blished; and the public favour which attended his previous writings can leave no doubt as to the reception of the following fragments. They are the gleanings of that rich harvest which in days gone by, afforded to many a luxurious treat; filling their hearts with rapture, and their eyes with delicious tears. On this account they must be welcome to their former admirers, who will immediately recognise in them. the same sweetness, simplicity, and feeling, which, distinguished his earlier productions. Many of them, it is true, were not intended by their author to meet the public eye; and I hope this consideration will soften the asperity of criticism, should they be thought, in any way, in ferior to their predecessors.

"His pictures are drawn directly from nature; are always just and true, like the reflections of a polished mirror; while in other poets we frequently meet with dazzling and distorted images, which resemble the face of nature when viewed through a prism. Another excellence, peculiar to Bloomfield, is the extreme purity of his taste, which, considering his want of education, is really wonderful. This faculty in him was so nice and accurate, as to reject not only all gross and impure ideas, but all foreign and artificial ornaments.

His rural scenes are never infested with dryads, or fauns, or genii, or any other phantoms of foreign extraction; they are also free from every taint of local superstition, and indeed from every thing else that has the least tendency to corrupt the state, debase the mind, or demoralize the heart. Every thing is simple and unaffected; purely pastoral and truly English. Hence some have pronounced his poetry tame, and deficient in classical embellishment; but I much fear, that the tameness complained of, existed-not in the writer-but the reader, whose cold or vitiated taste might require artificial stimulants, and not be able to relish the unsophisticated productions of truth and nature. No one, indeed, can fully appreciate his peculiar excellencies unless accustomed not only to rural scenes and rural manners, but to those tranquil, yet delightful feelings also, which arise from the innocence of rural employments; in which there is little to distract the head or disturb the heart, but the gentle pulsations of love.

"In the preface to the Farmer's Boy,' a memoir was given of his early life, sufficient at that time to gratify curiosity, and to interest the public in his fate. Since that period, he has passed through twentythree years of vicissitude and trouble; chequered by the inconstancy of health, and the caprices of fortune. The general impression, no doubt, is, that Mr. B. was a very amiable and worthy man; but those few only who have shared his correspondence, who have enjoyed his confidence, who have witnessed his beneficence in prosperity, his patience in adversity, and the unbending dignity of his principles under the most amicting trials, these alone are able to form a just estimate of his moral worth, and to feel how useful it must be, to hold up such an example as a pattern to others. The virtues, however, of this excellent man did not protect him from the shafts of calumny; on a point too, which (though he never complained) must have wounded his sensitive heart, for it chilled the affection of some of his earliest friends. The world will learn with astonishment, that Bloomfield has been traduced

on the subject of religion!—Robert Bloomfield!-whose life was one pure and gentle stream of overflowing kindness;-in whose meek and quiet spirit there was "indeed no guile;" whose conversation and writings were ever filled with incentives to piety; and (if the expression is not too bold) whose very soul was composed of adoration and love! What can these adversaries of virtue mean, when they talk about religion, to which they themselves are the worst of enemies?- Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this,—to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.'

"The public is aware, that Mr. Bloomfield's works, at one time, produced a very considerable income, and that he enjoyed the munificence of many benevolent friends. As his family, however, in consequence of great and unavoidable misfortunes, have been left in distress, a question has arisen, as to the prudent use of his finances. I hope to satisfy his friends upon this point, in a way which not only exempts him from blame, but reflects the brightest lustre upon his virtues.

"The only error with which he can fairly be charged, is—that he gave bread to the orphan and the stranger, when no longer able to supply the wants of his own family:-but he is gone-and in the realms of mercy may find again the mite thus kindly bestowed! may find it of more avail than heaps of idle wealth, to calin the trembling of his silent hopes, and plead for the failings of his secret prayers."

It would be a work of supererogation to attempt, at this day, a laboured opinion on the poetry of Bloomfield. His works are in the hands of every lover of nature and of poesy. He was truly the bard of nature: his mind expatiated on the charms of rural scenery, which he had the tact of depicting with great felicity and beauty. Simplicity was his element, and as long as this essential beauty in poetic composition shall be admired, so long will his poetry retain the power of charming every unsophisticated mind. That he was not a sublime writer, we apprehend his most ardent admirers will admit; the grand, the terrible, was not his forte: his power went not to raise the tempest of passion in souls of fire, but he could soften it down to the calm contemplation of a summer evening; if he could not awaken the thunder burst from the dark and boding cloud, he failed not to portray the livelier beauties of the setting sun. If he was not qualified to sing the fall of empires and the wreck of thrones, he could excite the best feelings of the heart: he knew how to arouse the sympathies that do honour to our nature. We might cite numerous examples of this from his tales, were it needful. His sentiments were ever pure and unexceptionable. He scorned to throw a veil over the face of vice, or to cast a false lustre over mental deformity. But he did better, he could excite our admiration of pure worth and correct feeling,

F

though they emanated from the bosom of a ploughman. Let some of our nobles, who sacrifice humanity to sport, take a lesson from "Abner and the Widow Jones." The minute, and almost unnoticed features, of pastoral life, and rustic beauty, he caught with the eye of a poet. The wildest flower had a charm in his eye, and he presented it to his readers with a value and a grace unknown before. Nature was his model; fortune had thrown him amidst the scenes most congenial to his powers, and he made the most of them: where a better educated man would, perhaps, have found nothing to describe, he saw, and brought forth the poetry of the scene. That the taste of the public has been in a degree changed, since he first wrote, is not owing to any demerit of his; but when the love of simple nature shall again become the fashion, he will once more be a favorite. But the truth is, that the public mind has been over-excited by the ardent spirit of Byron, and his followers: they have administered, from their own fulness, such intoxicating draughts of passion-they have, by the energy of their own powers, aroused such high and intense feelings, that the poet who "o'ersteps not the modesty of nature," has been unjustly neglected as tame and uninspiring. They have called forth so strongly the wildest and deepest thoughts and sensations of the mind and heart, that any thing which fell short of exciting similar emotion, has been spurned with contempt. They have appealed only to the most mighty passions of the soul-they have described little else but the most terrible operations of nature, and the most awful and stupendous scenes of creation-they have called up spirits from the deep, and almost summoned down Deity from above; and the consequence has been a fever of expectation, that cannot long be answered; and an intensity of emotion that must exhaust itself by what it feeds on. To such readers, Bloomfield could offer little that would meet their overwrought desires, and to them, pastoral poetry appeared too contemptible to be noticed. But nature will prevail, and whoever has written from her genuine dictates, will yet attain the station and the applause that are his due.

The "Remains" of Bloomfield, comprise a miscellaneous assemblage of pieces, in prose and verse: the former consists of a journal of the author's tour down the river Wye; anecdotes and observations; and reflections on a variety of subjects, as they successively presented themselves to the mind of the author. The simplicity and good sense of Bloomfield are conspicuous in all, nor do they detract in the slightest degree from his amiable and unaffected character. A number of letters, from different branches of his family, appear in the Appendix. The essay on the Eolian harp is very pleasing.

The poems bear the characteristics of his former short pieces. They are marked by feeling and grace. We said they would not, in our opinion, add to his fame; but we think we may say, they will not detract from it. We hope that every admirer of this self-taught poet, will, if it be only from motives of benevolence, and respect to his memory, possess themselves of these volumes. Consistently with this desire of promoting the welfare of his family, we do not feel warranted in lessening the motives of our readers to purchase these "Remains," by indulging in quotation, and therefore we shall only make the following.

A FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA.
"Are these the famed, the brave South Downs,
That like a chain of pearls appear?
Their pale green sides and graceful crowns;
To freedom, thought, and peace, how dear!
-To freedom, for no fence is seen;

To thought, for silence soothes the way;
To peace, for o'er the boundless green

Unnumber'd flocks and shepherds stray.
Now, now we've gain'd the utmost height!
Where shall we match the vale below?
The Weald of Sussex, glorious sight,

Old Chankbury, from thy tufted brow!
Oaks, British oaks, form all its shade,
Dark as a forest's ample crown;
Yet by rich herds how cheerful made,
And countless spots of harvest brown.
But what's yon southward, dark, blue, line
Along the horizon's utmost bound;
On which the weary clouds recline,
Still varying half the circle round?
The sea! the sea! my GOD! the sea!
Yon sun-beams on its bosom play!
With milk-white sails expanded free,
There ploughs the bark her cheerful way!
I come, I come, my heart beats high;
The green sward stretches southward still;
Soft in the breeze the heath bells sigh;
Up, up we scale another hill.

A spot where once the eagle tower'd

O'er Albion's green primæval charms;
And where the harmless wild-thyme flower'd
Did Rome's proud legions pile their arms.

And here old Sissa, so they tell,

The Saxon monarch, closed his days:
I judge they play'd their parts right well,
But cannot stop to sing their praise.

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For yonder, near the ocean's brim,
I see; I taste the coming joy;
There Mary binds the wither'd limb;
The mother tends the poor lame boy.

My heart is there-sleep, Romans, sleep;
And what are Saxon kings to me?
Let me, O thou majestic deep!

Let me descend to love and thee:
And may thy calm, fair-flowing tides,
Bring peace and hope, and bid them live,
And night, whilst wandering by thy side,
Teach wisdom-teach me to forgive.

Then, when my heart is whole again,
And Fancy's renovated wing
Sweeps o'er the terrors of thy reign;
Strong on my soul those terrors bring.
In infant haunts I've dream'd of thee;

And where the crystal brook ran by,
Mark'd sands, and waves, and open sea,
And gazed-but with an infant's eye.
'Twas joy to pass the stormy hour
In groves, when childhood knew no more;
Increase that joy, tremendous Power,
Loud let thy world of waters roar !
And if the scene reflection drowns,

Or draws too often rapture's tear,
I'll stroll me o'er these lovely downs,
And press
the turf, and worship here."

Abrégé de l'Histoire de Don Quichotte de la Manche, d'après la traduction Française de Florian, avec la Signification des Mots en Anglais. Par A. Gombert.-À Londres, 1825. THE fate of men of genius is always unfortunate. None have experienced the truth of this maxim more than Miguel Cervantes. It was not sufficient that he should be crippled in the service of his country,-chained a prisoner in Algiers,abused and envied by his enemies and rivals,-his plot pirated by Avellaneda, his poverty, the cause of the most miserable dependence, his life and name almost forgotten, but now, at the distance of more than two hundred and fifty years, original sin of possessing genius is to rise against him, and he is to be subjected to the scissars and paste of a literary compiler. But perhaps, if the shade of Cervantes could