Scribbleomania :: :: University of Virginia Library

To chronicle Bloomfield I cannot refuse,
Renown'd for one flight of Simplicity's Muse;
The poor Farmer's Boy, his sole offspring of merit,
Each subsequent effort divested of spirit.
He pictur'd the scenes which in childhood he knew,
His style unaffected;—his portraiture true:

Thus the poem, as effort didactic, must stand
Rusticity's tale from Veracity's hand.

Such praise claims the bard, nor shall candour disown it;
I love native worth, and will ever enthrone it:
Ne'ertheless, in their plaudits some friends over warm,
The dictates of reason wou'd fain take by storm;
Such critics as boldly advanc'd potent reasons,
To prove Farmer's Boy vied with Thomson's fam'd Seasons:

Productions that never can parallel chime,
The one pure simplicity;—th' other sublime.
Divested of furor thus blinding, I write;
Resolv'd sterling judgment my praise shall endite:
As I think, I record, free from all private pique;
And I deem such the basis of candid critique.

If the rapid sale of a work can speak for its merits, the Farmer's Boy must claim the most unbounded commendation: beauties it certainly does possess, what will ever deservedly rank it a favourite with a British public. As for the subsequent labours of Mr. Bloomfield, they so far fall short of this dawning effusion as scarcely to appear the performances of the same writer: and I am by no means singular in my opinion, when I aver that had this gentleman dropped the pen upon the completion of the Farmer's Boy, his poetic talent would not have experienced any diminution in the judgment of literary censors. Urged, as I conjecture, by the success of his brother, Mr. Nathaniel Bloomfield also enlisted himself under the auspices of the Nine; but his attempts can never place him upon a par with his relative, when the Farmer's Boy becomes the subject of consideration. Among other poems of this description, an anonymous writer has favoured the public with The Fisher Boy, Sailor Boy, Cottage Girl, and Jack Junk; four productions which have met with considerable applause. They portray the unvarnished delineations of life, as far as the scenes extend which they were composed to delineate; and if morality, patriotism, and an easy style of versification can gratify a reader, these poems are not unworthy the patronage already conferred upon them.

Mr. Capel Loft, the annotator of the Farmer's Boy, has not only lavished the most unqualified praises upon this work, but, in imitation of Messrs. Malone, Steevens, Chalmers, and such laborious commentators, enlisted, as his auxiliaries, the Greek and Latin poets, in order to prove that Mr. Bloomfield, having eyes, could sometimes see, form his opinions, and express himself in terms not dissimilar to the style of those antique gentlemen. By this scientific research the public is favoured with a volume containing twice the quantum of paper and print which the poem itself would expend; and for which every purchaser of course must pay, although not one in five hundred ever takes the trouble of wading through notes which only tend to confuse the text of a writer whose excellence consists in the simplicity of his tale, and the perspicuity of style which characterizes the effusion of his Muse.