many English readers. As the immediate predecessor of Fergusson and Burns, Ramsay has every claim to be considered the father of modern Scottish poetry.

One of the most respectable names among the humbly-born and self-educated poets of the southern part of the island, is that of the late ROBERT BLOOMFIELD, the author of the Farmer's Boy. Bloomfield was born in 1766, at a small village in Suffolk. His father, who was a tailor, died before the infant was a year old, leaving his widow with the charge of five other children besides Robert. In these circumstances, in order to obtain a maintenance for herself and her family, she opened a school, and, of course, taught her own children the elements of reading along with those of her neighbours. The only school education which Robert ever received, in addition to what his mother gave him, was two or three months' instruction in writing at a school in the town of Ixworth. At the time when he was sent to this seminary, he was in his seventh year; and he was taken away so soon in consequence of his mother marrying a second husband, who probably did not choose to be at any expense in educating the offspring of his predecessor, especially as his wife, in due time, brought him a family of his own.

We have no account of how the boy spent his time from his seventh to his eleventh year; but at this age he was taken into the service of a brother of his mother, a Mr Austin, who was a respectable farmer on the lands of the Duke of Grafton. His uncle treated him exactly as he did his other servants, but that was kindly, and just as he treated his own sons. Robert, like all the rest of the household, laboured as hard as he was able; but, on the other hand, he was comfortably fed and lodged, although his board seems to have been all he re

ceived for his work. His mother undertook to provide him with the few clothes he needed; and this,' says Mr Capel Lofft, was more than she well know how to do.' Indeed she found so much difficulty in fulfilling her engagement, that she at length wrote to two of her eldest sons, who were employed in London as shoemakers, requesting them to assist her by trying to do something for their brother, who 'was so small of his age,' she added, that Mr Austin said he was not likely to be able to get his living by hard labour.' To this application her son George wrote in reply, that if she would let Robert come to town he would teach him to make shoes, and his other brother, Nat, would clothe him. The anxious and affectionate mother of the future poet assented to this proposal; but she could not be satisfied without accompanying her son to the metropolis, and putting him herself into his brother's hands. 'She charged me,' writes Mr George Bloomfield, in giving an account of the incident, as I 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.'

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When Bloomfield came to London he was in his fifteenth year. What acquaintance he had with. books at this time is not stated, but it must have been extremely scanty. We find no notice, indeed, of his having been in the habit of reading any at all while he was with Mr Austin. Yet it would appear from the sequel of his brother's account that he had at least contrived to retain so much of what he had learned in his younger days as still to be able to read tolerably. The place in which the boy was received by his two brothers was a garret in a court in Bell Alley, Coleman Street, where they had two turn-up beds, and five of them worked together. 'As we were all single men,' says George, 'lodgers

at a shilling per week each, our beds were coarse, and all things far from being clean and snug, like what Robert had left at Sapiston. Robert was our man to fetch all things to hand. At noon he fetched our dinners from the cook's shop; and any one of our fellow-workmen that wanted to have anything fetched in would send him, and assist in his work, and teach him, for a recompense for his trouble. Every day when the boy from the public-house came for the pewter pots, and to hear what porter was wanted, he always brought the yesterday's newspaper. The reading of the paper we had been used to take by turns; but, after Robert came, he mostly read for us, because his time was of least value.' The writer goes on to state that in this his occupation of reader of the newspapers, Robert frequently met with words which were new to him, and which he did not understand, a circumstance of which he often complained. So one day his brother, happening to see on a book-stall a small English dictionary, which had been very ill used, bought it for him for fourpence. This volume was to Robert a valuable treasure; and by consulting and studying it he soon learned to comprehend perfectly whatever he read. The pronunciation of some of the hard words, however, still puzzled him a good deal; but by a fortunate accident he was at length put in the way of having his difficulties here also considerably diminished. One Sunday evening, after a whole day's stroll in the country, he and his brother chanced to walk into a dissenting meeting-house in the Old Jewry, where a preacher of extraordinary abilities and great popularity was delivering a dis course. This was Mr Fawcet, whose sermons, which have been printed, are very powerful compositions. Fawcet's manner was highly rhetorical, and his language,' says Mr George Bloomfield,

< was just such as the Rambler is written in.' Robert was so much struck by his oratory that, from this time, he made a point of regularly attending the chapel every Sunday evening. In addition to the higher improvement of Mr Fawcet's discourses, he learnt from him the proper accentuation of difficult words; which he had little chance of hearing pronounced elsewhere. He also accompanied his brother sometimes, but not often, to a debating society, which was held at Coachmaker's Hall, and a few times to Covent Garden theatre. Beside the newspapers, too, he at this time read aloud to his brothers and their fellow-workmen several books of considerable extent a History of England, British Traveller, and a Geography, a sixpenny number of each of which, in folio, they took in every week. But these he always read,' says his brother, as a task, or to oblige us who bought them.' He calculates that Robert spent in this way about as many hours every week in reading as boys generally do in play.

These studies, however, even although somewhat reluctantly applied to, doubtless had considerable effect in augmenting the boy's knowledge and otherwise enlarging his mind. But it was a work of a different description from any of those that have been mentioned which may be said to have first awakened his literary genius. 'I at that time,' continues Mr George Bloomfield, 'read the London Magazine; and, in that work, about two sheets were set apart for a Review. Robert seemed always eager to read this Review. Here he could see what the literary men were doing, and learn how to judge of the merits of the works that came out. And I observed that he always looked at the 'poet's corner.' And one day he repeated a song which he composed

should make so smooth verses; so I persuaded him to try whether the editor of our paper would give them a place in poet's corner. He succeeded, and they were printed.' This is the way in which many a young literary aspirant has first tried his strength. Thus, as we noticed in our former volume, the Ladies' Diary was the repository of Thomas Simpson's earliest mathematical speculations; and it was in the columns of a Philadelphia newspaper that Franklin commenced his career as an author. A Bristol journal, in like manner, received the earliest antiquarian lucubrations of Chatterton, then only a boy of fifteen, while much about the same time the first of his Rowleian forgeries appeared in the Town and Country Magazine.

After this Bloomfield contributed other pieces to the same publication into which his first verses had been admitted; and under the impulse of its newly kindled ambition his mind would appear to have suddenly made a start forwards which could not escape the observation of his associates. Indeed, at this time,' says his brother, myself and fellowworkmen in the garret began to get instructions from him.' Shortly after, upon removing to other lodgings, they found themselves in the same apartment with a singular character, a person named James Kay, a native of Dundee. 'He was a middle-aged man,' says Mr George Bloomfield, 'of a good understanding, and yet a furious Calvinist. He had many books, and some which he did not value; such as the Seasons, Paradise Lost, and some novels. These books he lent to Robert, who spent all his leisure hours in reading the Seasons, which he was now capable of reading. 1 never heard him give so much praise to any book as to that.'

It was the reading of the Seasons, in all proba