"Such are the Materials of which THE FARMER'S BOY is constructed. Several of the topics, it will be perceiv'd, are new to Poetry; and of those which are in their _title_ familiar to the readers of our descriptive Bards, it will be found that the imagery and adjunctive circumstances are original, and the effort of a mind practis'd in the rare art of selecting and combining the most striking and picturesque features of an object." Dr. Drake after this well accounts for the poetic singularity that the Poetry of _Thomson_ should have past through a mind so enthusiastically enamor'd of it, without impairing the originality of its character, when exercis'd on a subject so much leading to imitation. This he explains, and justly, by the vivid impressions on a most sensible and powerful imagination in his earliest youth, anterior to the study of any Poet. Dr. Drake expresses his astonishment at the VERSIFICATION and DICTION of this Poem. And says most truly, "I am well aware that smooth and flowing lines are of easy purchase, and the property of almost every poetaster of the day: but the versification of Mr. _Bloomfield_ is of another character; it displays beauties of the most positive kind, and those witcheries of expression which are only to be acquir'd by the united efforts of Genius and Study." "The _general_ characteristics of his versification are facility and sweetness; that ease which is, in fact, the result of unremitted labour, and one of the most valuable acquisitions of litterature. It displays occasionally likewise a vigour and a brilliancy of polish that might endure comparison with the high-wrought texture of the Muse of DARWIN. From the nature of his subject, however, this splendid mode of decoration could be us'd but with a sparing hand: and it is not one of his least merits that his diction and harmony should so admirably correspond with the scene which he has chosen." "To excel," Dr. DRAKE continues, "in rural IMAGERY, it is necessary that the Poet should diligently study Nature for himself; and not peruse her as is but too common, '_through the spectacles of Books_' [Footnote: The happy illustration of DRYDEN in his admirable character of SHAKESPERE.] He should trace her in all her windings, in her deepest recesses, in all her varied forms. It was thus that LUCRETIUS and VIRGIL, that THOMSON and COWPER were enabled to unfold their scenery with such distinctness and truth: and on this plan, while wandering through his native fields, attentive to '_each rural sight, each rural sound_,' has Mr. BLOOMFIELD built his charming Poem."