Edward Wedlake Brayley

“ Cried, ' Spin no more!' Thou then wert left half fill'd
With this soft downy fleece, such as she wound
Through all her days ! She who could spin so well!
Half fill'd wert thou, half finish'd when she died.
Half finish'd! 'tis the motto of the world!
We spin vain threads, and dream, and strive, and die,
With sillier things than Spindles in our hands.
Then feeling, as I do, resistlessly,
The bias set upon my soul for verse.
Oh ! should Old Age still find my brain at work,
And Death, o'er some poor fragment striding, cry,
"Hold! spin no more ;" ”

“ Here, amidst all the din and bustle made by six or seven persons, pursuing the same trade as his own, did Bloomfield compose The Farmer's Boy; committing it to paper as he found opportunity, fifty, or a hundred lines at a time, and arranging them as they were afterwards printed, in the exact order in which they had been referred by imagination to memory. The strength of the latter faculty was indeed particularly exerted in the two last divisions of his poem: the whole of his Winter and great part of his Autumn having been entirely finished before a single verse was written down. ”

“ When beheld from the summit of this hill, the adjacent country presents a cheerless prospect; and the only recompense obtained by climbing such a steep, is the bird's-eye view it affords of the town, which being close to its base, has a singular and pleasing appearance, displaying a charming variety of domestic scenery. Thetford, in its prosperous state, could boast of no fewer than eight Monasteries, many remains of which are yet visible, particularly of one founded by Roger Bigod. ”

“ The summit of Shooter's Hill commands a most extensive and variegated prospect, overlooking as large a city and as fine a country as any in the universe. This place was visited by Bloomfield solely for the recovery of his health. ”

“ Thou shalt a moral teach to me and mine.
The hand that wore thee smooth is cold, and spins
No more. Debility press'd hard around
The seat of life, and terrors fill'd her brain;
Nor causeless terrors: Giants grim and bold. ”

“ William Austin, his mother's brother-in-law, a respectable farmer of Sapiston, a little village adjoining to Honington, his mother still continuing to find him "a few things to wear," though even this "was more than she well knew how to do." Mr. Austin, having himself a large family, could pay but little attention to his young kinsman, more than to providing him with food and employment: in this respect, however, the treatment of his servants and of his sons was the same; "all worked hard, all lived well." ”

“ The family of Bloomfield consists of his wife, three daughters, and a son: to the latter, who is unfortunately afflicted with lameness, his father has dedicated his Wild Flowers. His wife's father is also resident in his house, and it will not be thought undeserving of notice, by those for whom the "simple annals of the poor" have interest, that the "Old Oak Table" upon whose "back" The Farmer's Boy was written, was a gift from this relation towards housekeeping; and to use the words of Bloomfield himself, composed of his
Worldly wealth, the parent stock. ”

“ In this war one Conageee Angria raised himself from a private man to be commander-in-chief of the Morattoe fleet, and was intrusted with the government of Severndroog, one of their strongest forts, built upon a small rocky island which lies about eight miles to the north of Dabul, and within cannon-shot of the continent: here Conagee revolted against the Saha Rajah, or king of the Morattoes, and having seduced part of the fleet to follow his fortune, he with them took and destroyed the rest. ”

“ From the little that can at present be ascertained of the family of Bloomfield, it appears that the great-grandfather of the Poet, both on the male and on the female side, is the most distant ancestor whose relationship can regularly be traced; and it is singular that both these relations were tailors, and that they were both placed out to that trade by ladies, whose names are now unknown. ”

“ The Mogul empire, when it first extended its dominion to the sea in the northern parts of this coast, appointed an admiral called the Sidee, with a fleet to protect the vessels of their Mahometan subjects trading to the gulfs of Arabia and Persia, from the Malabar pirates, as well as from the Portuguese. The Morattoes were at that time in possession of several forts between Goa and Bombay, and finding themselves interrupted in their piracies by the Mogul's admiral, they made war against him by sea and land. ”

“ He is an old man; he tells me his great-great-grandfather fled from England in the time of the revolution in England, in the time of Oliver Cromwell. He has a town in the Jerseys called Bloomfield, the inhabitants chiefly composed of that name, which he has hunted out:— he finished by telling me, if ever I wanted assistance, to apply to him, as he made it an invariable rule to help his country people all he could, and particularly those of his own name. ”

“ Isaac Bloomfield, his great-grandfather by the male line, was apprenticed at Framlingham, in Suffolk; but in the latter part of his life he was Churchwarden during twenty-seven years, of the parish of Ousden, in the same county. He lived to the age of eighty-eight, and had seventeen children alive at one time, of whom James, the youngest, and by a second marriage, was father to Mr. Charles Blomfield, who keeps a very respectable school at Bury St. ”

“ The more humble the state, perhaps, from which any human being has emerged to eminence through the vigour of his talents, the higher must have been his merit; for the disadvantages of birth and fortune have a far greater influence on the evolution of the mental faculties, than the moralist, who, with Pope, makes "Virtue its own reward," is at all times willing to acknowledge. ”

“ Even at the time that Bloomfield resided here, ash and elm were much more abundant than now: the tall trees near the house are the remaining elms under which the cows were collected for the purpose of milking. ”

“ Will in future be celebrated as the birthplace of the most simple and captivating of our pastoral poets. The Cottage, which is on the right of the church, as seen in the Print, was purchased as a barn by the grandfather of the Poet, and has since been gradually improving to its present neat and comfortable appearance. ”

“ The proprietor has been at considerable pains to make every appendage consistent with his own peculiar taste; to this end he has inscribed almost every tree in his garden and its vicinity to names of classic celebrity, such as Homer, Demosthenes, Cicero, Milton, Cowley, and many others: the large elm in the foreground of the View is called the Evelyn Elm, in memory of the antiquary and planter of that name. ”

“ The Malabar coast, from Cape Comorin to Surat, is intersected by a great number of rivers, which disembogue into the sea: it appears that from the earliest antiquity the inhabitants have had a strong propensity to piracy; and at this day, all the different principalities on the coast employ vessels to cruise upon those of all other nations which they can overpower. ”

“ The grounds about the house are admirably adapted to answer the purposes of utility and pleasure. The gardens are extensive and in excellent order. There is an uncommonly fine grove called the Pheasantry, through which is a winding path of a mile and a half in circuit, affording a most agreeable walk from the house, as it terminates at a short distance from its beginning. ”

“ There was not a creek, bay, harbour, or mouth of a river along the coast of his dominions, in which he had not erected fortifications and marine receptacles, to serve both as a station of discovery, and as a place of refuge to his vessels; hence it was as difficult to avoid the encounter of them, as to take them.
"Eight or ten grabs, vessels from 150 to 300 tons burthen, and forty or fifty gallivats, or large row-boats, crowded with men, generally composed Angria's principal fleet destined to attack ships of force or burden. ”

“ Castle Hill is judged to be the largest of an artificial kind in this kingdom, and is surrounded by three ramparts, which were formerly divided by ditches: the ramparts are still in good preservation. ”

“ His domestic affairs were greatly improved by the various presents which he received from those who were emulous to reward the exertion of talents under such untoward circumstances, and, conjoined with the profits derived from the sale of the work, enabled him to emerge from the obscurity of his former situation, and to remove to a small house near the Shepherd and Shepherdess, in the City Road. One of the greatest pleasures, however, resulting to Bloomfield from the printing of The Farmer's Boy, was the opportunity of transmitting a copy to his mother ”

“ The Commodore then flung out the signal for a general chase; but as little regard was paid to this as to his former intention; for although the vessels of the Morattoes had hitherto sailed better than the English, such was their terror of Angria's fleet, that they all kept behind, and suffered the Protector to proceed alone almost out of their sight. The enemy, on the other hand, exerted themselves with uncommon industry, flinging overboard all their lumber to lighten their vessels ”

“ Modest and unassuming in his manners, retired in deportment, warm in his friendship, and humble in his piety, he is convinced that individual worth must arise from individual merit: and that the inquiry, 'To whom related, or by whom begot,' is only of use when it tends to improve the conduct, and to instruct the heart.
E. W. B. March 15, 1806. ↑ See the eighth edition of The Farmer's Boy, where all the pieces alluded to are re-printed. ”

“ He is said to have descended from the Maddockes of Wales, who formerly held the sovereignty of that principality; but the same combination of events which deprived them of a crown, reduced him below the rank of mediocrity; for this man, who could boast of a regal ancestry, was actually reduced to traverse the extent of country from Wales to London on foot in search of employment, at the age of thirteen, friendless and alone ”

“ During the tearful paroxysms of her last depression she spun with the utmost violence, and with vehemence exclaimed— ' I must spin! '; A paralytic affection struck her whole right side while at work, and obliged her to quit her spindle when only half filled, and she died within a fortnight afterwards! I have that spindle now. She was buried on the last day of the year 1804. She returned from her visit to London on Friday the 29th of June, just, to a day, twenty-three years after she brought me to London, which was also on a Friday, in the year 1781.
TO A SPINDLE.
Relic! ”

“ In Northamptonshire, was a grant from the crown in the year 1685, to the Duke of Grafton, who was made hereditary keeper. The forest is well stocked with timber, and presents a beautiful variety of groves, lawns, and upland swells, enlivened by numerous herds of deer and flocks of sheep. ”

“ The Poet's mother then kept a school at the cottage, and retreated from the distressing scene into the fields with a clock, and the title-deeds of the house in her lap, surrounded by a group of infant scholars, in full persuasion that her habitation was feeding the flames ”

“ It consists of an upper and lower apartment, and is in the Grecian style of architecture. It forms a pleasing object from many points of view in the neighbourhood of Euston, and commanding a wide range of prospect,
⁠———points the way,
O'er slopes and lawns, the park's extensive pride!
Barnham Water is a small rivulet which crosses the road from Euston to Thetford: it is in the midst of a "bleak, unwooded scene,"' and justifies the Poet's lamentation in its full extent ”

“ There still are joys poor Poll can never know.
Sapiston Church, like many others in Suffolk, is covered with thatch; from which circumstance it has many times been nearly unroofed by the pilfering of the jackdaws. In the churchyard lie buried Mr. Austin, the venerable master of Giles, Mrs. Austin, and nine of their infant children. ”

“ The Morattoes, who were in possession of the main land opposite to Bombay, had several times made proposals to the English Government in the island to attack this common enemy with their united forces. Accordingly Commodore James, the Commander-in-chief of the Company's marine force in India, sailed on the 22d of March, 1756, in the Protector of forty-four guns, with a ketch of sixteen guns, and two bomb-vessels ”