[In the following excerpt, the reviewer notes Bloomfield's elevation of his rustic subject through unaffected and eloquent poetry.]

This poem [The Farmer's Boy] is ushered into the world under the obstetric auspices of the ingenious Mr. Capel Lofft, but it is the production of a journeyman shoemaker, who was himself originally destined to be a Farmer's Boy. The preface contains some particulars of his life, communicated by his brother to Mr. Lofft; whence it appears that the only literary instructions which he ever had he received from his mother in reading, and from a country schoolmaster in writing, for the space of two or three months. He was afterward sent to London, to his brother, in order to learn to make shoes; and there he continued till, in consequence of the dispute between the journeymen and master shoemakers, in 1784, he returned into the country to his old master, Mr. Austin: who, as the brother says,

“Kindly bade him take his house for his home till he could return to me. And here, with his mind glowing with the fine Descriptions of rural scenery which he found in Thomson's Seasons, he again retraced the very fields where first he began to think. Here, free from the smoke, the noise, and the contention of the City, he imbibed that Love of rural Simplicity and rural Innocence, which fitted him, in a great degree, to be the writer of such a thing as [T]he Farmer's Boy.”

“Here he lived two Months: … at length, as the dispute in the trade still remained undecided, Mr. Dudbridge offered to take Robert Apprentice, to secure him, at all events, from any consequences of the Litigation.”

‘He was bound by Mr. Ingram, of Bell-alley, to Mr. John Dudbridge. His Brother George paid five shillings for Robert, by way of form, as a premium. Dudbridge was their Landlord, and a Freeman of the City of London. He acted most honourably, and took no advantage of the power which the Indentures gave him. George Bloomfield staid with Robert till he found he could work as expertly as his self.

‘Mr. George Bloomfield adds, “When I left London he was turned of eighteen; and much of my happiness since has arisen from a constant correspondence which I have held with him.”

“After I left him, he studied Music, and was a good player on the Violin.”

“But as my Brother Nat had married a Woolwich woman, it happened that Robert took a fancy to a comely young woman of that Town, whose father is a boat-builder in the Government yard there. His name is Church.”

“Soon after he married, Robert told me, in a Letter, that ‘he had sold his Fiddle and got a Wife.’ Like most poor men, he got a wife first, and had to get household stuff afterward. It took him some years to get out of ready furnished Lodgings. At length, by hard working, & c. he acquired a Bed of his own, and hired the room up one pair of stairs at 14, Bell-alley, Coleman-street. The Landlord kindly gave him leave to sit and work in the light Garret, two pair of stairs higher.”

“In this Garret, amid six or seven other workmen, his active Mind employed itself in composing The Farmer's Boy.”

“In my correspondence I have seen several poetical effusions of his; all of them of a good moral tendency; but which he very likely would think do him little credit: on that account I have not preserved them.”

“Robert is a Ladies Shoemaker, and works for Davies, Lombard street. He is of a slender make; of about 5 F. 4 I. high; very dark complexion. … His mother, who is a very religious member of the Church of England, took all the pains she could in his infancy to make him pious: and as his Reason expanded, his love of God and Man increased with it. I never knew his fellow for mildness of temper and Goodness of Disposition. And since I left him, universally is he praised by those who know him best, for the best of Husbands, an indulgent Father, and quiet Neighbour. He is about thirty-two years old, and has three Children.”

To describe the various occupations of a farmer's boy, in the four seasons of the year, is the main design of the poem; and however humble these employments may appear as objects of poetical attention, the very ingenious writer has contrived to embellish their rusticity and meanness with a harmony of numbers, which could not be expected from an uncultivated mind; to soften the harshness of minute detail, by blending apt and picturesque descriptions; and to enliven the whole by strokes of poetic imagery, and unaffected sentiment. …

Mr. Lofft remarks in the preface, that, on first seeing this poem in MS. and observing that it was divided into the Four Seasons, he apprehended that the writer had been vainly endeavouring to follow (in verse) the steps of the admirable Thomson: but that he was soon relieved from that apprehension, on discovering that, ‘although the rural scenery naturally branches itself into these divisions, there was little else except the general qualities of a musical ear; flowing numbers, feeling, pioty, 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.’

The poem certainly discovers very clearly the powers of natural unassisted genius; and we hope that the friends of Robert Bloomfield will take warning from the injudicious treatment of preceding poets in humble stations, (Stephen Duck, Robert Burns, & c.) and not suffer the inconsistency of his turn of mind and his situation in life to prove his ruin, through the baneful influence of flattery, and by misguided attempts to befriend merit in obscurity.