulgent mind
Has a small space for garden-ground assign'd;
Here-till return of morn dismiss'd the farm-
The careful peasant plies the sinewy arm,
Warm'd as he works, and casts his look around
On every foot of that improving ground:
It is his own he sees; his master's eye
Peers not about, some secret fault to spy;
Nor voice severe is there, nor censure known ;--
Hope, profit, pleasure,-they are all his own.
Here grow the humble cives, and, hard by them,
The leek with crown globose and reddy stem;

High climb his pulse in many an even row,
Deep strike the ponderous roots in soil below;
And herbs of potent smell and pungent taste
Give a warm relish to the night's repast:
Apples and cherries grafted by his hand,
And cļuster'd nuts for neighbouring market stand.
Nor thus concludes his labour; near the cot,
The reed-fence rises round some fav'rite spot;
Where rich carnations, pinks with purple eyes,
Proud hyacinths, the least some florist's prize,
Tulips tall-stemm'd and pounced auriculas rise.

Here on a Sunday-eve, when service ends,
Meet and rejoice a family of friends;
All speak aloud, are happy and are free,
And glad they seem, and gaily they agree.

What, though fastidious ears may shun the speech,
Where all are talkers and where none can teach;
Where still the welcome and the words are old,
And the same stories are for ever told?
Yet theirs is joy that, bursting from the heart,
Prompts the glad tongue these nothings to impart;
That forms these tones of gladness we despise,
That lifts their steps, that sparkles in their eyes;
That talks or laughs or runs or shouts or plays,
And speaks in all their looks and all their ways.

Fair scenes of peace! ye might detain us long,
But vice and misery now demand the song ;
And turn our view from dwellings simply neat,
To this infected row, we term our street.

Here, in cabal, a disputatious crew
Each evening meet; the sot, the cheat, the shrew:
Riots are nightly heard :-the curse, the cries
Of beaten wife, perverse in her replies;
While shrieking children hold each threat'ning

hand,

And sometimes life, and sometimes food demand:
Boys, in their first-stol'n rags, to swear begin,
And girls, who heed not dress, are skill'd in gin:
Snarers and smugglers here their gains divide;
Ensnaring females here their victims hide;
And here is one, the sibyl of the row,
Seeking their fate, to her the simple run,
Who knows all secrets, or affects to know.
To her the guilty, theirs awhile to shun;
Mistress of worthless arts, depraved in will,
Her care unbless'd and unrepaid her skill,
Slave to the tribe, to whose command she stoops,
And poorer than the poorest maid she dupes.

Between the road-way and the walls, offence
There lie, obscene, at every open door,
Invades all eyes and strikes on every sense:
And day by day the mingled masses grow
Heaps from the hearth and sweepings from the floor;
As sinks are disembogued and kennels flow.

There hungry dogs from hungry children steal,
There pigs and chickens quarrel for a meal;
There dropsied infants wail without redress,
And all is want and wo and wretchedness:
Yet should these boys, with bodies bronzed and bare,
High-swoln and hard, outlive that lack of care--
Forced on some farm, the unexerted strength,
Though loth to action, is compell'd at length,
When warm'd by health, as serpents in the spring
Aside their slough of indolence they fling.

Yet, ere they go, a greater evil comes-
See! crowded beds in those contiguous rooms,

1

Beds but ill parted, by a paltry screen
Of paper'd lath or curtain dropp'd between';
Daughters and sons to yon compartments creep,
And parents here beside their children sleep:
Ye who have power, these thoughtless people part,
Nor let the ear be first to taint the heart.
Come! search within, nor sight nor smell regard;
The true physician walks the foulest ward.
See! on the floor what frouzy patches rest!
What nauseous fragments on yon fractured chest!
What downy dust beneath yon window-seat!
And round these posts that serve this bed for feet;
This bed where all those tatter'd garments lie,
Worn by each sex, and now perforce thrown by
See! as we gaze, an infant lifts its head,
Left by neglect and burrow'd in that bed;
The mother-gossip has the love suppress'd
An infant's cry once waken'd in her breast;
And daily prattles, as her round she takes,
(With strong resentment) of the want she makes.
Whence all these woes ?-From want of virtu-
ous will,

Of honest shame, of time-improving skill;
From want of care t' employ the vacant hour,
And want of ev'ry kind but want of power.

Here are no wheels for either wool or flax,
But packs of cards-made up of sundry packs ;
Here is no clock, nor will they turn the glass,
And see how swift th' important moments pass ;
Here are no books, but ballads on the wall,
Are some abusive, and indecent all;
Pistols are here, unpair'd; with nets and hooks,
Of every kind, for rivers, ponds, and brooks;
An ample flask, that nightly rovers fill
With recent poison from the Dutchman's still;
A box of tools, with wires of various size,
Frocks, wigs, and hats, for night or day disguise,
And bludgeons stout to gain or guard a prize.

To every house belongs a space of ground,
Of equal size, once fenced with paling round;
That paling now by slothful waste destroy'd,
Dead gorse and stumps of elder fill the void;
Save in the centre-spot, whose walls of clay
Hide sots and striplings at their drink or play :
Within, a board, beneath a tiled retreat,
Allures the bubble and maintains the cheat;
Where heavy ale in spots like varnish shows,
Where chalky tallies yet remain in rows;
Black pipes and broken jugs the seats defile,
The walls and windows, rhymes and reck'nings vile;
Prints of the meanest kind disgrace the door,
And cards, in curses torn, lie fragments on the floor.
Here his poor bird th' inhuman cocker brings,
Arms his hard heel, and clips his golden wings;
With spicy food th' impatient spirit feeds,
And shouts and curses as the battle bleeds.
Struck through the brain, deprived of both his eyes,
The vanquish'd bird must combat till he dies;
Must faintly peck at his victorious foe,
And reel and stagger at each feeble blow:
When fall'n, the savage grasps his dabbled plumes,
His blood-stain'd arms, for other deaths assumes;
And damns the craven-fowl, that lost his stake,
And only bled and perish'd for his sake.

And these who take from our reluctant hands
What Burn advises or the Bench commands.

Our farmers round, well pleased with constant
gain,

Like other farmers, flourish and complain.-
These are our groups; our portraits next appear,
And close our exhibition for the year.

WITH evil omen we that year begin :
A Child of Shame,--stern Justice adds, of Sin,
Is first recorded ;-I would hide the deed,
But vain the wish; I sigh and I proceed:
And could I well th' instructive truth convey,
T would warn the giddy and awake the gay.

Of all the nymphs who gave our village grace,
The Miller's daughter had the fairest face;
Proud was the Miller; money was his pride;
He rode to market, as our farmers ride,
And 't was his boast, inspired by spirits there,
His favourite Lucy should be rich as fair;
But she must meek and still obedient prove,
And not presume, without his leave, to love.

A youthful Sailor heard him ;-" Ha!" quoth ne
"This Miller's maiden is a prize for me;
Her charms I love, his riches I desire,
And all his threats but fan the kindling fire ;
My ebbing purse no more the foe shall fill,
But Love's kind act and Lucy at the mill."

Thus thought the youth, and soon the chase began
Stretch'd all his sail, nor thought of pause or plan
His trusty staff in his bold hand he took,
Like him and like his frigate, heart of oak;
Fresh were his features, his attire was new;
Clean was his linen, and his jacket blue:·
Of finest jean, his trowsers, tight and trim,
Brush'd the large buckle at the silver rim.

He soon arrived, he traced the village-green,
There saw the maid, and was with pleasure seen:
Then talk'd of love, till Lucy's yielding heart
Confess'd 't was painful, though 't was right to part

For ah my father has a haughty soul;
Whom best he loves, he loves but to control;
Me to some churl in bargain he 'll consign,
And make some tyrant of the parish mine:
Cold is his heart, and he with looks severe
Has often forced but never shed the tear;
Save, when my mother died, some drops express'd
A kind of sorrow for a wife at rest :—
To. me a master's stern regard is shown,
I'm like his steed, prized highly as his own;
Stroked but corrected, threaten'd' when supplied,
His slave and boast, his victim and his pride.”

"Cheer up, my lass; I'll to thy father go;
The Miller cannot be the Sailor's foe;
Both live by Heaven's free gale, that plays aloud
In the stretch'd canvas and the piping shroud;
The rush of winds, the flapping sails above,
And rattling planks within, are sounds we love;
Calms are our dread; when tempests plough the
deep,

We take a reef, and to the rocking sleep."

"Ha!" quoth the Miller, moved at speech so rash, "Art thou like me? then where thy notes and cash?

Such are our peasants, those to whom we yield Away to Wapping, and a wife command, Praise with relief, the fathers of the field;

With all thy wealth, a guinea, in thine hand;