If any one would see for himself how truly this is the character of the Dorset peasant, let him study the works of their poet, William Barnes. Born in the Vale of Blackmore, of an old yeoman family, farming for two centuries their own land, his immediate ancestors suffered the fate which is gradually bringing to an end this fine class of Englishmen. No doubt he describes the revolution he witnessed in his own native vale when he says—
"Then ten good dearies were a-ved
Along that water's winden bed,
An' in the lewth o' hills an' wood
A half a score farmhousen stood:
But now,—count all o'm how you would,
So many less do hold the land,—
You'd vind but vive that still do stand
A-comèn doun vrom gramfer's"
To Dorset, its people; their language and customs; to the delineation of the joys and sorrows which go to make up their daily life, he has devoted all his genius. As a pastor he has laboured for their highest interests. When I saw him moving amongst them, I could think of no picture which so aptly represented him as the one Longfellow draws of the parish priest in the Arcadian village of Grandprè.
"Reverend walked he among them ; and up rose matrons and maidens,
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome."
Dorsetshire may be divided into three districts. There is the highland, running through the centre of the county, and forming its back-bone.
"The zwellen downs, wi' chalky tracts
A-climmen up their sunny backs;"
the vale of Blackmore to the north, mainly laid down in grass land, and occupied by dairy farmers; while to the south of the chalk hills stretches for many a mile vast tracts of heath, much of which is uncultivated, and upon which are to be found most of those wretched cottages for which, as I have said, Dorsetshire has earned such an unenviable notoriety.
However, some of the worst cottages in the county are in the neighbourhood of Dorchester itself. Nothing can well exceed the
