SOURCE: "William Barnes and His Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect," in William Barnes of Dorset, by Giles Dugdale, Cassell and Co. Ltd., 1953, pp. 245-66.

In the following essay, a lecture originally delivered by Palgrave in 1886 and published with brief editorial comments by Giles Dugdale in 1953, Palgrave offers his assessment of Barnes's dialect poetry and his "reasons, both why Barnes has not gained popularity, and … why he deserves it."

Professor Palgrave began by giving an outline of William Barnes' life and then continued:

I will now first try to define the general aims and characteristics of Barnes as a poet, in as few words as possible, wishing to leave his work to speak for itself; which, indeed, if we approach with hearts at once unbiassed and sensitive, is the one and only way of gaining the pleasure inherent in all true poetry. Like Theocritus, Vergil, Tasso...