it not been for the untiring exertions of Dr. Smith, of Peterborough, who mingled poetry and pills in his advice to patients, thus obtaining a goodly list of subscribers, it is doubtful whether the “Rural Muse” would have made its appearance before CLARE was overcome by permanent imbecility. In the summer of 1835 this beautiful collection of rustic reeds was put forward as a candidate for the affection of those professing a love for music and wholesomeness in verse. The reception accorded to the book proved conclusively what important parts fashion and hypocrisy play in the concerns of the lyre. CLARE was out of vogue; he was a stale lion; the parasites upon genius could no longer hope to gain a temporary notoriety by displaying his peculiarities in their saloons. The idea of reading poetry for the sake of poetry appears never to have occurred to the members of a society as ponderable, in the matter of intellect, as thistledown, and as variable as the sheen of an opal. It is a moot point whether or no the reviewers wrote notices of the “Rural Muse.” If they did their duty, the editors certainly did not back them up by granting space for the criticisms, for scarcely a paragraph of commendation saw the light. If CLARE did not fall among thieves, he at least fell among blind bats. Literary England blotted her own escutcheon in this respect, but Scotland was saved from a similar disgrace by a noble outburst of praise for the poet, and scorn for his frigid countrymen, from the pen of Professor Wilson, in the course of which he adjured the Southrons to hold their tongues about the fate of Burns. Let them remember Bloomfield. Had he but known all the evil circumstances which were combining to push JOHN CLARE in the direction of a lunatic asylum, his retort would have been strengthened to a degree melancholy to contemplate.