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 "Bloomfield followed his original calling of a shoemaker at No. 14 Great Bell-yard, Coleman Street."-MURRAY'S London, p. 135. 2 Editor of the "Aphorisms from Shakspeare," and other works. The approbation first bestowed has steadily continued, nothwithstanding the contemptuous 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.' 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; A friendly tripod forms their humble seat, With pails bright scour'd, and delicately sweet; LAMBS AT PLAY. Spring, 1. 181. Say, ye that know, ye who have felt and seen The following is the beautiful tribute to his memory by Bernard Barton:- 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? Though frantic ewes may mourn the savage deed, 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, Her form, her motion, undistinguish'd quite, Save when she wheels direct from shade to light: Delicious sleep! From sleep who could forbear, Summer, 1. 63. THE BLIND CHILD. Where's the blind child so admirably fair, "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, News from the Farm. THE DISTRACTED FEMALE.? -Naught her rayless melancholy cheers, Clasping her knees, and waving to and fro; A piteous mourner by the pathway side. Some tufted molehill through the livelong day She calls her throne; there weeps her life away: His well-timed step, and takes a silent gaze, Till sympathetic drops unbidden start, And pangs quick springing muster round his heart; And fain would catch her sorrow's plaintive sound: Fair promised sunbeams of terrestrial bliss, To stay the tottering step, the features trace; "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. |