William Holloway, Dorset Poet, On Rural Life (1802)

On William Holloway  (Dorset Ancestors)

The Peasants Fate: A Rural Poem. With Miscellaneous Poems (1802)

William Holloway

From the Preface:

The changes in rural life and manners, which have taken place in this country, in the course of a few years, furnish ample matter for reflection and regret. The spirit of avarice and monopoly has possessed almost all rank and degrees of people, and appears to have rendered the heart callous to the feelings of humanity. The drift of this little attempt is principally designed, (without adverting to political argument,) to shadow forth the evils arising to the peasantry of this country, from the system of engrossing small farms, and driving the hereditary occupiers to the necessity of embracing a maritime or military life for support, or being reduced to the most abject state of dependence, and submitting to the galling hardship of becoming servants on the spot where they once had been masters.

The introduction and progress of luxury, have likewise materially affected the comforts of the lower orders of society and though our refinements may have advanced trade and commerce, these cannot effectually counterbalance the injury done to husbandry and agriculture, which hare been very properly called the natural sources of the riches of every nation.

The character of this Poem is purely English ; the good sense of the present age having prevailed over ancient prepossession, in favour of far-fetched subjects, of the Arcadian cast, which have to boast neither of nature nor truth. Shepherds and shepherdesses, in a state of perfect happiness, bowers of unfading bliss, and streams of inexhaustable pleasure, exist no longer, but in the wild vagaries of Imagination; and the majority of mankind has become weary of following her through long labyrinths, which resemble " passages that lead to nothing".

See complete poem here

Scenes of Youth

Note on the engrossing of farms (from Large and Small Holdings: A Study of English Agricultural Economics by Hermann Levy, 1911, 1966)

From Radipole: A Familiar Ballad

Far shining down the deep-green vales,
 Methinks, the wand'ring WEY I trace,
Beside whose willowy borders fair
 I oft have rov'd, with idling pace;
And still, upon the neighb'ring slope,
 Where, o'er the lane, the thick elms spread,
I see a long remember'd cot
 Present its unambitious head...."


William Holloway, The Giant of Trendle Hill (The Cerne Abbas Giant)

Poems from The Minor Minstrel

See also William Crowe, Lewesdon Hill (1788)