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 considering, will find some difference in able attention. Here the first exregard to dates, which have been ertions of his muse were registerobtained 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 political garb. He continued to exercise the trade of a shoemaker, in which he met with numerous obstacles from not having been regularly apprenticed, when chance threw in his way "Paradise Lost," and "Thomson's Seasons." From the last he caught the idea of his

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 number was augmented by the issue of a second marriage. At the age of eleven he was placed in the house of her relative, Mr. Austin, at an adjoining village, called Stapleton, from whence he was removed to London in June, 1781, to the care of his brother, John Bloomfield, a shoemaker, who undertook his maintenance and instruction in his trade, while Nathaniel, another brother, who exercised the calling of a tailor, undertook to provide him with clothes.

Farmer's Boy," and conceived and wrote the chief part of that beautiful and celebrated poem, while working amid the din of six or seven men engaged in a similar avocation to his own.

From the success of the "Farmer's Boy," he was induced to

His brother resided at No. 7, attempt other works, and his Pitcher's Court, Coleman-street," Rural Tales," "Wild Flowers," and worked with four other shoe- and subsequent works, added to makers in a garret. The situa- his domestic comforts (occasiontion of Robert was for some time ally afflicted with illness and the little superior to that of an errand cares of family,) and increased boy. By the use of a few odd his literary fame. He quitted the

drudgery of trade, and resided for some time in the City Road, where he manufactured and sold Eolian harps. Among his numerous admirers and patrons was the Duke of Grafton, who procured him a situation connected with the re-,

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,

ceipt of money for stamps on Bedfordshire. The residence is wills, and the legacy duty. This a neat red-brick fronted house, being utterly remote to his dispo- containing six rooms, and a small sition, he soon relinquished, and garden; the surrounding scenery retired to Shefford, where he pre- is well adapted to an admirer of duced his "May Day with the rural life. Bloomfield's residence Muses," "Hazlewood Hall," and here was at the suggestion 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 song— selves.

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."

STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

How solemnly, how slowly tolls

The knell of death-its sounds of gloom

Too plainly tells us that it rolls,

An awful passport to the tomb. Mourn, mourn, ye Muses! once again, For death is heralding away Another of your tuneful train,

To realms of bliss and endless day. There, there, to strike his hallowed lyre,

With all the countless sons of song; While we, alas! no more must hear

The melting music of his tongue.

Death came and claim'd him of our Spain, touched at Malta and Sicily,

"Twere hard to say who fared the

best;

Sad mortals, thus the Gods still plague you! He lost his labour, I my jest: For he was drown'd, and I've the ague."

After an absence of nearly three years, Lord Byron revisited his native shores, and exhibited the

is such, that no boat can row in directly across; and it may some measure be estimated, from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other, in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the melting advantages of travelling in his of the mountain snows. About | Childe Harold," the plan of three weeks before, we had made which was laid in Albania and an attempt; but having ridden all prosecuted at Athens, where it the way from the Troad the same received some of its finest touches morning, and the water being of and most splendid ornaments. an icy chillness, we found it neces- It soon appeared that his Lordsary to postpone the completion ship had a great facility of writing. till the frigate anchored below the He published in rapid succession castles, when we swam the straits, the Giaour, the Bride of Abydos, as just stated, entering a consi- and the Corsair, the first inscribderable way above the European, ed to Mr. Rogers, the second to and landing below the Asiatic, Lord Holland, and the third to fort. Chevalier says, that a | Mr. Thomas Moore. The spirit young Jew swam the same dis-and brilliancy of all these poems tance for his mistress; and Oliver were great. In the dedication of mentions its having been done by the "Corsair," he said it was the a Neapolitan; but our Consul at Tarragona remembered neither of those circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crewed to keep, and are easily excused were known to have accomplished for breaking.

last production with which he should trespass on public patience for some years—a sort of promise which poets are not much expect

a greater distance and the only On the 2nd of January, 1815, thing that surprised me was, that Lord Byron married at Seham, in as doubts had been entertained of the county of Durham, the only of the truth of Leander's story, no daughter of Sir Ralph Milbank traveller had endeavoured to ascer- Noel, Baronet, and towards the tain its practicability."

close of the

same year,

his

The result of this notable adven-Lady brought him a daughter, ture Lord Byron recorded in some for whom he always manifested lively lines, comparing himself the strongest affection. Within a with Leander, and concluding few weeks, however, after that thus:event, a separation took place, for

I would not bear a seraph choir,
Unless that voice could join the rest.
There is a face who blushes tell

Affection's tale "pon the cheek;
But pallid at one fond farewell,

Proclaims more love than words can speak.

There is a lip which mine hath prest,

And none had ever pressed before;
It vowed to make me sweetly blest,
And mine, mine only press it more.
There is a bosom----all my own----
Hath pillow'd oft this aching head;
A mouth which smiles on me alone,
An eye whose tears with mine are
shed.
There are two hearts whose move-
ments thrill

In unison so closely sweet!
That pulse to pulse responsive still,
That both must heave---or cease to

There are two souls whose equal flow,
In gentle streams so calmly run,
That when they part----they part !----
ah, no!

They canuot part---those souls are
one."

Within a few weeks, however, after the separation took place,, Lord Byron suddenly left the kingdom with a resolution never