SOURCE: "The Language of Speech: Relph and Barnes," in The Rural Muse: Studies in the Peasant Poetry of England, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1954, pp. 143-64.

In the following excerpt, Unwin investigates Barnes's philological writings and describes the "pastoral simplicity" of his dialect poetry.

Except as a forerunner [Josiah] Relph is of little importance compared with the greatest English dialect poet, William Barnes. It happened that Barnes was born in the first year of the nineteenth century, but the dates of his life and works are singularly irrelevant in considering his poetry. He was as isolated and independent of external influence as any poet that has ever written. The sea of faith might ebb or flow, passions might be stirred and intellects perplexed, but Barnes continued to live a tranquil and happy life in the Vale of Blackmore. Dorsetshire was his microcosm, and the intellectual isolation in which...