ROBERT BLOOMFIELD, 1766-1823.

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD, the author of "The Farmer's Boy," was the son of a tailor at Harrington, in Suffolk, and was born on the 3d of December, 1766. At the early age of eleven, he was literally the Farmer's Boy of his own poem, being placed with a Mr. Austin, a farmer, at Sapiston, in Suffolk. In this situation, which he has so accurately described, and where he first imbibed his enthusiastic attachment to the charms of nature, he continued for two years and a half, when he was apprenticed to his brother George, a shoemaker, in London. His principal occupation was to wait upon the journeymen, and in his intervals of leisure he read the newspaper, and was soon able to comprehend and admire the speeches of Burke, Fox, and other statesmen of the day. A perusal of some poetry in the "London Magazine" led to his earliest attempts at verse, which he sent to a newspaper, under the title of "The Milkmaid," and "The Sailor's Return."

In 1784, to avoid the consequences of some unpleasant disputes among his brethren of the trade, he retired for two months to the country, and was received by his former master, Mr. Austin, with the kindest hospitality. It is to this event we owe the composition of his admirable poem; "and here," observes his brother, "with his mind glowing with the fine descriptions of rural scenery which he found in Thomson's Seasons,' he again retraced the very fields where he began to think. Here, free from the smoke, the noise, the contention of the city, he imbibed that love of rural simplicity and rural innocence which fitted him, in a great degree, to be the writer of such a thing as 'The Farmer's Boy.'"

After this visit to his native fields, he recommenced his business as a ladies' shoemaker in London, and shortly after married a young woman by the name of Church. He then hired a room in Bell Alley, Coleman Street,' and worked in the garret of the house. It was here, in the midst of six or seven other workmen, he composed the main part of his celebrated poem. Two or three publishers to whom he first offered it, learning his occupation and seeing him so poorly clad, refused it with almost contempt. But at length it reached the hands of Capel Lofft, Esq., who sent it with the strongest recommendations to Mr. Hill, the proprietor of the "Monthly Mirror," who negotiated the sale of the poem with the publishers, Verner and Hood. These gentlemen acted with great liberality toward Bloomfield, to their honor be it said, by voluntarily giving him two hundred pounds in addition to the fifty pounds originally stipulated for his poem, and by securing to him a portion of the copyright. Immediately on its appearance, it was received with the greatest applause from all quarters, the most eminent critics3 coming out warmly in its praise; and within three years after its publication twenty-six thousand copies of it were sold.

His good fortune, which, he said, appeared to him as a dream, enabled him to

1 "Bloomfield followed his original calling of a shoemaker at No. 14 Great Bell-yard, Coleman Street."-MURRAY'S London, p. 135.

Editor of the "Aphorisms from Shakspeare," and other works.

The approbation first bestowed has steadily continued, nothwithstanding the contemptu ous derision of Byron in his "English Bards." But malignant sneers at Bloomfield are more sure to injure the lampooner than the lampooned.

remove to a more comfortable habitation; but though he continued working at his trade, he did not neglect the cultivation of his poetical talents. His fame was increased by the subsequent publication of "Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs," "Good Tidings, or News from the Farm," "Wild Flowers," and "Banks of the Wye." But an indiscriminate liberality toward his numerous poor relations, together with a growing family, brought him into pecuniary difficulties, which, added to long-continued ill health, so preyed upon his mind that he was reduced at last to a state little short of insanity. He died at Shefford, August 19, 1823, at the age of fifty-seven.1

The best poems of Bloomfield are "The Farmer's Boy," "Wild Flowers," and several of the "Ballads and Tales." It is enough to say in praise of them that they have received the warmest commendations of such critics as James Montgomery, Dr. Nathan Drake, Southey, and Sir Egerton Brydges. The author's amiable disposition and benevolence pervade the whole of his compositions. There is an artless simplicity, a virtuous rectitude of sentiment, an exquisite sensibility to the beautiful, which cannot fail to gratify every one who respects moral excellence, and loves the delightful scenes of country life.

The "Farmer's Boy" is divided into four books, named from the four seasons. The introductory account, in "Spring," of Giles' (as the "Farmer's Boy" is called) going out to his early morning work, is followed by a description of

MILKING.

Forth comes the maid, and like the morning smiles;
The mistress too, and follow'd close by Giles.

A friendly tripod forms their humble seat,

With pails bright scour'd, and delicately sweet;
Where shadowing elms obstruct the morning ray,
Begins their work, begins the simple lay;
The full-charged udder yields its willing streams,
While Mary sings some lover's amorous dreams;
And crouching Giles beneath a neighboring tree
Tugs o'er his pail, and chants with equal glee;
Whose hat with tatter'd brim, of nap so bare,
From the cow's side purloins a coat of hair,
A mottled ensign of his harmless trade,
An unambitious, peaceable cockade.

Spring, 1. 181.

LAMBS AT PLAY.

Say, ye that know, ye who have felt and seen
Spring's morning smiles, and soul-enlivening green,

The following is the beautiful tribute to his memory by Bernard Barton:-
It is not quaint and local terms
Besprinkled o'er thy rustic lay,
Though well such dialect confirms

Its power unletter'd minds to sway;

But 'tis not these that most display

Thy sweetest charms, thy gentlest thrall

Words, phrases, fashions pass away,

But Truth and Nature live through all.

Say, did you give the thrilling transport way?
Did your eye brighten, when young lambs at play
Leap'd o'er your path with animated pride,
Or grazed in merry clusters by your side?
Ye who can smile, to wisdom no disgrace,
At the arch meaning of a kitten's face;
If spotless innocence, and infant mirth,
Excites to praise, or give reflection birth;
In shades like these pursue your favorite joy,
Midst Nature's revels, sports that never cloy;
A few begin a short but vigorous race,
And indolence abash'd soon flies the place:
Thus challenged forth, see thither, one by one,
From every side assembling playmates run;
A thousand wily antics mark their stay,
A starting crowd, impatient of delay.
Like the fond dove, from fearful prison freed,
Each seems to say, "Come, let us try our speed;"
Away they scour, impetuous, ardent, strong,
The green turf trembling as they bound along;
Adown the slope, then up the hillock climb,
Where every molehill is a bed of thyme;
There panting stop; yet scarcely can refrain;
A bird, a leaf, will set them off again;
Or, if a gale with strength unusual blow,
Scattering the wildbrier roses into snow,
Their little limbs increasing efforts try,
Like the torn flower the fair assemblage fly.
Ah, fallen rose! sad emblem of their doom;
Frail as thyself, they perish while they bloom!
Though unoffending innocence may plead,

Though frantic ewes may mourn the savage deed,
Their shepherd comes, a messenger of blood,

And drives them bleating from their sports and food.

Spring, 1. 309.

Giles, having fatigued himself by his endeavors to frighten a host of sparrows from the wheat-ears, retires to repose beneath the friendly shelter of some projecting boughs; and, while with head upon the ground he is gazing upon the heavens, he suddenly hears

THE SKYLARK.

Just starting from the corn she cheerly sings,
And trusts with conscious pride her downy wings;
Still louder breathes, and in the face of day
Mounts up, and calls on Giles to mark her way.
Close to his eyes his hat he instant bends,
And forms a friendly telescope, that lends
Just aid enough to dull the glaring light,
And place the wandering bird before his sight;
Yet oft beneath a cloud she sweeps along,
Lost for a while, yet pours her varied song.
He views the spot, and as the cloud moves by,
Again she stretches up the clear blue sky;

Her form, her motion, undistinguish'd quite,
Save when she wheels direct from shade to light:
The fluttering songstress a mere speck became,
Like fancy's floating bubbles in a dream:
He sees her yet, but, yielding to repose,
Unwittingly his jaded eyelids close.

Delicious sleep! From sleep who could forbear,
With no more guilt than Giles, and no more care?
Peace o'er his slumbers waves her guardian wing,
Nor conscience once disturbs him with a sting;
He wakes refresh'd from every trivial pain,
And takes his pole and brushes round again.'

Summer, 1. 63.

THE BLIND CHILD.

Where's the blind child so admirably fair,
With guileless dimples, and with flaxen hair
That waves in every breeze? He's often seen
Beyond yon cottage wall, or on the green
With others, match'd in spirit and in size,
Health in their cheeks and rapture in their eyes.
That full expanse of voice, to children dear,
Soul of their sports, is duly cherish'd here.
And hark! that laugh is his-that jovial cry-
He hears the ball and trundling hoop brush by,
And runs the giddy course with all his might—
A very child in every thing but sight-
With circumscribed, but not abated powers,
Play the great object of his infant hours.
In many a game he takes a noisy part,
And shows the native gladness of his heart;
But soon he hears, on pleasure all intent,
The new suggestion, and the quick assent;
The grove invites delight, thrills every breast
To leap the ditch, and seek the downy nest.
Away they start, leave balls and hoops behind,
And one companion leave-the boy is blind!
His fancy paints their distant paths so gay,
That childish fortitude awhile gives way;
He feels his dreadful loss-yet short the pain-
Soon he resumes his cheerfulness again.
Pondering how best his moments to employ,
He sings his little songs of nameless joy,

"The most beautiful part in the description of this bird, and which is at once curiously faithful and expressively harmonious, I have copied in italics. Milton and Thomson have both introduced the flight of the skylark, the first with his accustomed spirit and sublimity; but probably no poct has surpassed, either in fancy or expression, the following prose narrative of Dr. Goldsmith, in his History of the Earth and Animated Nature:- Nothing,' observes he, can be more pleasing than to see the lark warbling upon the wing, raising its note as it soars, until it seems lost in the immense heights above us; the note continuing, the bird itself unseen; to see it then descending with a swell as it comes from the clouds, yet sinking by degrees as it approaches its nest, the spot where all its affections are centredthe spot that has prompted all this joy. This description of the descent of the bird, and of the pleasures of its little nest, is conceived in a strain of the most exquisite delicacy and feeling."-DR. DRAKE.

Creeps on the warm green turf for many an hour,
And plucks, by chance, the white and yellow flower;
Smoothing their stems, while resting on his knees,
He binds a nosegay which he never sees;
Along the homeward path then feels his way,
Lifting his brow against the shining day,
And, with a joyful rapture round his eyes,
Presents a sighing parent with the prize!'

News from the Farm.

THE DISTRACTED FEMALE.”

-Naught her rayless melancholy cheers,
Or soothes her breast, or stops her streaming tears.
Her matted locks unornamented flow,

Clasping her knees, and waving to and fro;
Her head bow'd down, her faded cheek to hide;
A piteous mourner by the pathway side.

Some tufted molehill through the livelong day
She calls her throne; there weeps her life away:
And oft the gayly-passing stranger stays
His well-timed step, and takes a silent gaze,
Till sympathetic drops unbidden start,

And pangs quick springing muster round his heart;
And soft he treads with other gazers round,

And fain would catch her sorrow's plaintive sound:
One word alone is all that strikes the ear,
One short, pathetic, simple word—" O dear!"
A thousand times repeated to the wind,
That wafts the sigh, but leaves the pang behind!
For ever of the proffer'd parley shy,
She hears the unwelcome foot advancing nigh;
Nor quite unconscious of her wretched plight,
Gives one sad look, and hurries out of sight.—

Fair promised sunbeams of terrestrial bliss,
Health's gallant hopes-and are ye sunk to this?
For in life's road, though thorns abundant grow,
There still are joys poor Poll can never know;
Joys which the gay companions of her prime
Sip, as they drift along the stream of time;
At eve to hear beside their tranquil home
The lifted latch, that speaks the lover come:
That love matured, next playful on the knee
To press the velvet lip of infancy;

To stay the tottering step, the features trace;
Inestimable sweets of social peace!

"When we consider the circumstances under which the early poetry of Bloomfield was composed-in a bare grim garret, by a feeble-constitutioned man approaching middle life, and amid the fatigues of mechanical labor, which yet scarcely sufficed to satisfy the clamant necessities of a wife and three children-The Farmer's Boy' ought not to be regarded otherwise than as a wonderful production. Few are its errors in taste, either as to matter or manner; and its style is simple, chaste, unaffected, nay, occasionally elegant."-D. M. MOIR. "It presents as finished a specimen of versification as can be extracted from the pages of our most polished poets; and its pathos is such as to require no comment of mine."DRAKE'S Literary Hours, ii. 467.