Part 5 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBERT BLOOMFIELD]
Robert Bloomfield,
THE SHOEMAKER WHO WROTE ”THE FARMER'S BOY.”
”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: _Alb.u.m 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 c.u.mbrous 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 cla.s.ses 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 ill.u.s.trated--_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.
Robert Bloomfield was born and brought up in the lovely neighborhood of Honington, Ixworth and Sapiston, in the northern part of the county of Suffolk. An idea of the quiet beauty of the woodland scenery of Suffolk may be obtained from the paintings of Gainsborough, another notable man whom this county has produced. Gainsborough, as a boy full of yearnings after art, loved to spend his time in the woods and pastures round Sudbury, sketching trees, brooks, meadow-landscapes, cattle, shepherds, or ploughmen at their work in the fields. He was at the height of his fame as a painter when Bloomfield was a farmer's boy at Sapiston, on the Grafton estate. It is interesting to know that these two Suffolk men were contemporary, ”the first truly original English painter,” who took his lessons direct from nature, and the first genuine poet of the English farm and field.
Bloomfield's father was a tailor at Honington, near Bury St. Edmund's.
Robert was born in 1766. His father died at the end of the following year, leaving Robert and five other children to the care of their mother. She was a worthy, estimable woman, who managed by her own unaided efforts not only to maintain her little family, but to give each of her children the rudiments of an education. This she accomplished by opening a school, and teaching her own children along with the rest.
With the exception of a few months' instruction in writing from a schoolmaster at Ixworth, the future poet learned from his mother all he knew when he left his home to earn his own living. This he did at the age of eleven, his mother, who had married again, being no longer able to keep him at home, or put him to a good school. His maternal uncle, a Mr. Austin of Sapiston, agreed to take him as a boy about the farm, and allow him to live in the house with the rest of the family. He appears to have received no wages, his ”board” being the only allowance made for the work he did as a farmer's boy; and this could hardly be much at such an age. He remained in this situation four years, until he was fifteen.
It was during these four years of boyhood he picked up the knowledge of farm-life, and made the observations on the varied phases of nature and the seasons which are delightfully interwoven in the four books of his well-known poem, ”The Farmer's Boy.” How observant he must have been, how eagerly he must have entered into the pleasures of rural life, how keen must have been his boyish sense of the beautiful and romantic, may be imagined by those who consider the circ.u.mstances in the midst of which, in after-years, he composed that charming poem.
His mother had undertaken to provide him with clothing while with his uncle at the farm; but this small expense was found to be too much for her scanty means. Robert at that time had two brothers, George and Nathaniel, living in London, and working, the one as a journeyman shoemaker, and the other as a tailor. To them the anxious mother applied for help in her difficulties, stating in her letter that Mr. Austin had said Robert was so small and weakly, it was to be feared he would never be able to obtain his living by hard out-door labor. The brothers at once agreed to take him under their care, find him in food and clothing, and teach him the craft of shoemaking until he should be able to obtain his own livelihood. Full of solicitude for his safety and well-being, the good woman took him up to London herself, and handed him over to the guardians.h.i.+p of her two eldest sons, begging them, ”as they valued a mother's blessing, to watch over him, to set good examples for him, and never to forget that he had lost his father.”
George Bloomfield and his brother were then living at No. 7 Pitcher's Court, Bell Alley, Coleman Street, in a garret which served both as workshop and bedroom. The place was dingy and gloomy, and presented to the bright, thoughtful Suffolk lad a mournful contrast to the pleasant surroundings in the old farm-house at Sapiston. Nor could it have been a very healthy abode, for _five_ workmen occupied the room during the day, ”clubbing together,” after the fas.h.i.+on of such workmen in those days, to lighten the burden of rent.
At first the new-comer was chiefly employed by the older men as their errand-boy, being rewarded for his trouble by receiving lessons from the workmen in the art of shoemaking. These men, like so many of their craft, were of a thoughtful turn of mind, and very eager for the news of the day. It had been their custom to have the yesterday's paper brought in with their dinner by the pot-boy from a neighboring public-house.
Until Robert came they had been in the habit of reading it by turns, but now, as his time was less valuable than theirs, the office of reader was permanently handed over to him. This duty was of much service to him, for the information he gained by reading disciplined his young mind to close and continuous thought, and enlarged his knowledge of his own language. The simple account, given by his brother George, of these social readings in the cobblers' workroom, and other means of instruction of which Robert availed himself, is full of interest. George Bloomfield says: ”He frequently met with words that he was unacquainted with; of this he often complained. I one day happened at a book-stall to see a small dictionary which had been very ill-used. I bought it for him for fourpence. By the help of this he in a little time could read and comprehend the long and beautiful speeches of Burke, Fox, or North.” And again: ”One Sunday, after a whole day's stroll in the country, we by accident went into a Dissenting meeting-house in the Old Jewry, where a gentleman was lecturing. This man filled Robert with astonishment. The house was amazingly crowded with the most genteel people; and though we were forced to stand in the aisle, and were much pressed, yet Robert always quickened his steps to get into the town on a Sunday evening soon enough to attend this lecture. The preacher's name was Fawcet. His language was just such as the 'Rambler' is written in.... Of him Robert learned to accent what he called hard words, and otherwise to improve himself, and gained the most enlarged notions of Providence.”
Bloomfield's reading was not very extensive nor diversified during these early years of his London life, yet it was sufficient to whet his appet.i.te for mental improvement, and give him no small degree of literary taste and skill. The brothers took, in sixpenny numbers, such works as a ”History of England,” ”The British Traveller,” and a ”Treatise on Geography.” These were read aloud to the little company of busy listeners, several hours of the day being occupied with the task.
His first poetic impulse was awakened by the perusal of the _London Magazine_, which found its way at this time into the cobblers' garret.
Robert always read it with zest, carefully scanning the reviews of books, and never failing to look into the ”Poets' Corner.” One day he surprised his brother by repeating a song which he had composed after the manner of Burns and so many other graceful songsters, ”to an old tune.” George was as much delighted as surprised at his young brother's smooth and easy verses, and encouraged him to try the experiment of sending them to the editor. This he did with many fears and hopes, and nervously awaited the issue of the next number. To his intense delight, and the pardonable pride of the whole company, the verses appeared in print. As a specimen of his first literary attempt, every youth will deem them worth recording, and will read them with pleasure. They bear the modest t.i.tle ”A Village Girl,” and are signed with the letters R. B.
”Hail May! lovely May! how replenished my pails, The young dawn o'erspreads the broad east streaked with gold!
My glad heart beats time to the laugh of the vales, And Colin's voice rings through the wood from the fold,
The wood to the mountain submissively bends, Whose blue misty summit first glows with the sun; See! thence a gay train by the wild rill descends To join the mixed sports:--Hark! the tumult's begun.