[In the following excerpt, the author satirically meditates on “humble” poets before turning to extol Bloomfield as among the best of the uneducated poets, quoting extensively from his work as evidence.]

A great many ploughmen—shepherds—ditchers—and shoemakers—nay, even tailors—have in this free and happy country of ours wooed the Muses. Apollo, on the other hand, has been made love to, (and in some instances very nearly ravished, as, for example, by that vigorous milk-woman, Ann Yearsley,) by vast flocks of young women in the lower walks of life, dairy-maids, nurses, house-keepers, knitters in the sun, and Cinderellas. A very droll volume or two might be made up of their productions. One thing we observe in the poetry of them all—male and female—a strong bias to the indulgence of the tender passion. They are all most excessively amorous, and every volume is a perfect dovecote, sounding with a continual coo. Roger, the ploughman, makes love in a bold, vigorous, straight-forward fashion, as if he were “in glory and in joy,” “following his plough upon the mountain-side.” Jamie, the shepherd, the yellow-haired laddie—is more figurative and circumlocutory; but just let him alone for a few minutes, and he is sure to get upon his subject at last, and to acquit himself in a truly pastoral and patriarchal manner. Hobbinol, the ditcher, goes to work, as if he were paid by the piece. The shoemaker melts like his own wax, and shews himself to be a most active understrapper; while the tailor, forgetting that he is but a fraction, declares,

“I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.”

In short, the professions of the man and the lover go hand in hand; and it would be as impossible to mistake “an amatory effusion” of a genuine Roger for one of Sammy Snip, as to mistake such an erection as the London Monument for the handle of a milk-churn.

The same remark holds good with the Poetesses of lowly life. With them all alike “love is heaven, and heaven is love.” Maids, wives, or widows, they all describe themselves as—burning. The Dairy-maid writes like a young woman of strong red arms, a sanguine temperament, rude health, and good wages. She is an excellent creature to Roger, and lays on flattery like butter. She calls a kiss by its proper name—a smack; and the ploughman of her most impassioned poetry is a man who, if he could be realized, might be exhibited in a booth as a very passable giant. The Nursery-maid strikes a loftier key, and prattles about chaste desires, and a little baby with a face like its papa's. She imitates Moore's Melodies, and affects to like Thomas Do-Little. She is a sort of sweet Fanny of Timmoul; and her verses, like the lips of that much-injured young woman, “keep eternally kissing and biting each other.” The love poems of the House-keeper are in general fat and pursy. They are full of the “windy suspiration of forced breath;” good eating and drinking are promised liberally to her heart's Darling; and her imagination, even in its fondest and most enamoured moments, dwells on the comforts, rather than the raptures of love. As for Cinderellas in general, and not to make any invidious exceptions, it may be said of them, “with their clipsome waists,” that they belong to the Cockney school—are too often almost as grossly indelicate as Leigh Hunt himself, who, in one of his love poems, describes a lady's limb above the knee, “as quivering with tremulous mass internally;” and that they study Tom Moore and Fanny of Timmoul less devoutly than the “Ranting, roaring Irishman,” and “Molly, cut and come again.” They despise any man either Little by name or Little by nature. That system of everlasting slobbering, recommended and expounded by “the first lyrical poet of the age,” in a volume by which he cannot but be made proud while living, happy when dying, and honoured when dead, is almost wholly discarded by these maids of all work, who eschew such thin and unsubstantial diet, and like to have a good lump of English beef in the pot. From the poetry of such poetesses, a selection would require to be made with much circumspection; but perhaps Mr Bath Bowdler might be prevailed upon to undertake it; and certainly, after what Mr Jeffrey has so judiciously praised as a “castrated edition” of Shakespeare, this gentleman may extend his shears to the fair sex, “sans peur et sans reproche,” and contrive to render the somewhat luxuriant display made by these viragoes more fit for a family party, with their feet on the fender, or half asleep on a sofa. But of this hereafter.

To be serious after this little flight—of all the motley group of humble verse-men and verse-women, we think that in our days the only names worth mentioning, are Burns, Dermody, (whom Mr Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, with great Christian charity, the most amiable sweetness of nature, and the most polite and gentlemanly dislike of all personality, called shortly and emphatically, “Dermody the Drunkard,”) Hogg,¹ Allan Cunninghame, Clare, and——Robert Bloomfield. All these are men of genius, more or less—at least we think so—let the word genius mean what it will. They have all done some good things; how good it may not be so easy to say, but good enough to give delight, and therefore to deserve remembrance. Of Hogg and Cunninghame we have frequently spoken with high praise; and, indeed, it was an article in this Magazine, written by a gentleman distinguished by his genius and his generosity, that first directed the public attention to the latter of these two poets, and pointed out, if with somewhat of the exaggeration of free-hearted partiality, certainly with inimitable grace, and a fine spirit of truth, the peculiar bent of his poetical character, and the field in which it was calculated chiefly to succeed. But of Bloomfield we have hitherto scarcely said one word, having only quoted, in one of our early Numbers, his exquisite picture of a Blind Boy, to be found in a little poem, called “News from the Farm.” We mean, therefore, to say a few words now about this very pleasing, and also original poet, no long-winded blast of critical cant, but merely two or three kind and enlightened paragraphs—and we shall very soon do the same of Clare—the “Northamptonshire peasant,” as he is somewhat slangishly called, just as Sampson the pugilist is called “The Birmingham Youth.” Their patronage of Clare has been highly honourable to Messrs Taylor and Hessey, and proves them to be persons of amiable and intelligent minds; although, with that inconsistency that has often marked the conduct of wiser and better men, they have lately degraded themselves, and their respectable periodical work, by an example of the most pitiable and stingless slander of a Tale of universally felt and acknowledged genius and pathos, and that, too, manifestly to the eyes of the blindest bat that flits about the murky recesses of the Fleet or the Row, from poor spite towards the publisher, whose name is on the title-page, and some vague and indefinite malignity towards the possible author of the volume. From an expression, by the way, in the precious article alluded to, we should suspect the critic to be a pawnbroker. The writer reviewed had applied the common expression, “Pledges of Affection,” to a family of children, all of whom having died but one, that one is facetiously and piously called by the critic, “the only unredeemed pledge!!!” This is the stupidest piece of blasphemy we ever recollect to have seen; and if, as we have heard, it was written by *********, (which surely is impossible,) the editors would do well never again to admit such a miserable spoon into the concern.

Mr Bloomfield, on the publication of “The Farmer's Boy,” was looked on as a poetical prodigy, and not without reason. For he shewed in that poem a very fine feeling for the beauties and the occupations of the country. He had had few or no advantages of training, but he had treasured up, in an innocent, and happy, and thoughtful mind, many youthful remembrances of a rural life; and immediately on hitting upon a good subject, he seems to have put them easily and naturally, and often very elegantly, into verse. Having read but little, and thought and felt much, and having no ambition of equalling or surpassing any particular model, he wrote away, from his own mind and his own heart, and the public were justly delighted with his fervour and simplicity. It is most agreeable to read his unlaboured descriptions of ploughing, and sowing, and reaping, and sheave-binding, and compunctious shooting of rooks. And every now and then he deals out, with a sort of unostentatious profusion, feelings and sentiments awakened by the contemplation of lowly life—its sufferings, and its virtues. His hero, young Giles, is really an exceedingly pleasant and interesting lad; and the situations in which he is often placed are affecting, by their solitariness, and the unconscious independence of the harmless and happy being, in his labour and his poverty. Now and then single lines occur that are quite exquisite; and his picture of Poor Polly, the ruined and insane maiden, is equal to Cowper's Crazy Jane, if not, indeed, superior to it; and there cannot be higher praise. England is justly proud of Bloomfield, on account of his genius, and of that simple and pure tone of morality which breathes over all this his first, and, of course, best Poem. Besides all these its merits, which we have just slightly glanced at, “The Farmer's Boy” is by far the best written, as to style and composition, of any work of our uneducated poets. The melody of the versification is often exceedingly beautiful; and there are fewer faults of coarse and vulgar taste in it, though some there undoubtedly are, than in any book of any man similarly situated, with which we are acquainted. All this shews a mind delicately formed by nature; and accordingly, “The Farmer's Boy,” now that the mere wonder and astonishment are passed by, continues to hold its place, and can never be perused by any candid and cultivated reader, without the highest pleasure and approbation.

His “Rural Tales,” which we have not looked at for a long time, were many of them very good. In these he went somewhat deeper into the human heart; but, trying more difficult things, more frequently fell into failures. But on the whole, this second volume was not a falling off, though it wanted the concentrated interest of his first Poem. There was considerable ingenuity shewn in the conception of his little domestic stories; and always much true pathos in his delineations of feeling and character. He put his heart into every thing he did, however trivial; and many of his situations were striking, original, and impressive. He writes many poor—even bad passages, but never two pages at a time utterly worthless, like some others we could name; so that his most indifferent tales leave behind them a most pleasing impression, both of his understanding and his heart. We believe this to be truth, without exaggeration, and without seeking to say any thing wisely critical about Mr Bloomfield or his writings.

The “News from the Farm,” is a little poem on the Vaccine Inoculation; and it is wonderful how much pathos he throws into a theme so very unpromising. The passage alluded to above—that description of the Blind Boy, is worthy of being inserted among the Flowers of English poetry;—graceful, elegant, and most deeply affecting—even to tears.

We believe there are other poems of Mr Bloomfield, but we have rather forgotten a little what they are, except a long copy of verses about the River Wye, which we did not greatly delight in at the time we endeavoured to give them a reading, and the composition of which must, we suspect, have been a kind of voluntarily self-imposed task-work.—We may be mistaken, but this is our impression.

Now, when so interesting a man as Mr Bloomfield re-appears before the Public, after a retirement so long and deep as finally to have given rise (he tells us so, in his preface to “May-day with the Muses”) to a report of his death, it cannot but be gratifying to all lovers of good poetry—be it high or low—to hear him once more tuning his rustic reed. And it gives us pleasure to be able to say conscientiously, that his new little volume is one of the most agreeable he has ever written, and one that shews that his powers are noways impaired. The idea of the poem is really a very pretty and ingenious extravaganza; and its improbability in a world so selfish as ours, is by no means against it. Mr Bloomfield has a pleasant smile upon his own face, at the notion of a worthy old landholder accepting of rhymes from his tenants in lieu of rents; and therefore we hope that no stupid and sour critic will put a frown upon his, especially during these times of agricultural distress, when many an English farmer that formerly weighed twenty stone, is now a mere shadow, and reduced to seventeen.

Sir Ambrose Higham, being somewhere about fourscore, and having got sick of his annual Spring visit to London, resolves to give a grand fête champetre to his tenantry, and to demand payment in poetry instead of pounds. A number of big tables are set out upon a lawn near the hall; and after bolting bacon and bowzing beer, one bard after another rises up, makes a leg, and pays his poem. And this Mr Bloomfield very prettily calls “May-day with the Muses.” Now, we think that this is just as good a plan to get into possession a few unconnected poems, as any other; and why may not Mr Bloomfield be allowed the same privilege of genius as Chaucer, Boccaccio, the Misses Lee, James Hogg, and the authors of “The Tent”? Perhaps the last inimitable production, which was erected in the shape of a round-robin, was the model which our poet had chiefly in his eye; and we are confirmed in this idea, by the first little wood-engraving in the volume, where old Sir Ambrose Higham occupies the very same place of honour which Christopher North did in “The Tent,”—with this exception, that the Baronet has his ancient wife at his side, whereas Mrs M‘Whirter, alias Odoherty, alias Oglethorpe, sat on the Adjutant's knee. But the two carousals, as given on copper and wood, resemble each other in many of their great features,—the one being a “Light and Shadow” of Scottish, and the other a “Passage” of English life.

Note

1. Hogg and Hazlitt are decidedly the best prose writers of the same class. By the bye, we are delighted to see the pretty style in which Messrs Constable have got up the collected edition of Hogg's Poems. The volumes are elegant—the price moderate—the whole affair as it should be.