GRANT me, kind Heaven! to call mine own, A little cottage, overgrown Let a clear spring refreshing run, May thickly sweep its mimic billows, O'er some wild common's calm expanse Whose kind, approving looks might be want. HOME Oh! 'tis sweet to retire from the world and its wiles, And renounce all life's idle inducements to roam; To fly from its tumults, to court not its smiles, 'Why so good dame?' the sage replied, "Because you'd love me then," she cried. 'Why that might be,' he straight rejoin'd, 'But 'twould depend upon the kind'An Almanack, for instance, dear, 'To have a new one every year.' FROM THE ITALIAN OF PANANTI. “Pentiti a un dissoluto moribondo,” And centre our joys in the circle at To the sick patient on his bed. "Repent, my son," a friar said home. "I saw the demon on the watch At the stairs' foot thy soul to catch." "What was he like?" the sick man cried : "Why like an ass," the monk replied. "An ass!" the sick man mutter'd, "Pshaw! 'Twas your own shadow that you saw." To the Editor of the Oxford Entertaining Miscellany. SIR, Having read your Paper respecting the publishing of the Oxford Entertaining Miscellany, I beg to acquaint you that I am highly pleased with your laudable design, and that I think the Work admirably adapted to afford entertainment and instruction to its readers. If, Mr. Editor, the Subscribers to your Publication will take the trouble to transmit to you any beautiful quotation they may happen to meet with in the course of their reading, or a brilliant thought of their own, the Oxford Entertaining Miscellany will form an highly pleasing companion at the breakfast table for its wit, and furnish subjects for consideration during more deliberate hours. Let this therefore serve as a respectful invitation to the Oxonians to con tribute by their abilities and accomplishments to the promotion of your praise-worthy views. am, Mr. Editor, Holywell, Oxford, June 7th, 1824. [Printed and Published by F. Trash, Oxford. BLOOMFIELD THE POET. volumes and attending the lectures of the late Rev. Mr. Fawcett, of the Old Jewry, he imbibed a thirst for literature, and obtained a knowledge of geography and history; paid some attention to music and drawing, to the latter of which The following brief sketch may not be unacceptable to many of our readers unacquainted with the history of this Poet of Nature; and others to whom his published memoirs have been highly gratify-he afterwards devoted consider, ing, will find some difference in regard to dates, which have been able attention. Here the first exertions of his muse were register obtained from indisputable au-ed in the poet's corner of a Mornthority. ing Paper; but they were not written exactly at the early age which Mr. George Bloomfield has assigned in his letter to Mr. Capel Lofft. He was in his 20th year when they appeared, though previously he had made some slight attempts to array his ideas in a Robert Bloomfield was born in the village of Honington, near Euston, Suffolk, December 3, 1766. He was the son of a tailor, whose death, by the small pox ere our poet attained the age of twelve months, left his wife with six children unprovided for, and the num-political garb. He continued to ber was augmented by the issue exercise the trade of a shoemaker, of a second marriage. At the age in which he met with numerous of eleven he was placed in the obstacles from not having been house of her relative, Mr. Austin, regularly apprenticed, when chance at an adjoining village, called threw in his way "Paradise Lost," Stapleton, from whence he was and Thomson's Seasons." From removed to London in June, 1781, the last be caught the idea of his to the care of his brother, John "Farmer's Boy," and conceived Bloomfield, a shoemaker, who un- and wrote the chief part of that dertook his maintenance and in- beautiful and celebrated poem, struction in his trade, while Na- while working amid the din of thaniel, another brother, who ex-six or seven men engaged in a ercised the calling of a tailor, similar avocation to his own. undertook to provide him with clothes. His brother resided at No. 7, Pitcher's Court, Coleman-street, and worked with four other shoemakers in a garret. The situation of Robert was for some time little superior to that of an errand boy, By the use of a few odd From the success of the "Farmer's Boy," he was induced to attempt other works, and his "Rural Tales," "Wild Flowers," and subsequent works, added to his domestic comforts (occasionally afflicted with illness and the cares of family,) and increased his literary fame. He quitted the C drudgery of trade, and resided for of her husband, a firm believer in the impositions of Joanna Southcote, but the unfortunate delusion has happily subsided. Shefford is a small, neat market town, forty-one miles distant from London, situated on the river Ivel, Bedfordshire. The residence is a neat red-brick fronted house, containing six rooms, and a small garden; the surrounding scenery is well adapted to an admirer of rural life. Bloomfield's residence here was at the suggestiou of a other works; but his health, which friend. He appears to have been had been gradually declining, pro- much esteemed by the females of duced a painful illness, of which the place, who quote frequently he'died, in August, 1823, in em- his "Richard and Kate," "Milbarrassed circumstances, and was ler's Maid," "Broken Crutch," buried in the church-yard of and other productions; but the Campton, one mile distant from male residents, who are not much his house, there being no burial 'ground in Shefford, without a stone to mark the spot of his remains, leaving four children, who are ́grown up, and fortunately possess mer pursuits, and imply in the the means of providing for them-language of the songselves. His widow having administered to his effects, became pressed for the payment of his debts, and a compromise was entered into connected with certain copywrights and arrangements with booksellers, from which the creditors have received a dividend of seven shillings and sixpence in the pound, as a full acquittal of all -demands. She is about fifty-five years of age, of a respectable and decent appearance, and was for some time previous to the death prone to poetry, while they admit and commend his placid and unassuming deportment, seem to lament his want of success in for "That learning is not half so good as leather." All shall lament thee, Nature's bard- In weeping with the "Farmer's The rustic and untutor'd "Giles," Whose face, adorned with honest smiles, Laughs at and scorns improvement's rules, Shall check his glee, as in the vale The tear shall start in "Walter's eye, And June, alas! shall vainly weep! Phabe and George no more be gay, Ev'n aged Richard's mirth shall sleep. For he is gone who call'd them forth, His name is all now we possess ; Death came and claim'd him of our earth, With all his stern relentlessness. Time show'd his glass-the sands run down, Spoke in a language far too plain; He pointed to "its conic crown," But would not "turn it up again." Let Nature then descend in showers, LORD BYRON. (Continued from page 8.) Yet all this giddy waste of years, fears, These thoughtless strains to pas sion's measures. no se. 1 conquer half my bosom's sadness.” On arriving at the age of man- If thou wert mine, had all been hush'd; For then it beat but to adore thee. one. The rapidity of the current |