from obscurity to a fair prospect both of fame, and what to him must have been hitherto an unhoped-for degree of worldly prosperity. The change in his condition and expectations is well and graphically described in the simple language of his brother, whose exertions in his behalf had so large a share in bringing about what had now taken place. "I have him," he writes to Mr. Lofft, in reference to Robert's first appearance in London, "in my mind's eye, a little boy; not bigger than boys generally are at twelve years old. When I met him and his mother at the inn, he strutted before us, dressed just as he came from keeping sheep, hogs, &c. -his shoes filled full of stumps in the heels. He, looking about him, slipped up, his nails were unused to a flat pavement. I remember viewing him as he scampered up, how small he was. I little thought that little fatherless boy would be one day known and esteemed by the most learned, the most respected, the wisest, and the best men of the kingdom." It is gratifying to know that those excellent and affectionate relations, his mother and brother, both lived to witness the prosperity of him who in other days had been to each the object of so much anxious care. It was the dearest of the poet's gratifications, when his book was printed, to present a copy of it to his mother, to whom upon that occasion he had it in his power, for the first time, to pay a visit, after twelve years' absence from his native village.

Bloomfield published several volumes of poetry after the "Farmer's Boy," among others a small volume entitled "Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs," which were written, he tells us, during the interval between the completion of the composition of his first work and its appearance in a printed form. Soon after this, however, his health, which had never been very vigorous, began to give way; and he was obliged to resign an appointment in the Seal Office which had been given to him by the Duke of Grafton, and on receiving which he had relinquished his original trade. He now found his musical turn a resource, and realized a small income by manufacturing Æolian harps. But his health gradually grew so much worse, that he was at last obliged to leave London altogether, upon which he retired to Shefford, in Bedfordshire. Here he remained till his death, on the 19th of August, 1823, in the fifty-eighth year of his age.

Although he was an extraordinary instance of what the force of native talent will sometimes accomplish where education has been nearly altogether withheld, Bloomfield gave plentiful evidence, especially in his first production, of the disadvantages under which he laboured from the want of early cultivation. Considering the circumstances under which it was written, and the intellectual training its author had had― left to acquire his first notions of poetry from nothing better than the very indifferent magazine verses of that day, and with no one of more judgment or experience in such matters than himself even to converse with-tne "Farmer's Boy" is a surprising performance. Its descriptions

of rural scenery and occupations are evidently taken, not from other books, but directly from nature; the tone of sentiment throughout is characterised by a manly and unaffected simplicity; the inspiration of true feeling reveals itself everywhere; and some passages—for example, the sketch of the mad girl in the Autumn-display pathos of a very high order. There is enough of faithfulness and vividness of delineation, and even of originality, to have furnished the soul and substance of a much better poem. But Bloomfield's skill in everything belonging to the department of execution, or workmanship, is of the very humblest order. Of the witchery of words he is nearly altogether destitute. He is remarkable for his deficiency in this respect even among uneducated or self-taught writers. Burns's felicities of expression play over his page like incessant outbreaks of sunshine; they are as frequent as in Horace, and not less brilliant; his style, wherever his genius is quite at its ease and working naturally, may be pronounced to be quite perfect; even Allan Ramsay often, when he has little other merit, pleases us by his mastery over the idioms and proprieties of his native Doric. But Bloomfield, in writing the English of books, was in truth struggling with the difficulties of a foreign language, and of one which he had never properly studied. His ordinary diction is fashioned after the very worst models. It is feeble and ineffective, not merely from being unpicturesque, but stili more from being encumbered with a false and tawdry rhetoric, not more unlike the true language of poetry than that of common sense. It is not difficult to trace in this ambitious and unnatural style, an imitation of the fashionable poetry of our magazines in the latter part of the last century. He has also, as was natural, caught a good deal of what is worst in the style of his great predecessor, Thomson-that empty swell of verbiage of which we have a good deal in the “Seasons," although it disappears so completely in the exquisite art of the "Castle of Indolence." A better education in his youth would have saved the homely genius of Bloomfield from being thus misled into affectations so uncongenial to its true spirit. He afterwards, indeed, learned to write with more correctness-but rather with fewer faults than with more of real artistic life and power. Paradoxical as it may seem to say so, it is probable that he and some other self-taught writers, if they had been less self-taught, would have been more original. It is probably, indeed, a mistake to suppose that the circumstance of an individual having been what is called self-taught, is generally favourable to the originality of his literary productions. There is more reason for suspecting, that even those self-taught writers who have displayed most of this highest element of power, would have exhibited it in still greater abundance if they had enjoyed, in addition to their rare gifts of nature, the advantages of a regular education. It is certain, at any rate, that the literary performances of men who have been their own teachers have not, except in

a few extraordinary cases, been in any degree peculiarly distinguished by this quality. Of the numerous tribe of self-taught verse-makers, especially, the great majority have been the merest imitators. A fair specimen of this race, the individuals of which, although they some times excite a temporary attention, generally drop very speedily into oblivion, we have in a writer named STEPHEN DUCK, who flourished in the early part of the last century. Duck was born about the year 1700, at the village of Charlton, in Wiltshire. He was at school for a short time in his boyhood, when he learned a little reading, writing, and arithmetic. When about fourteen, however, he was sent to work as an agricultural labourer; and, being employed for several years in the lowest rural occupations, without ever opening a book, he soon forgot what little learning he had ever possessed. Still, as he used afterwards to tell, even at this time his thoughts were often engaged on subjects very foreign to his daily employments. At last he began to read a little, and this gradually inspired him with a desire to recover his lost knowledge, scanty as it had been. At this time he was about twentyfour years of age, with a wife and family to support; and, being engaged in hard work all day, he had but very little time for study. He was also without books, and had no money to buy any. Yet such was his ardour to obtain the means of instructing himself, that for some time, whenever he had an hour's release from his regular employment, he devoted it to extra work; and in this way he saved money enough to purchase, first, a treatise on vulgar fractions, then one on decimal fractions, and lastly, one on land-surveying. All these works he made himself master of, by studying them during the night, when everybody about him was asleep. Soon after this, he became intimately acquainted with a person in the same condition of life as himself, but who had passed some years in service in London, whence he had brought down a few dozens of books with him to the country. Of these some were treatises on arithmetic; among the others were the Bible, "Paradise Lost," the "Spectator," Seneca's "Morals," "Telemachus," an English dictionary and grammar, Ovid, Josephus, seven plays by Shakespeare, and a few more by other writers; Dryden's "Virgil," "Hudibras," and the works of Waller and Prior. Duck had, it seems, been always fond of poetry and music; though hitherto the best specimens of either which he had had an opportunity of enjoying had been only a few rustic ballads. But his perusal of some of the above works inspired him with new enthusiasm, and in no long time he began to attempt writing verses himself. The first poetical work by which he was greatly struck, was “Paradise Lost." Yet he read it through twice or thrice, with the aid of his dictionary, before he understood it. The new beauties he was continually discovering, however, made all this labour delightful. He studied the book we are told, as a student of Greek or

Latin would do one of the ancient classics, and making all the while almost as much use of his dictionary and grammar as if it had been written in a foreign language. These literary labours were still generally pursued during the night. Sometimes, however, he used to take a volume with him in his pocket when he went out to his daily work in the fields; and, if by working with more activity than usual, he could get through what he had to do in less than the usual time, he would devote the few precious moments he had gained to the perusal of his book, to which he would sit down all perspiring as he was, thinking of nothing but how he might make the most of his short and hard-earned respite.

Even while at work he often employed himself in composing verses It was some time before he thought of committing any of his compositions to paper; but at last he was induced to address a letter in verse to a gentleman, who, having heard of his acquirements, had sought him out, and made his acquaintance; and this effusion, having been shown to several other persons, was generally regarded as a very surprising performance for one in his circumstances. Some clergymen, in particular, to whom it was submitted, were so much pleased with it, that they rewarded the author with a small gratuity. From this time his talents began to be generally talked of; and, encouraged by the praise he received, he did not suffer his poetical faculty to lie dormant. The consequence was, that in a short time he had accumulated a respectable store of verse. It seems to have been not long before the year 1730, that Duck attracted the notice of the Rev. Mr. Spence, already mentioned as the patron of Robert Hill, the learned tailor, and the blind poet Blacklock. Spence, who did himself great credit by the interest he took in these cases of indigent merit, immediately conceived the idea of bringing the claims of his protégé before the public in the most effective manner, through the press; and, accordingly, as many of his poems were collected as formed a quarto volume, which made its appearance in that year. Besides the general reputation which the author acquired by this publication, it procured for him the particular favour and patronage of Queen Caroline, who immediately settled upon him a pension of thirty pounds a year. In 1733 he was made one of the Yeomen of the Guard. He now applied himself to the study of the Latin language-in which having made some progress, he was admitted into holy orders. On this the queen appointed him, in the first instance, keeper of her library at Richmond, and in a short time after he was preferred to the living of Byfleet, in Surrey. Meanwhile, a second edition of his poems had appeared in 1736, to which we find the names of the queen and other members of the royal family prefixed as subscribers. Duck became much beloved and respected by the people of Byfleet in his capacity of pastor, and lived there happily for many years. But the termination of his history is verv melancholy. He at last fell into

low spirits and drowned himself in the Thames, near Reading, in the year 1756. His poems have now long been forgotten. They had little merit, except considerable smoothness of versification, which even in those days the example of Pope had rendered a common quality.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

H. K. WHITE; HAWKESWORTH; GOLDSMITH; MENDELSOHN.

IN selecting our examples from the class at present under review of those who, in the midst of unfavourable circumstances, have distinguished themselves by their ardour in the pursuit of knowledge, there is one name not to be omitted, that of the gifted and amiable HENRY KIRKE WHITE. As it is probable, however, that most of our readers are acquainted with the narrative of his life which has been so delightfully written by Southey, we shall confine ourselves to a short notice of its leading incidents. He was born in 1785, at Nottingham, where his father followed the business of a butcher. He was sent to a school at

.

three years of age, and soon became so fond of reading, that, when he had got his book in his hand, it was difficult to get him to leave it even for a few minutes, that he might take his meals. When no more than seven, he began to attempt to express his ideas on paper; his first