Our village has a pleasant look,
A happy look as e’er was seen--
Right through the valley flows a brook
Which winds in many a flowery nook
And freshens all the green.
On either side, so clear and white,
A row of cottages you see--
And jessamine is clustered o’er
The humble trellis of each door,
Then left to clamber free
And shake its blossoms far and wide
O’er all the white-wash’d cottage side.
As dying evening sinks away,
The old church tow’r, erect and grey,
Catches far up the parting light
And half grows holy to the sight.
But from this description of the village itself the author passes to its
inhabitants, and then would prove to us, that this external beauty is
but a veil to cover what is in reality a more disgusting place than a
charnel-house. For within the village, he says, there is nothing but
tyranny and slavery,--pampered luxury on the part of the few, and the
most abject poverty on the part of the many. There is not one family, he
would show, in those happy circumstances, below wealth but above poverty
and dependence--there is not a single industrious contented labourer.
All here is misery--the most degrading, unrelieved suffering, and
unrepented crime, among the poor; from the rich _few_, there is not to
be drawn a single gleam of commiseration or charity to break the horrid
gloom. Were all the plagues of Egypt busy at once on the devoted place,
the village could not be so loathsome as it is here represented.
We are fully prepared to admit the existence of evils among the
labouring classes of this country, but we are sure that the state of
things represented in this poem has no more foundation in truth than
those poetical pictures of rural life which our author, justly enough,
pronounces to be _only_ poetical.
Has the “Country Curate” seen anything of the condition of the peasantry
in other countries?--If not, let him ask those who have, and they will
assure him that it is nearly every where inferior to that of the
peasantry of England. We do not say this from any overweening national
pride, or from any desire to make the people idly contented with their
state as it is, and indifferent to future improvement. No! we would say
to the peasantry, as to every other class, Keep your eyes ever open to
your rights; strive to make what is indifferent--good, what is
good--better; and persevere in that moral and intellectual improvement
which can alone render you sensible of your rights, and fit you for
their enjoyment! You are not now what you were a century or two ago,
because you are better informed and more civilized than then; and a
century hence your condition will be so much the better, as you will be
more civilized than now. We would rescue the wealthier body from the
insane jealousy and hatred which the verses of the “Country Curate” have
a direct tendency to excite against them in the breasts of the poor; we
would hint at the exertions now pretty generally made by that body to
promote the welfare and instruction of the labouring classes, with which
their own welfare is closely linked. But still we would not have the
poor depend entirely on what the rich may bestow upon them, or assist
them in obtaining. We would have the peasant or the artisan work out his
own mental improvement, and then, most assuredly, will he find his moral
dignity elevated and his comforts increased.
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