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[Illustration]
By ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.
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.
A sonnet has come to my hands, the production,—and nearly the firstpoetical Production,—of a very young Lady. I have not the Author'sconsent to publish it: and there is no time to ask it. But I cannot omitadding such a flower to the Wreath of Glory of my Friend. I have thereforeventured to publish it without waiting permission; with one or two slightalterations.
25 Aug. 1800.
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,
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.
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.
Having the satisfaction of introducing to the Public this very pleasingand characteristic POEM, the FARMER'S BOY, I think it will be agreeable topreface it with a short Account of the manner in which it came into myhands: and, which will be much more interesting to every Reader, a littleHistory 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 aMS. which I was requested to read, and to give my opinion of it. It hadbefore been shewn to some persons in London: whose indifference towardit may probably be explain'd when it is consider'd that it came to theirhands under no circumstances of adventitious recommendation. With some aperson must be rich, or titled, or fashionable as a literary name, or atleast fashionable in some respect, good or bad, before any thing which hecan offer will be thought worthy of notice.
I had been a little accustom'd to the effect of prejudices: and I wasdetermin'd to judge, in the only just and reasonable way, of the Work, bythe Work itself.
At first I confess, seeing it divided into the four Seasons, I had toencounter a prepossession not very advantageous to any writer: that theAuthor was treading in a path already so admirably trod by THOMSON; andmight be adding one more to an attempt already so often, but soinjudiciously and unhappily made, of transmuting that noble Poem fromBlank Verse into Rhime; … from its own pure