In 1814 the regiment was disembodied, when he again returned to the stocking-loom, and for several years entirely neglected composition. In 1817 he was placed on the staff of his old regiment, now the Royal Sherwood Foresters; and in the following year became a married man. The cares of providing for a family now increased his necessities; he began seriously to reflect on his future prospects in life; and perceiving he had no other chance of bettering his condition than by a publication, and not having sufficient already written to form a volume, he resolved to attempt something of greater magnitude and importance than he had hitherto done; and in February, 1819, began the poem of “Vicissitude.” The reader will easily conceive that such a theme required some knowledge of natural and moral philosophy, of history, and of the vital principles of religion. How far he has succeeded in this poem is not for me to say; but certain it is, as may be expected from the narrowness of his education, and his confined access to books, his knowledge is very superficial: however, with unceasing exertions, sometimes composing while at work under the pressure of poverty and ill-health, and at other times, when released from his daily labour, encroaching upon the hours which ought to have been allotted to sleep, by the end of October, 1820, the work was brought to a conclusion.

To his brother’s narrative should be added, that Robert Millhouse’s “Vicissitude,” and other poems, struggled into the world with great difficulty, and were succeeded by the volume of “Blossoms.” The impression of both was small, their sale slow, and their price low; and nearly as soon as each work was disposed of, the produce was exhausted by the wants of the author and his family.

Fresh and urgent necessities have required fresh exertions, and the result is “The Song of the Patriot, Sonnets, and Songs,” a four-shilling volume, “printed for the Author and sold by R. Hunter, St. Paul’s Church-yard, and J. Dunn, Nottingham.” The book appeared in the autumn of last year, after poor Millhouse had suffered much privation from the bad state of the times. It was published with a slender list of subscribers—only seventy-seven!—and, though intended to improve his situation, has scarcely defrayed the bills of the stationer and printer.

The author of “The Song of the Patriot” anticipated the blight of his efforts. In the commencement of that poem, he says:—

—— ’Tis difficult for little men
To raise their feeble pigmy heads so high,
As to attract the glance of passing ken
Where giant shoulders intercept the sky;
And ah! ’tis difficult for such as I,
To wake fit strains where mighty minstrels sing;
Perhaps, even this, shall but be born and die:
Not fated to enjoy a second spring,
But like some hawk-struck bird, expire on new-fledg’d wing.

In this poem there are stanzas expressed with all a poet’s fire, and all a patriot’s heartfelt devotion to his country.

Land of my fathers! may thy rocky coast
Long be the bulwark of thy free-born race;
Long may thy patriots have just cause to boast
That mighty Albion is their native place;
Still be thy sons unequall’d in the chase
Of glory, be it science, arts, or arms;
And first o’erweening conquerors to disgrace;
Yet happier far, when Peace in all her charms,
Drives out from every land the din of war’s alarms.

Potent art thou in poesy—Yet there still
Is one thing which the bard hath seldom scann’d;
That national, exalting local thrill,
Which makes our home a consecrated land:
’Tis not enough to stretch the Muses’ wand
O’er states, where thy best blood has purchas’d fame;
Nor that thy fertile genius should expand
To cast o’er foreign themes the witching flame:
This hath thy lyre perform’d, and won a glorious name.

Be every hill and dale, where childhood wanders,
And every grove and nook, the lover knows,
And every stream, and runlet that meanders,
And every plain that covers freedom’s foes
The dwelling-place of Song,—and where repose
The great immortal worthies of our isle
Be hallow’d ground—and when the pilgrim goes
To hail the sacred dust, and muse awhile,
Be heard the free-born strain to blanch the tyrant’s smile.