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    THE FARMER'S BOY;

    A RURAL POEM.

    By ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.


"A SHEPHERD'S BOY... HE SEEKS NO BETTER NAME."


The Third Edition

LONDON:
Printed for Vernor and Hood, Poultry
and sold by T.C. Rickman, 7, Upper Mary-Le-Bone-Street;
Ingram, and Dingle, Bury; Booth, Norwich; Hill, Edinburgh;
Archer, and Dugdale, Dublin.

MDCCC



A sonnet has come to my hands, the production,--and nearly the first
poetical Production,--of a very young Lady. I have not the Author's
consent to publish it: and there is no time to ask it. But I cannot omit
adding such a flower to the Wreath of Glory of my Friend. I have therefore
ventured to publish it without waiting permission; with one or two slight
alterations.

C. L.

25 Aug. 1800.



TO THE AUTHOR OF
THE FARMER'S BOY.

I.

_If wealth, if honour, at command were mine,
  And every boast Ambition could desire,
The pompous Gifts, sweet Bard, I would resign
  For the aft Music of thy tuneful Lyre,_

II.

_Which speaks the soul awake to every charm
  That Nature open'd from thy humble cot:
Speaks powers chill Indigence could not disarm;
  Proof to Humanity's severest lot._

III.

_Thou Friend to Nature, and of Man the Friend;
  Of every generous and benignant cause;
The accents of thy glowing worth, unfeign'd,
  Live in the cadence of each feeling pause.
Here thought, alternate, in the noble Plan
Admires the POET, and reveres the Man._

25 Aug. 1800.




PREFACE

Having the satisfaction of introducing to the Public this very pleasing
and characteristic POEM, the FARMER'S BOY, I think it will be agreeable to
preface it with a short Account of the manner in which it came into my
hands: and, which will be much more interesting to every Reader, a little
History of the Author, which has been communicated to me by his Brother,
and which I shall very nearly transcribe as it lies before me.

In _November_ last year [Footnote: This was written in 1799.] I receiv'd a
MS. which I was requested to read, and to give my opinion of it. It had
before been shewn to some persons in _London_: whose indifference toward
it may probably be explain'd when it is consider'd that it came to their
hands under no circumstances of adventitious recommendation. With some a
person must be rich, or titled, or fashionable as a literary name, or at
least fashionable in some respect, good or bad, before any thing which he
can offer will be thought worthy of notice.

I had been a little accustom'd to the effect of prejudices: and I was
determin'd to judge, in the only just and reasonable way, of the Work, by
the Work itself.

At first I confess, seeing it divided into the four Seasons, I had to
encounter a prepossession not very advantageous to any writer: that the
Author was treading in a path already so admirably trod by THOMSON; and
might be adding one more to an attempt already so often, but so
injudiciously and unhappily made, of transmuting that noble Poem from
Blank Verse into Rhime;... from its own pure native Gold into an alloyed
Metal of incomparably less splendor, permanence, and worth.

I had soon, however, the pleasure of finding myself reliev'd from that
apprehension: and of discovering, that, although the delineation of RURAL
SCENERY naturally branches itself into these divisions, there was little
else except the General Qualities of a musical ear, flowing numbers,
Feeling, Piety, poetic Imagery and Animation, a taste for the picturesque,
a true sense of the natural and pathetic, force of thought, and liveliness
of imagination, which were in common between Thomson and this Author. And
these are qualities which whoever has the eye, the heart, the awakened and
surrounding intellect, and the diviner sense of the Poet, which alone can
deserve the name, must possess.

But, with these general Characters of true Poetry, "_The Farmer's Boy_"
has, as I have said, a character of its own. It is discriminated as much
as the circumstances and habits, and situation, and ideas consequently
associated, which are so widely diverse in the two Authors, could make it
different. Simplicity, sweetness, a natural tenderness, that _molle atque
facetum_ which HORACE celebrates in the Eclogues of VIRGIL, will be found
to belong to it.

I intend some farther and more particular CRITICAL REMARKS on this
charming Performance. But I now pass to the Account of the Author himself,
as given me by his Brother:... a Man to whom also I was entirely a
stranger:... but whose Candor, good Sense, and brotherly Affection, appear
in this Narrative; and of the justness of whose Understanding, and the
Goodness of his Heart, I have had many Proofs, in consequence of a
correspondence with him on different occasions which have since arisen,
when this had made me acquainted with him, and interested me in his
behalf.

In writing to me, Mr. GEORGE BLOOMFIELD, who is a Shoemaker also, as his
Brother, and lives at BURY, thus expresses himself.

"As I spent five years with the Author, from the time he was thirteen
years and a half old [Footnote: This by farther recollection has since
been discover'd and stated by Mr. G. and Mr. R. BLOOMFIELD not to be quite
exact. See p. viii. C. L.] till he was turned of eighteen, the most
interesting time of life (I mean the time that instruction is acquir'd, if
acquir'd at all), I think I am able to give a better account of