simple inspiration, without a thought of either fame or gain.

Among the results of this republication of the poems may be mentioned some of the literary acquaintance of his later days. One of his greatest appreciators, Professor Palgrave, Lecturer on Poetry at the University of Oxford, made one or two visits to Came, and Mr. Edmund Gosse was brought over to make the personal acquaintance of the poet by Mr. Thomas Hardy, who was building a house for himself near the Rectory, and often visited at Came. Many a talk and laugh did the Dorset poet and novelist have over old Dorset characters and bygone phrases of country life. Among these William Barnes might recall the honest old Vale farmer, who, seeing his neighbour's daughters going to their music lessons, said to him: "Goin' to spank the grand pianner at milking time! That'll come to summat-that will." And it did indeed come to something, for they became bankrupt. Then there was the boy at school who "scrope out the 'p' in psalm," and when asked by his master for a reason, replied, "'Cos he didn't spell nothen."

Another day he would be reminded of a man with whom he had once made a joke about a donkey, and when the same man met him some time after, he said, referring to the story, "I do never see a donkey, sir, but what I do think o' you."

Another visitor was J. S. Udal, Esq., a barrister, who used to find time for a visit to the Rectory as often as his duties on circuit brought him near Came. Mr. Udal was of some assistance to the Dorset poet in sending him new words for the Glossary, which was

always enlarging itself under his hand, and he returned the service by collecting legends and superstitions for Mr. Udal's contemplated work on the Folk-lore of Dorsetshire, for which, nearly ten years later, Barnes, at his request, wrote an introduction. Folk-lore was to him one of the most interesting subjects of investigation, and a long letter from an American correspondent, dated Yarmouth, Port Mass., February 2nd, 1874, proves how far he had gone in studying it in its historical and international aspect. The American— Mr. Amos Otis-gives him a most interesting comparison of the "folk-games" of the country people in Massachusetts with those of Dorset, proving them to be so similar as to add evidence to the connection between the American and English Dorchesters. There are the "Quaker dance," "Thread the Needle," "Queen Anne," and others, of which the words are nearly identical in both countries. It gave William Barnes great regret that these old games are dying out, for he found them of much value in the international study of Folk-lore. Barnes did not by any means confine his researches in languages to the Teuton and Saxon. In a letter to one of his daughters, dated December, 1877, he said: “I am sure you like to know what I am doing in matters of lore. I have sought, and feel sure I have found, the cause of a phenomenon in Celtic speech,' and find that the Professor of Celtic at Oxford (Professor Rhys) has been at work on the same problem, and reached the same outcome. He has now seen my paper, and I have seen his, and in his letter to me he sets me on a level

1 This was a key to the word-moulding, peculiarity of Celtic. Zeuss, a German, had also an insight into it.

with himself. He says: 'It is so much in favour of those views, I think, that two men working independently should have elaborated them.' It gives a useful key to Celtic speech, as Welsh, British, and others. He asks me to continue my Celtic studies."

In answer to a question from this daughter, he wrote a long letter on the Runic characters, and their peculiarly angular shape, so suitable for cutting with a knife on the four-sided rods.

To another, who was at the time much interested in Etruscan antiquities and languages, he shows himself nearly as deeply versed in Etruscan lore as he was in British and Saxon-evolving the name "Tosca" or "Hetrusca" from its earliest roots, and going into their history and origin.

He says: "You are ahead of me with your historian Xanthus. I do not know of him. Where have you read of his works? As Herodotus is called the Father, we might call him the Grandfather of History. Herodotus is very trustworthy on what he tells you of his own knowledge, and his formerly so-thought fibs are found, on our wider knowledge of the world, to be true. He said that in India wool grew on trees, and he was thought very naughty for speaking thus of what we call cotton." The letter then goes on to quote Strabo, Herodotus, and Dionysius, &c., as to the origin of the Etruscans. A further correspondence led to his being supplied with Sardinian books, for he thought it might help him to discover the key to that mysterious language (the Etruscan), which Niebuhr said "he would give forty years of life to find."

In January 1875, he wrote: "I have not yet had

much time to work on the Sardinian speech-form with Etruscan. I suppose that the Sardinian shapes of words, as they differ by Grimm's Law from the Latin ones, might have been owing to the taking of Latin on the speech-laws of another tongue, and that if that tongue were Etruscan, then, since for one case the Sardinian had 'Vaddi' for 'Vallis,' 'd' for 'l,' so would I see if, by turning the 'd' of Etruscan into 'l,' I could find Etruscan words to have been akin to Latin But, alas! it seems to me at the outset that ‘d' is not at all common in Etruscan. Why, your collection is becoming one of the lions of Florence, when wise men come from north as well as west to see it."

ones.

In March of the same year he had given up this clue as a false one, and wrote: Tell T., with my love, that I hope he will not take any more trouble about the Sardinian Grammar. I see the shape of the Sardinian speech, as far as it is an offshoot of the Latin, and do not find in it any clue to the Etruscan. I think that Mr. Taylor is not quite on the true grounds, although he has shown some clever thoughts. The two versions of an inscription, as it was lately read by two men, were about as much alike as the first verse of "God Save the Queen" is to that of the Old Hundredth Psalm. I have thought that the Etruscan might be of kindred to the Coptic, but I have not tried it by some Coptic that I have. I do not believe that the words of the inscription you send are mostly at full length. Do write an essay on 'Etruscan Goldsmithing,' as T. has so good a gathering of their work," &c.

1 Isaac Taylor's theory was that the Etruscans were a branch of the Ugric or Tartar (nomadic) race.

But neither did the Coptic prove to be the key, and the mystery of ages is still locked up. I believe the Etruscan is the only philological puzzle which has entirely baffled William Barnes's mind, and the wish he expressed, "I should like to push back the veil from over the face of that venerable matron, the Lingua Etrusca," remained unfulfilled to him, as it had been to Micali, Lanzi, Niebuhr, and others before him. I give the remainder of the same letter, though on a totally different subject, for the advice he gives his correspondent is such a good illustration of his own feeling and practice in writing:-"Try your hand on the Essay on Education of Women.' Don't be careful to make it either long or short, but when you have good matter in your mind, pour it forth. Put no padding to lengthen it. There is no life in padding, as you know by men or women who eke out their shapes by cotton or wool.

"Do not begin with the thought, either, that the minds of the man and woman are of the same cast, or that one is higher than the other; neither is the higher, but they differ that each may be the best for its mission, and each has that which the other lacks, and both make together the one full mind of mankind.

"Thank Tom for the newspapers. The opening of the sarcophagus of the Medici was very interesting; but why was it needful to handle and undo what was left of the bodies? Is the simple weight of the brain a sure measure of a man's power of mind? Is not 'suchness' as well as muchness,' of some weight? Is a pound and a half of coarse brain a mark of higher mind than a pound of very fine heading? Is a bull or a donkey more clever than Dolly's doggie Cara?