"Here he liv'd two Months:... at length, as the dispute in the trade still remain'd undecided, Mr. DUDBRIDGE offer'd 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; [Footnote: This should seem to require correction by setting the Age forward according to the Dates above stated. C.L.] 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 happen'd that _Robert_ took a fancy to MARY-ANNE CHURCH, a comely young woman of that town, whose Father is a boat-builder in the Government yard there. He married 12th Dec. 1790."[Footnote: This Date from the Author. C.L.] "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 employ'd 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 preserv'd them."