Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/84

 pathy, on the other hand, was always that of the fellow-worker and fellow-sufferer, no matter how clear-sighted and aristocratic he remained within himself.

The Dorset language itself has been enshrined with both exactness and artistic feeling in the "dialect" verse written by the Rev. William Barnes of Winterbourne. Hardy's interests in the past and present of the country, of the people and of the speech of Wessex, as well as in the art of poetry in and for itself, were united in his enthusiasm for the figure and work of this remarkable poet. Born in 1800, Barnes had lived his whole life among the Wessex folk; like Hardy he had become enamored of the ancient dialect, had learnt to penetrate into the highways and byways of the rural heart, and, like Hardy again, had easily won the admiration of his country parishioners through his deep sympathy and keen insight into their ways, which he could at will adopt as his own, and make the feelings and expressions of the peasant a part of himself. It is said that his most appreciative audiences did not consist of cultivated readers, charmed with the "quaintness" and "naivete" of his dialect lyrics, but of the users of the dialect themselves, delighted with the truthfulness and naturalness of his poetry and of his manner of reading it.

Although well equipped to apply himself to the evolution, grammar and etymology of the Dorset language with all the scientific intensity of the professional philologer, he seems to have been able to retain the simple