"Crispin's sons Have from uncounted time, with ale and buns, Cherished the gift of song, which sorrow quells; And, working single in their low-built cells, Oft cheat the tedium of a winter's night With anthems." --CHARLES LAMB: _Album Verses_, 1830, p. 57. "I have received many honorable testimonies of esteem from strangers; letters without a name, but filled with the most cordial advice, and almost parental anxiety for my safety under so great a share of public applause. I beg to refer such friends to the great teacher, Time; and hope that he will hereafter give me my deserts, and no more."--_Robert Bloomfield, Preface to "Rural Tales_," Sept. 29, 1801. "No pompous learning--no parade Of pedantry and cumbrous lore, On thy elastic bosom weigh'd; Instead, were thine, a mazy store Of feelings delicately wrought, And treasures gleaned by silent thought. "Obscurity, and low-born care, Labor, and want--all adverse things, Combined to bow thee to despair; And of her young untutor'd wings To rob thy Genius.--'Twas in vain: With one proud soar she burst her chain!" --_Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1823._ ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. We have now to speak of a shoemaker-poet. The name of Robert Bloomfield, the author of the "Farmer's Boy," is known and held in honor wherever the English language is spoken. All classes of readers admire his poetry, although it is not of the highest order of merit. It has, however, a genuine quality which no one possessed of poetical taste can fail to recognize. Its chief features are delightful rustic simplicity and naturalness, faithful reflection of the beauties of nature, and the charms which belong to rural occupations. The romantic side of the life of a _farmer's boy_ is given in the poem bearing that name, as we have it nowhere else in all our poetic or prose literature. Bloomfield, though surrounded by the most unfavorable conditions, as a writer of poetry seems to have experienced no difficulty in executing his task. His was indeed a case in which the adage is well illustrated--_poeta nascitur non fit_--a poet is born, not made. He was born with the gift of song. It would have been difficult for him to restrain its exercise. He made poetry, as the song-birds sing, by instinct and irresistible impulse. For him the words are quite as true as they are of the greater poet who wrote them,[30] "I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing." [30] Tennyson, "In Memoriam," stanza xxi.