[Illustration: ROBERT BLOOMFIELD]
Robert Bloomfield,
THE SHOEMAKER WHO WROTE "THE FARMER'S BOY."
"Crispin's sons
Have from uncounted time, with ale and buns,
Cherished the gift of song, which sorrow quells;
And, working single in their low-built cells,
Oft cheat the tedium of a winter's night
With anthems."
--CHARLES LAMB: _Album Verses_, 1830, p. 57.
"I have received many honorable testimonies of esteem from strangers;
letters without a name, but filled with the most cordial advice, and
almost parental anxiety for my safety under so great a share of public
applause. I beg to refer such friends to the great teacher, Time; and
hope that he will hereafter give me my deserts, and no more."--_Robert
Bloomfield, Preface to "Rural Tales_," Sept. 29, 1801.
"No pompous learning--no parade
Of pedantry and cumbrous lore,
On thy elastic bosom weigh'd;
Instead, were thine, a mazy store
Of feelings delicately wrought,
And treasures gleaned by silent thought.
"Obscurity, and low-born care,
Labor, and want--all adverse things,
Combined to bow thee to despair;
And of her young untutor'd wings
To rob thy Genius.--'Twas in vain:
With one proud soar she burst her chain!"
--_Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1823._
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.
We have now to speak of a shoemaker-poet. The name of Robert Bloomfield,
the author of the "Farmer's Boy," is known and held in honor wherever
the English language is spoken. All classes of readers admire his
poetry, although it is not of the highest order of merit. It has,
however, a genuine quality which no one possessed of poetical taste can
fail to recognize. Its chief features are delightful rustic simplicity
and naturalness, faithful reflection of the beauties of nature, and the
charms which belong to rural occupations. The romantic side of the life
of a _farmer's boy_ is given in the poem bearing that name, as we have
it nowhere else in all our poetic or prose literature.
Bloomfield, though surrounded by the most unfavorable conditions, as a
writer of poetry seems to have experienced no difficulty in executing
his task. His was indeed a case in which the adage is well
illustrated--_poeta nascitur non fit_--a poet is born, not made. He was
born with the gift of song. It would have been difficult for him to
restrain its exercise. He made poetry, as the song-birds sing, by
instinct and irresistible impulse. For him the words are quite as true
as they are of the greater poet who wrote them,[30]
"I do but sing because I must,
And pipe but as the linnets sing."
[30] Tennyson, "In Memoriam," stanza xxi.
Robert Bloomfield was born and brought up in the lovely neighborhood of
Honington, Ixworth and Sapiston, in the northern part of the county of
Suffolk. An idea of the quiet beauty of the woodland scenery of Suffolk
may be obtained from the paintings of Gainsborough, another notable man
whom this county has produced. Gainsborough, as a boy full of yearnings
after art, loved to spend his time in the woods and pastures round
Sudbury, sketching trees, brooks, meadow-landscapes, cattle, shepherds,
or ploughmen at their work in the fields. He was at the height of his
fame as a painter when Bloomfield was a farmer's boy at Sapiston, on the
Grafton estate. It is interesting to know that these two Suffolk men
were contemporary, "the first truly original English painter," who took
his lessons direct from nature, and the first genuine poet of the
English farm and field.
Bloomfield's father was a tailor at Honington, near Bury St. Edmund's.
Robert was born in 1766. His father died at the end of the following
year, leaving Robert and five other children to the care of their
mother. She was a worthy, estimable woman, who managed by her own
unaided efforts not only to maintain her little family, but to give each
of her children the rudiments of an education. This she accomplished by
opening a school, and teaching her own children along with the rest.
With the exception of a few months' instruction in writing from a
schoolmaster at Ixworth, the future poet learned from his mother all he
knew when he left his home to earn his own living. This he did at the
age of eleven, his mother, who had married again, being no longer able
to keep him at home, or put him to a good school. His maternal uncle, a
Mr. Austin of Sapiston, agreed to take him as a boy about the farm, and
allow him to live in the house with the rest of the family. He appears
to have received no wages, his "board" being the only allowance made for
the work he did as a farmer's boy; and this could hardly be much at such
an age. He remained in this situation four years, until he was fifteen.
It was during these four years of boyhood he picked up the knowledge of
farm-life, and made the observations on the varied phases of nature and
the seasons which are delightfully interwoven in the four books of his
well-known poem, "The Farmer's Boy." How observant he must have been,
how eagerly he must have entered into the pleasures of rural life, how
keen must have been his boyish sense of the beautiful and romantic, may
be imagined by those who consider the circumstances in the midst of
which, in after-years, he composed that charming poem.
His mother had undertaken to provide him with clothing while with his
uncle at the farm; but this small expense was found to be too much for
her scanty means. Robert at that time had two brothers, George and
Nathaniel, living in London, and working, the one as a journeyman
shoemaker, and the other as a tailor. To them the anxious mother applied
for help in her difficulties, stating in her letter that Mr. Austin had
said Robert was so small and weakly, it was to be feared he would never
be able to obtain his living by hard out-door labor. The brothers at
once agreed to take him under their care, find him in food and clothing,
and teach him the craft of shoemaking until he should be able to obtain
his own livelihood. Full of solicitude for his safety and well-being,
the good woman took him up to London herself, and handed him over to the
guardianship of her two eldest sons, begging them, "as they valued a
mother's blessing, to watch over him, to set good examples for him, and
never to forget that he had lost his father."
George Bloomfield and his brother were then living at No. 7 Pitcher's
Court, Bell Alley, Coleman Street, in a garret which served both as
workshop and bedroom. The place was dingy and gloomy, and presented to
the bright, thoughtful Suffolk lad a mournful contrast to the pleasant
surroundings in the old farm-house at Sapiston. Nor could it have been a
very healthy abode, for _five_ workmen occupied the room during the day,
"clubbing together," after the fashion of such workmen in those days, to
lighten the burden of rent.
At first the new-comer was chiefly employed by the older men as their
errand-boy, being rewarded for his trouble by receiving lessons from the
workmen in the art of shoemaking. These men, like so many of their
craft, were of a thoughtful turn of mind, and very eager for the news of
the day. It had been their custom to have the yesterday's paper brought
in with their dinner by the pot-boy from a neighboring public-house.
Until Robert came they had been in the habit of reading it by turns, but
now, as his time was less valuable than theirs, the office of reader was
permanently handed over to him. This duty was of much service to him,
for the information he gained by reading disciplined his young mind to
close and continuous thought, and enlarged his knowledge of his own
language. The simple account, given by his brother George, of these
social readings in the cobblers' workroom, and other means of
instruction of which Robert availed himself, is full of interest. George
Bloomfield says: "He frequently met with words that he was unacquainted
with; of this he often complained. I one day happened at a book-stall to
see a small dictionary which had been very ill-used. I bought it for him
for fourpence. By the help of this he in a little time could read and
comprehend the long and beautiful speeches of Burke, Fox, or North." And
again: "One Sunday, after a whole day's stroll in the country, we by
accident went into a Dissenting meeting-house in the Old Jewry, where a
gentleman was lecturing. This man filled Robert with astonishment. The
house was amazingly crowded with the most genteel people; and though we
were forced to stand in the aisle, and were much pressed, yet Robert
always quickened his steps to get into the town on a Sunday evening soon
enough to attend this lecture. The preacher's name was Fawcet. His
language was just such as the 'Rambler' is written in.... Of him Robert
learned to accent what he called hard words, and otherwise to improve
himself, and gained the most enlarged notions of Providence."
Bloomfield's reading was not very extensive nor diversified during these
early years of his London life, yet it was sufficient to whet his
appetite for mental improvement, and give him no small degree of
literary taste and skill. The brothers took, in sixpenny numbers, such
works as a "History of England," "The British Traveller," and a
"Treatise on Geography." These were read aloud to the little company of
busy listeners, several hours of the day being occupied with the task.
His first poetic impulse was awakened by the perusal of the _London
Magazine_, which found its way at this time into the cobblers' garret.
Robert always read it with zest, carefully scanning the reviews of
books, and never failing to look into the "Poets' Corner." One day he
surprised his brother by repeating a song which he had composed after
the manner of Burns and so many other graceful songsters, "to an old
tune." George was as much delighted as surprised at his young brother's
smooth and easy verses, and encouraged him to try the experiment of
sending them to the editor. This he did with many fears and hopes, and
nervously awaited the issue of the next number. To his intense delight,
and the pardonable pride of the whole company, the verses appeared in
print. As a specimen of his first literary attempt, every youth will
deem them worth recording, and will read them with pleasure. They bear
the modest title "A Village Girl," and are signed with the letters R. B.
"Hail May! lovely May! how replenished my pails,
The young dawn o'erspreads the broad east streaked with gold!
My glad heart beats time to the laugh of the vales,
And Colin's voice rings through the wood from the fold,
The wood to the mountain submissively bends,
Whose blue misty summit first glows with the sun;
See! thence a gay train by the wild rill descends
To join the mixed sports:--Hark! the tumult's begun.
Be cloudless, ye skies! and be Colin but there;
Not dew-spangled bents on the wide level dale,
Nor morning's first smile can more lovely appear,
Than his looks,--since my wishes I cannot conceal.
Swift down the mad dance, whilst blest health prompts to move,
We'll count joys to come, and exchange vows of truth;
And haply, when age cools the transports of love,
Decry, like good folks, the vain follies of youth."
Another piece called "The Sailor's Return" found a place in the "Poets'
Corner." These efforts were enough to prove his taste and gifts as a
versifier. The poetic power was latent in his mind, and only needed
sufficient stimulus to bring it into full exercise. This stimulus came,
as was natural, from the reading of poetry itself. A copy of Thomson's
"Seasons" and Milton's "Paradise Lost" fell into his hands when he was
about seventeen years of age. They belonged to a Scotchman who lived and
worked at a house in Bell Alley, to which the shoemakers removed about
this time. The eager youth read them with the passion of a born poet;
and, as he read, the fire burned within. His imagination was now fairly
awakened, and it was plain to all who watched him intelligently at this
time, that melodies were being awakened in his heart that sooner or
later must find their expression in song. The "Seasons" was his favorite
poem. He read and re-read its glowing descriptions of nature, committed
favorite portions to memory, and never tired of recounting its beauties
in the hearing of his sympathetic friends. The "Seasons" struck the
key-note of the "Farmer's Boy," though Bloomfield was no imitator of
Thomson, nor of any one else, in either matter or manner. The thought
and style of these two poets of nature are as unlike as their kindred
subjects would allow them to be. Thomson's music is that of a majestic
and stately oratorio, while Bloomfield sings a sweet and simple pastoral
symphony.
But the young poet was not yet to enter on his great task. Fourteen
years passed away before his first and best published poem, the
"Farmer's Boy," saw the light. During this time several important events
in his history occurred. In his eighteenth year, in consequence of
certain disputes in the shoe-makers' trade about the legality of
employing boys who had not been bound as apprentices, he went back again
to Suffolk for a short time, and was taken into the home of his uncle
and former master, Mr. Austin of Sapiston. Here for two months of happy
leisure he roamed the fields where he spent so much of his time as a
boy, reviving old impressions, and deepening in his mind that keen sense
of the beautiful which city life and the imprisonment of a shoemaker's
occupation had not been sufficient to destroy. His companion at this
time was still the favorite "Seasons," from which, in the presence of
the very charms which Thomson describes, the ardent youth derived new
pleasure and inspiration.
The trade difficulty was got over by his becoming an apprentice for the
remaining three years of his minority to a Mr. Duddridge, brother to
George's former landlord. At the age of twenty he was left alone in
London, George having removed to Bury St. Edmund's in his own county,
and Nathaniel having married and gone into housekeeping. Robert now took
to the study of music, and became an expert player on the violin. At the
age of twenty-four he married the daughter of a boat-builder at Woolwich
named Church. "I have sold my fiddle and got a wife," he humorously
writes to his brother. At first his home was in furnished lodgings, but
by dint of hard work and strict economy he managed in a short time to
furnish _one_ room on the first floor of a house in Bell Alley, Coleman
Street, the old quarters to which he had come fresh from the country on
his first becoming a shoemaker. His landlord kindly allowed him the free
use of a garret to work in during the day. "In this garret," says his
brother, "amid six or seven other workmen, his active mind employed
itself in composing the 'Farmer's Boy.'" How long his mind was occupied
in this task we cannot tell. One could hardly wonder if the process of
composition was slow in the midst of such distracting and unfavorable
circumstances. The marvel is that it should have been composed at all
under such uncongenial and difficult conditions. So hard pressed for
time was the poor poet-shoemaker, and so unable to find the proper
materials for writing, that he is said to have made up and kept in his
mind no less than 600 lines, that is, about the _half_ of his poem,
before he could manage to write it down. And when he did this, he was
glad to lay hold of any odd scrap of paper for the purpose; the back of
a letter or a printed bill, the margin of newspapers, pieces of
pattern-paper, were seized as they came to hand and covered with
writing, and then hidden away in cupboards, and occasionally even in
some chink in the wall, until they could be collected and arranged for a
fair copy, suitable to go into the hands of the printer. It was indeed a
wonderful exhibition of mental abstraction and retentive memory. Few,
even among poets, could have wrought to any purpose amid the din and
conversation of a shoemakers' workroom, and still fewer, even if the
excitement of poetic thought had enabled them to compose, could have
treasured up their productions in the memory until they amounted to 600
lines. A friend of Bloomfield named Swan, writing to Mr. Capel Lofft,
says, "Bloomfield, either from the contracted state of his pecuniary
resources to purchase paper, or for other reasons, composed the latter
part of 'Autumn' and the whole of 'Winter' in his head, without
committing one line to paper! This cannot fail to surprise the literary
world, who are well acquainted with the treacherousness of memory, and
how soon the most happy ideas, for want of sufficient quickness in
writing down, are lost in the rapidity of thought. But this is not
all--he went a step further; he not only composed and committed that
part of his work to his faithful and retentive memory; but he
_corrected_ it all in his head!!!--and, as he said, when it was thus
prepared, 'I had nothing to do but to write it down.' By this new and
wonderful mode of composition, he studied and completed his 'Farmer's
Boy,' in a garret, among six or seven of his fellow-workmen, without
their ever once suspecting or knowing anything of the matter!"[31]
[31] "Lives of Eminent Englishmen." Fullarton & Co.,
1838. Vol. viii. p. 245. See also "Views Illustrative of Works
of Robert Bloomfield," by E. W. Brayley. London: 1806, p. 17.
Bloomfield was thirty-two years of age when his poem was complete and
attempts were being made to find a printer and publisher. These attempts
were for a time fruitless. One after another the publishers rejected the
"copy" of the unknown writer. At length, it was sent by George
Bloomfield, who always had full confidence in Robert's powers, to a
gentleman of literary tastes living at Troston Hall, near Bury, in
Suffolk--Mr. Capel Lofft. This gentleman had the good sense at once to
perceive the genuine merits of the poem submitted to his judgment, and
to recommend its publication. By his kind influence and aid a publisher
was soon found. Messrs. Vernon & Hood paid the poet £50 for his copy,
and afterward, when the poem proved a success, honorably advanced an
additional £200, besides giving the author an interest in his copyright.
The success of the poem was immediate and complete. It was warmly
received by the public, and praised in all quarters as a masterpiece of
natural poetic simplicity and beauty. Twenty-six thousand copies were
sold in the first three years of its issue, seven editions having been
called for. The position secured by the "Farmer's Boy" on its first
publication has been held until the present day. All lovers of poetry
read it with delight. It is natural and graceful as the song of a bird
"warbling his native woodnotes wild." When the English song-bird sings
in captivity there seems to be a touch of pathos in his note; and one
can hardly resist the same impression in reading these sweet rustic
melodies in verse which came from the lips of the shoemaker-poet
imprisoned in a London garret. Yet there is something much more
stimulating in Bloomfield's lines than this. They are sweet and joyous,
and full of that glowing enthusiasm for beauty which all fine natures
feel. Besides the editions sent forth in this country, the "Farmer's
Boy" was printed at Leipsic, and was translated into French, Italian,
and Latin.
Bloomfield now had many friends as well as admirers. The Duke of
Grafton, on whose estate he had been employed as a boy, settled upon him
a small annuity, and used his influence to obtain for him a post at the
seal-office at 1s. per day. In addition to this, Bloomfield received
frequent presents from the nobility, and even from members of the royal
family. To the poor shoemaker, accustomed to the utmost obscurity, all
this success, and popularity, and patronage "appeared," to use his own
language, "like a dream."
In after-years he issued a number of small volumes of poetry, in which
are found several shorter pieces of great merit, such as the two
descriptive or ballad pieces "Richard and Kate," "The Fakenham Ghost,"
or the exquisitely simple piece called "The Soldier's Return." The first
of these is one of the best modern ballads in the language, as it is
certainly among the most, if it be not the most, spirited and original
of his compositions. Of the last of the three just mentioned, Professor
Wilson says: "The topic is trite, but in Mr. Bloomfield's hands it
almost assumes a character of novelty. Burns' 'Soldier's Return' is not,
to our taste, one whit superior."
The titles of the volumes that followed that by which his fame was
established are "Rural Tales," published in 1801; "The Banks of the
Wye," 1811; "Wild Flowers," and "May Day with the Muses," 1822.
"Hazelwood Hall, a Village Drama, in Three Acts," was published 1823,
the year of his death. All these poems have since been issued in one
volume, to which is attached a short sketch of the poet's life, and the
circumstances which attended the publication of "The Farmer's Boy." This
account, given by Mr. Capel Lofft, Bloomfield's kind friend and patron,
is full of interest. It serves to show the value of a judicious friend
to a young aspirant for literary fame, whose talents deserve
recognition, but whose position in life prevents him taking the
necessary steps to become known to the world.
The last twenty years of Bloomfield's life were embittered by affliction
and misfortunes in business. He did not long retain his position at the
Seal Office, being obliged to abandon it through continual ill-health.
After resuming the trade of a shoemaker for a short time, he was induced
to open a shop as a bookseller, but this speculation brought him only
disappointment and loss. His son, who was a printer, states that about
this time the poets Rogers and Southey took a deep interest in the
welfare of their poor suffering brother poet. Rogers, it seems, tried to
obtain him a government pension, but without success. At length he
removed from London to try the effect of the fresh air and quietude of
country life. His last years were spent as a shoemaker at
Shefford-cum-Campton, Bed's. Toward the close of his life he was in
great want and distress, having reaped little permanent gain from his
numerous and popular poems. So intense was the strain of mind he endured
from overwork, ill-health, and anxiety, that his friends entertained
grave fears of his becoming insane. Death was preferable to such a life
the death which is for men of Christian faith and character, like
Bloomfield, the gate to a higher and happier life. Providentially for
him, that gate was opened when life here had become a burden too
grievous to be borne. He died at Shefford, in the fifty-seventh year of
his age, August 19th, 1823, and was buried in the Campton churchyard.
Bloomfield's character, unlike that of many of the more celebrated poets
of his own day, exhibited a fair and lovely type of moral excellence. He
was genuinely modest, affectionate, industrious, and pious. None
regarded him with more respect and love than those who knew him most
intimately. This fact speaks strongly for his real worth. His own
brothers held him in the greatest esteem, and felt the most generous and
hearty pleasure in his literary success. His generosity to his needy
relatives, who were very numerous, often crippled his resources, and,
indeed, left him at times as poor as those he had befriended. We have
noticed how much he owed in early life to the loving care and good sense
of an excellent mother. Bloomfield never lost sight of this fact. Like
all good men, men whose lives are worth study and imitation, he was
deeply attached to his mother; and it is well deserving of record that,
like Buckle, the eminent philosophical writer, the young poet felt a
more exquisite pleasure in placing his first published work in the hands
of his mother than in the anticipation of any fame or advantage it might
secure for himself as the author. When the first edition was issued a
copy of it was sent to his mother, accompanied by these simple lines,
which faithfully reflect at once the character of the true mother and
the devoted son:
"' To peace and virtue still be true,'
An anxious mother ever cries,
Who needs no _present_ to renew
Parental love--which never dies."
Many tributes of esteem, both in prose and verse, were paid to
Bloomfield during his life and after his death. None of these was of
more value than the brief sentence written by his constant friend and
first literary patron, Mr. Capel Lofft, who says, "It is much to be a
poet, such as he will be found: it is much more to be such a man." The
lines which appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_, the month after
Bloomfield's death, exactly describe the chief features of the poet's
life and work:
"No pompous learning--no parade
Of pedantry, and cumbrous lore,
On thy elastic bosom weighed;
Instead, were thine a mazy store
Of feelings delicately wrought,
And treasures gleaned by silent thought.
Obscurity, and low born care,
Labor, and want--all adverse things,
Combined to bow thee to despair;
And of her young untutored wings
To rob thy genius. 'Twas in vain:
With one proud soar she burst her chain!
The beauties of the building spring;
The glories of the summer's reign;
The russet autumn triumphing
In ripened fruits and golden grain;
Winter with storms around his shrine,
Each, in their turn, were themes of thine.
And lowly life, the peasant's lot,
Its humble hopes and simple joys;
By mountain-stream the shepherd's cot,
And what the rustic hour employs;
White flocks on Nature's carpet spread;
Birds blithely carolling o'erhead;
These were thy themes, and thou wert blessed--
Yes, blessed beyond the wealth of kings.
Calm joy is seated in the breast
Of the rapt poet as he sings,
And all that Truth or Hope can bring
Of Beauty, gilds the muse's wing.
And, Bloomfield, thine were blissful days,
(If flowers of bliss may thrive on earth);
Thine were the glory and the praise
Of genius linked with modest worth;
To wisdom wed, remote from strife,
Calmly passed o'er thy stormless life."
During the lifetime of Bloomfield, another young and obscure poet, Henry
Kirke White of Nottingham, was indebted to Bloomfield's patrons, Mr.
Lofft and Robert Southey, for his introduction to the public. After
reading "The Farmer's Boy" and "Rural Tales," White wrote the following
clever epigram, the sentiment of which all admirers of the
shoemaker-poet will heartily indorse:
"Bloomfield, thy happy omened name
Ensures continuance to thy fame;
Both sense and truth this verdict give,
While fields shall bloom, thy name shall live."