CHAPTER V.

“For I was bornTo brand obtrusive ignorance with scorn;On bloated pedantry to pour my rage,And hiss preposterous fustian from the stage.Lo, Delia Crusca! In his closet pent,He toils to give the crude conception vent.Abortive thoughts that right and wrong confound,Truth sacrificed to letters, sense to sound,False glare, incongruous images combine;And noise and nonsense clatter through the line,’Tis done. Her house the generous Piozzi lends,And thither summons her blue-stocking friends;The summons her blue-stocking friends obey,Lured by the love of poetry—and tea.The bard steps forth in birthday splendor drest,His right hand graceful waving o’ er his breast,His left extending, so that all may seeA roll inscribed, ‘The Wreath of Liberty.’So forth he steps, and with complacent air,Bows round the circle, and assumes the chair;With lemonade he gargles first his throat,Then sweetly preludes to the liquid note:And now ’tis silence all. ‘Genius or muse’—Thus while the flowery subject he pursues,A wild delirium round th’ assembly flies;Unusual lustre shoots from Emma’s eyes;Luxurious Arno drivels as he stands;And Anna frisks, and Laura claps her hands.* * * * * * *Hear now our guests:—‘The critics, sir, they cry,Merit like yours the critics may defy;’But this indeed they say, ‘Your varied rhymes,At once the boast and envy of the times,In every page, song, sonnet, what you will,Show boundless genius and unrivalled skill.’* * * * * * *Thus fooled, the moon-struck tribe, whose best essaysSunk in acrostics and in roundelays,To loftier labors now pretend a call,And bustle in heroics one and all.E’en Bertie burns of gods and chiefs to sing—Bertie who lately twittered to the stringHis namby pamby madrigals of love,In the dark dingles of a glittering grove,Where airy lays, wove by the hand of morn,Were hung to dry upon a cobweb thorn!Happy the soil where bards like mushrooms rise,And ask no culture but what Byshe supplies!Happier the bards who, write whate’er they will,Find gentle readers to admire them still!* * * * * * *Oh for the good old times! when all was new,And every hour brought prodigies to view,Our sires in unaffected language toldOf streams of amber, and of rocks of gold;Full of their theme, they spurned all idle art;And the plain tale was trusted to the heart.Now all is changed! We fume and fret, poor elves;Less to display our subject than ourselves:Whate’er we paint—a grot, a flower, a bird,Heavens! how we sweat, laboriously absurd!Words of gigantic bulk, and uncouth sound,In rattling triads the long sentence bound;While points with points, with periods periods jar,And the whole work seems one continued war!”

“For I was born

To brand obtrusive ignorance with scorn;

On bloated pedantry to pour my rage,

And hiss preposterous fustian from the stage.

Lo, Delia Crusca! In his closet pent,

He toils to give the crude conception vent.

Abortive thoughts that right and wrong confound,

Truth sacrificed to letters, sense to sound,

False glare, incongruous images combine;

And noise and nonsense clatter through the line,

’Tis done. Her house the generous Piozzi lends,

And thither summons her blue-stocking friends;

The summons her blue-stocking friends obey,

Lured by the love of poetry—and tea.

The bard steps forth in birthday splendor drest,

His right hand graceful waving o’ er his breast,

His left extending, so that all may see

A roll inscribed, ‘The Wreath of Liberty.’

So forth he steps, and with complacent air,

Bows round the circle, and assumes the chair;

With lemonade he gargles first his throat,

Then sweetly preludes to the liquid note:

And now ’tis silence all. ‘Genius or muse’—

Thus while the flowery subject he pursues,

A wild delirium round th’ assembly flies;

Unusual lustre shoots from Emma’s eyes;

Luxurious Arno drivels as he stands;

And Anna frisks, and Laura claps her hands.

* * * * * * *

Hear now our guests:—‘The critics, sir, they cry,

Merit like yours the critics may defy;’

But this indeed they say, ‘Your varied rhymes,

At once the boast and envy of the times,

In every page, song, sonnet, what you will,

Show boundless genius and unrivalled skill.’

* * * * * * *

Thus fooled, the moon-struck tribe, whose best essays

Sunk in acrostics and in roundelays,

To loftier labors now pretend a call,

And bustle in heroics one and all.

E’en Bertie burns of gods and chiefs to sing—

Bertie who lately twittered to the string

His namby pamby madrigals of love,

In the dark dingles of a glittering grove,

Where airy lays, wove by the hand of morn,

Were hung to dry upon a cobweb thorn!

Happy the soil where bards like mushrooms rise,

And ask no culture but what Byshe supplies!

Happier the bards who, write whate’er they will,

Find gentle readers to admire them still!

* * * * * * *

Oh for the good old times! when all was new,

And every hour brought prodigies to view,

Our sires in unaffected language told

Of streams of amber, and of rocks of gold;

Full of their theme, they spurned all idle art;

And the plain tale was trusted to the heart.

Now all is changed! We fume and fret, poor elves;

Less to display our subject than ourselves:

Whate’er we paint—a grot, a flower, a bird,

Heavens! how we sweat, laboriously absurd!

Words of gigantic bulk, and uncouth sound,

In rattling triads the long sentence bound;

While points with points, with periods periods jar,

And the whole work seems one continued war!”

Not less poetical, and certainly much more pleasant in its tone, is this reminiscence of his early friendship with Dr. Ireland:

‘Chief thou, my friend! who from my earliest yearsHast shared my joys, and more than shared my cares,Sure, if our fates hang on some hidden power,And take their color from the natal hour,Then, Ireland, the same planet on us rose,Such the strong sympathies our lives disclose!Thou knowest how soon we felt this influence bland,And sought the brook and coppice, hand in hand,And shaped rude bows, and uncouth whistles blew,And paper kites—a last great effort—flew:And when the day was done, retired to rest,Sleep on our eyes, and sunshine in our breast.In riper years, again together thrown,Our studies, as our sports before, were one.Together we explored the stoic pageOf the Ligurian, stern though bearless sage!Or traced the Aquinian through the Latine road,And trembled at the lashes he bestowed.Together, too, when Greece unlocked her stores,We roved in thought o’er Troy’s devoted shores,Or followed, while he sought his native soil,‘That old man eloquent’ from toil to toil;Lingering, with good Alcinous o’er the tale,Till the east reddened and the stars grew pale.”

‘Chief thou, my friend! who from my earliest years

Hast shared my joys, and more than shared my cares,

Sure, if our fates hang on some hidden power,

And take their color from the natal hour,

Then, Ireland, the same planet on us rose,

Such the strong sympathies our lives disclose!

Thou knowest how soon we felt this influence bland,

And sought the brook and coppice, hand in hand,

And shaped rude bows, and uncouth whistles blew,

And paper kites—a last great effort—flew:

And when the day was done, retired to rest,

Sleep on our eyes, and sunshine in our breast.

In riper years, again together thrown,

Our studies, as our sports before, were one.

Together we explored the stoic page

Of the Ligurian, stern though bearless sage!

Or traced the Aquinian through the Latine road,

And trembled at the lashes he bestowed.

Together, too, when Greece unlocked her stores,

We roved in thought o’er Troy’s devoted shores,

Or followed, while he sought his native soil,

‘That old man eloquent’ from toil to toil;

Lingering, with good Alcinous o’er the tale,

Till the east reddened and the stars grew pale.”

The tenderness of his nature is also shown in the lines he wrote for the tombstone of his faithful servant Ann Davies:

“Though here unknown, dear Ann, thy ashes rest,Still lives thy memory in one grateful breast,That traced thy course through many a painful year,And marked thy humble hope, thy pious fear.Oh! when this frame which yet while life remained,Thy duteous love with trembling hand sustained,Dissolves—as soon it must—may that blest PowerWho beamed on thine, illume my parting hour!So shall I greet thee where no ills annoy,And what was sown in grief is reaped in joy;Where worth, obscured below, bursts into day,And those are paid whom earth could never pay.”

“Though here unknown, dear Ann, thy ashes rest,

Still lives thy memory in one grateful breast,

That traced thy course through many a painful year,

And marked thy humble hope, thy pious fear.

Oh! when this frame which yet while life remained,

Thy duteous love with trembling hand sustained,

Dissolves—as soon it must—may that blest Power

Who beamed on thine, illume my parting hour!

So shall I greet thee where no ills annoy,

And what was sown in grief is reaped in joy;

Where worth, obscured below, bursts into day,

And those are paid whom earth could never pay.”

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD

THE SHOEMAKER WHO WROTE “THE FARMER’S BOY.”

“Crispin’s sonsHave 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 nightWith anthems.”—Charles Lamb:Album Verses, 1830, p. 57.

“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:Album 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 paradeOf pedantry and cumbrous lore,On thy elastic bosom weigh’d;Instead, were thine, a mazy storeOf 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 wingsTo rob thy Genius.—’Twas in vain:With one proud soar she burst her chain!”—Blackwood’s Magazine,Sept. 1823.

“No pompous learning—no paradeOf pedantry and cumbrous lore,On thy elastic bosom weigh’d;Instead, were thine, a mazy storeOf feelings delicately wrought,And treasures gleaned by silent thought.

“No pompous learning—no parade

Of pedantry and cumbrous 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 wingsTo rob thy Genius.—’Twas in vain:With one proud soar she burst her chain!”—Blackwood’s Magazine,Sept. 1823.

“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.

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 classes 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 afarmer’s boyis 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 illustrated—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.”

“I do but sing because I must,

And pipe but as the linnets sing.”

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 circumstances 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. Thebrothers 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 guardianship 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, forfiveworkmen occupied the room during the day, “clubbing together,” after the fashion 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 amazinglycrowded 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 appetite 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 theLondon 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 title “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 descendsTo join the mixed sports:—Hark! the tumult’s begun.Be cloudless, ye skies! and be Colin but there;Not dew-spangled bents on the wide level dale,Nor morning’s first smile can more lovely appear,Than his looks,—since my wishes I cannot conceal.Swift down the mad dance, whilst blest health prompts to move,We’ll count joys to come, and exchange vows of truth;And haply, when age cools the transports of love,Decry, like good folks, the vain follies of youth.”

“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 descendsTo join the mixed sports:—Hark! the tumult’s begun.

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.

Be cloudless, ye skies! and be Colin but there;Not dew-spangled bents on the wide level dale,Nor morning’s first smile can more lovely appear,Than his looks,—since my wishes I cannot conceal.

Be cloudless, ye skies! and be Colin but there;

Not dew-spangled bents on the wide level dale,

Nor morning’s first smile can more lovely appear,

Than his looks,—since my wishes I cannot conceal.

Swift down the mad dance, whilst blest health prompts to move,We’ll count joys to come, and exchange vows of truth;And haply, when age cools the transports of love,Decry, like good folks, the vain follies of youth.”

Swift down the mad dance, whilst blest health prompts to move,

We’ll count joys to come, and exchange vows of truth;

And haply, when age cools the transports of love,

Decry, like good folks, the vain follies of youth.”

Another piece called “The Sailor’s Return” found a place in the “Poets’ Corner.” These efforts were enough to prove his taste and gifts as a versifier. The poetic power was latent in his mind, and only needed sufficient stimulus to bring it into full exercise. This stimulus came, as was natural, from the reading of poetry itself. A copy of Thomson’s “Seasons” and Milton’s “Paradise Lost” fell into his hands when he was about seventeen years of age. They belonged to a Scotchman who lived and worked at a house in Bell Alley, to which the shoemakers removed about this time. The eager youth read them with the passion of a born poet; and, as he read, the fire burned within. His imagination was now fairly awakened, and it was plain to all who watched him intelligently at this time, that melodies were being awakened in his heart that sooner or later must find their expression in song. The “Seasons” was his favorite poem. He read and re-read its glowing descriptions of nature, committed favorite portions to memory, and never tired of recounting its beauties in the hearing of his sympathetic friends. The “Seasons” struck the key-note of the “Farmer’s Boy,” though Bloomfield was no imitator of Thomson, nor of any one else, in either matter or manner. The thought and style of these two poets of nature are as unlike as their kindred subjects would allow them to be. Thomson’s music is that of a majestic and stately oratorio, while Bloomfield sings a sweet and simple pastoral symphony.

But the young poet was not yet to enter on his great task. Fourteen years passed away before his first and best published poem, the “Farmer’s Boy,” saw the light. During this time several important events in his history occurred. In his eighteenth year, in consequence of certain disputes in the shoe-makers’ trade about the legality of employing boys who had not been bound as apprentices, he went back again to Suffolk for a short time, and was taken into the home of his uncle and former master, Mr. Austin of Sapiston. Here for two months of happy leisure he roamed the fields where he spent so much of his time as a boy, reviving old impressions, and deepening in his mind that keen sense of the beautiful which city life and the imprisonment of a shoemaker’s occupation had not been sufficient to destroy. His companion at this time was still thefavorite “Seasons,” from which, in the presence of the very charms which Thomson describes, the ardent youth derived new pleasure and inspiration.

The trade difficulty was got over by his becoming an apprentice for the remaining three years of his minority to a Mr. Duddridge, brother to George’s former landlord. At the age of twenty he was left alone in London, George having removed to Bury St. Edmund’s in his own county, and Nathaniel having married and gone into housekeeping. Robert now took to the study of music, and became an expert player on the violin. At the age of twenty-four he married the daughter of a boat-builder at Woolwich named Church. “I have sold my fiddle and got a wife,” he humorously writes to his brother. At first his home was in furnished lodgings, but by dint of hard work and strict economy he managed in a short time to furnishoneroom on the first floor of a house in Bell Alley, Coleman Street, the old quarters to which he had come fresh from the country on his first becoming a shoemaker. His landlord kindly allowed him the free use of a garret to work in during the day. “In this garret,” says his brother, “amid six or seven other workmen, his active mind employed itself in composing the ‘Farmer’s Boy.’” How long his mind was occupied in this task we cannot tell. One could hardly wonder if the process of composition was slow in the midst of such distracting and unfavorable circumstances. The marvel is that it should have been composed at all under such uncongenial and difficult conditions. So hard pressed for time was the poor poet-shoemaker, and so unable to find the proper materials for writing, that he is said to have made up and kept in his mind no less than 600 lines, that is, about thehalfof his poem, before he could manage to write it down. And when he did this, he was glad to lay hold of any odd scrap of paper for the purpose; the back of a letter or a printed bill, the margin of newspapers, pieces of pattern-paper, were seized as they came to hand and covered with writing, and then hidden away in cupboards, and occasionally even in some chink in the wall, until they could be collected and arranged for a fair copy, suitable to go into the hands of the printer. It was indeed a wonderful exhibition of mental abstraction and retentive memory. Few, even among poets, could have wrought to any purpose amid the din and conversation of a shoemakers’ workroom, and still fewer, even if the excitement of poetic thought had enabled them to compose, could have treasured up their productions in the memoryuntil they amounted to 600 lines. A friend of Bloomfield named Swan, writing to Mr. Capel Lofft, says, “Bloomfield, either from the contracted state of his pecuniary resources to purchase paper, or for other reasons, composed the latter part of ‘Autumn’ and the whole of ‘Winter’ in his head, without committing one line to paper! This cannot fail to surprise the literary world, who are well acquainted with the treacherousness of memory, and how soon the most happy ideas, for want of sufficient quickness in writing down, are lost in the rapidity of thought. But this is not all—he went a step further; he not only composed and committed that part of his work to his faithful and retentive memory; but hecorrectedit all in his head!!!—and, as he said, when it was thus prepared, ‘I had nothing to do but to write it down.’ By this new and wonderful mode of composition, he studied and completed his ‘Farmer’s Boy,’ in a garret, among six or seven of his fellow-workmen, without their ever once suspecting or knowing anything of the matter!”[31]

Bloomfield was thirty-two years of age when his poem was complete and attempts were being made to find a printer and publisher. These attempts were for a time fruitless. One after another the publishers rejected the “copy” of the unknown writer. At length, it was sent by George Bloomfield, who always had full confidence in Robert’s powers, to a gentleman of literary tastes living at Troston Hall, near Bury, in Suffolk—Mr. Capel Lofft. This gentleman had the good sense at once to perceive the genuine merits of the poem submitted to his judgment, and to recommend its publication. By his kind influence and aid a publisher was soon found. Messrs. Vernon & Hood paid the poet £50 for his copy, and afterward, when the poem proved a success, honorably advanced an additional £200, besides giving the author an interest in his copyright.

The success of the poem was immediate and complete. It was warmly received by the public, and praised in all quarters as a masterpiece of natural poetic simplicity and beauty. Twenty-six thousand copies were sold in the first three years of its issue, seven editions having been called for. The position secured by the “Farmer’s Boy” on its first publication has been held until the present day. All lovers of poetry read itwith delight. It is natural and graceful as the song of a bird “warbling his native woodnotes wild.” When the English song-bird sings in captivity there seems to be a touch of pathos in his note; and one can hardly resist the same impression in reading these sweet rustic melodies in verse which came from the lips of the shoemaker-poet imprisoned in a London garret. Yet there is something much more stimulating in Bloomfield’s lines than this. They are sweet and joyous, and full of that glowing enthusiasm for beauty which all fine natures feel. Besides the editions sent forth in this country, the “Farmer’s Boy” was printed at Leipsic, and was translated into French, Italian, and Latin.

Bloomfield now had many friends as well as admirers. The Duke of Grafton, on whose estate he had been employed as a boy, settled upon him a small annuity, and used his influence to obtain for him a post at the seal-office at 1s. per day. In addition to this, Bloomfield received frequent presents from the nobility, and even from members of the royal family. To the poor shoemaker, accustomed to the utmost obscurity, all this success, and popularity, and patronage “appeared,” to use his own language, “like a dream.”

In after-years he issued a number of small volumes of poetry, in which are found several shorter pieces of great merit, such as the two descriptive or ballad pieces “Richard and Kate,” “The Fakenham Ghost,” or the exquisitely simple piece called “The Soldier’s Return.” The first of these is one of the best modern ballads in the language, as it is certainly among the most, if it be not the most, spirited and original of his compositions. Of the last of the three just mentioned, Professor Wilson says: “The topic is trite, but in Mr. Bloomfield’s hands it almost assumes a character of novelty. Burns’ ‘Soldier’s Return’ is not, to our taste, one whit superior.”

The titles of the volumes that followed that by which his fame was established are “Rural Tales,” published in 1801; “The Banks of the Wye,“ 1811; ”Wild Flowers,“ and ”May Day with the Muses,” 1822. “Hazelwood Hall, a Village Drama, in Three Acts,” was published 1823, the year of his death. All these poems have since been issued in one volume, to which is attached a short sketch of the poet’s life, and the circumstances which attended the publication of “The Farmer’s Boy.” This account, given by Mr. Capel Lofft, Bloomfield’s kind friend and patron, is full of interest. It serves to show the value of a judicious friend to a youngaspirant for literary fame, whose talents deserve recognition, but whose position in life prevents him taking the necessary steps to become known to the world.

The last twenty years of Bloomfield’s life were embittered by affliction and misfortunes in business. He did not long retain his position at the Seal Office, being obliged to abandon it through continual ill-health. After resuming the trade of a shoemaker for a short time, he was induced to open a shop as a bookseller, but this speculation brought him only disappointment and loss. His son, who was a printer, states that about this time the poets Rogers and Southey took a deep interest in the welfare of their poor suffering brother poet. Rogers, it seems, tried to obtain him a government pension, but without success. At length he removed from London to try the effect of the fresh air and quietude of country life. His last years were spent as a shoemaker at Shefford-cum-Campton, Bed’s. Toward the close of his life he was in great want and distress, having reaped little permanent gain from his numerous and popular poems. So intense was the strain of mind he endured from overwork, ill-health, and anxiety, that his friends entertained grave fears of his becoming insane. Death was preferable to such a life the death which is for men of Christian faith and character, like Bloomfield, the gate to a higher and happier life. Providentially for him, that gate was opened when life here had become a burden too grievous to be borne. He died at Shefford, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, August 19th, 1823, and was buried in the Campton churchyard.

Bloomfield’s character, unlike that of many of the more celebrated poets of his own day, exhibited a fair and lovely type of moral excellence. He was genuinely modest, affectionate, industrious, and pious. None regarded him with more respect and love than those who knew him most intimately. This fact speaks strongly for his real worth. His own brothers held him in the greatest esteem, and felt the most generous and hearty pleasure in his literary success. His generosity to his needy relatives, who were very numerous, often crippled his resources, and, indeed, left him at times as poor as those he had befriended. We have noticed how much he owed in early life to the loving care and good sense of an excellent mother. Bloomfield never lost sight of this fact. Like all good men, men whose lives are worth study and imitation, he was deeply attached to his mother; and it is well deserving of record that, like Buckle, the eminent philosophical writer, the young poetfelt a more exquisite pleasure in placing his first published work in the hands of his mother than in the anticipation of any fame or advantage it might secure for himself as the author. When the first edition was issued a copy of it was sent to his mother, accompanied by these simple lines, which faithfully reflect at once the character of the true mother and the devoted son:

“‘ To peace and virtue still be true,’An anxious mother ever cries,Who needs nopresentto renewParental love—which never dies.”

“‘ To peace and virtue still be true,’

An anxious mother ever cries,

Who needs nopresentto renew

Parental love—which never dies.”

Many tributes of esteem, both in prose and verse, were paid to Bloomfield during his life and after his death. None of these was of more value than the brief sentence written by his constant friend and first literary patron, Mr. Capel Lofft, who says, “It is much to be a poet, such as he will be found: it is much more to be such a man.” The lines which appeared inBlackwood’s Magazine, the month after Bloomfield’s death, exactly describe the chief features of the poet’s life and work:

“No pompous learning—no paradeOf pedantry, and cumbrous lore,On thy elastic bosom weighed;Instead, were thine a mazy storeOf 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 untutored wingsTo rob thy genius. ’Twas in vain:With one proud soar she burst her chain!The beauties of the building spring;The glories of the summer’s reign;The russet autumn triumphingIn ripened fruits and golden grain;Winter with storms around his shrine,Each, in their turn, were themes of thine.And lowly life, the peasant’s lot,Its humble hopes and simple joys;By mountain-stream the shepherd’s cot,And what the rustic hour employs;White flocks on Nature’s carpet spread;Birds blithely carolling o’erhead;These were thy themes, and thou wert blessed—Yes, blessed beyond the wealth of kings.Calm joy is seated in the breastOf the rapt poet as he sings,And all that Truth or Hope can bringOf Beauty, gilds the muse’s wing.And, Bloomfield, thine were blissful days,(If flowers of bliss may thrive on earth);Thine were the glory and the praiseOf genius linked with modest worth;To wisdom wed, remote from strife,Calmly passed o’er thy stormless life.”

“No pompous learning—no paradeOf pedantry, and cumbrous lore,On thy elastic bosom weighed;Instead, were thine a mazy storeOf feelings delicately wrought,And treasures gleaned by silent thought.

“No pompous learning—no parade

Of pedantry, and cumbrous lore,

On thy elastic bosom weighed;

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 untutored wingsTo rob thy genius. ’Twas in vain:With one proud soar she burst her chain!

Obscurity, and low born care,

Labor, and want—all adverse things,

Combined to bow thee to despair;

And of her young untutored wings

To rob thy genius. ’Twas in vain:

With one proud soar she burst her chain!

The beauties of the building spring;The glories of the summer’s reign;The russet autumn triumphingIn ripened fruits and golden grain;Winter with storms around his shrine,Each, in their turn, were themes of thine.

The beauties of the building spring;

The glories of the summer’s reign;

The russet autumn triumphing

In ripened fruits and golden grain;

Winter with storms around his shrine,

Each, in their turn, were themes of thine.

And lowly life, the peasant’s lot,Its humble hopes and simple joys;By mountain-stream the shepherd’s cot,And what the rustic hour employs;White flocks on Nature’s carpet spread;Birds blithely carolling o’erhead;

And lowly life, the peasant’s lot,

Its humble hopes and simple joys;

By mountain-stream the shepherd’s cot,

And what the rustic hour employs;

White flocks on Nature’s carpet spread;

Birds blithely carolling o’erhead;

These were thy themes, and thou wert blessed—Yes, blessed beyond the wealth of kings.Calm joy is seated in the breastOf the rapt poet as he sings,And all that Truth or Hope can bringOf Beauty, gilds the muse’s wing.

These were thy themes, and thou wert blessed—

Yes, blessed beyond the wealth of kings.

Calm joy is seated in the breast

Of the rapt poet as he sings,

And all that Truth or Hope can bring

Of Beauty, gilds the muse’s wing.

And, Bloomfield, thine were blissful days,(If flowers of bliss may thrive on earth);Thine were the glory and the praiseOf genius linked with modest worth;To wisdom wed, remote from strife,Calmly passed o’er thy stormless life.”

And, Bloomfield, thine were blissful days,

(If flowers of bliss may thrive on earth);

Thine were the glory and the praise

Of genius linked with modest worth;

To wisdom wed, remote from strife,

Calmly passed o’er thy stormless life.”

During the lifetime of Bloomfield, another young and obscure poet, Henry Kirke White of Nottingham, was indebted to Bloomfield’s patrons, Mr. Lofft and Robert Southey, for his introduction to the public. After reading “The Farmer’s Boy” and “Rural Tales,” White wrote the following clever epigram, the sentiment of which all admirers of the shoemaker-poet will heartily indorse:

“Bloomfield, thy happy omened nameEnsures continuance to thy fame;Both sense and truth this verdict give,While fields shall bloom, thy name shall live.”

“Bloomfield, thy happy omened name

Ensures continuance to thy fame;

Both sense and truth this verdict give,

While fields shall bloom, thy name shall live.”

SAMUEL DREW, M.A.

THE METAPHYSICAL SHOEMAKER.

“Secure to yourself a livelihood independent of literary success, and put into this lottery only the overplus of time. Woe to him who depends wholly on his pen! Nothing is more casual. The man who makes shoes is sure of his wages: the man who writes a book is never sure of anything.—Marmontel.

“Hereafter, I believe, some metaphysical Columbus will arise, traverse vast oceans of thought, and explore regions now undiscovered, to which our little minds and weak ideas do not enable us to soar.”—Samuel Drew.

The life of Samuel Drew, the author of a once famous book, “The Immateriality and Immortality of the Soul,” is in some respects as remarkable as that of William Gifford,[32]and in others even more so. For Drew, unlike Gifford, received no collegiate training, nor was he ever favored with the rudiments of education in an ordinary boys’ school. In his childhood he was sent to a school along with his brothers, but his childish indifference to learning and his removal before he was eight years of age prevented his making any progress worth speaking of. His life, published by his son, speaks of him, with perfect truth, as the “Self-Taught Cornishman.”

His reply to Paine’s “Age of Reason,” and his book on the “Immortality of the Soul,” both of which were written and issued from the press during his life as a shoemaker, brought him into notoriety, and obtained for him a name as an acute thinker and able controversialist. He afterward published several theological works of great merit, edited and wrote the chief portion of a history of Cornwall, and finally became an editor on the staff of the Caxton press in Liverpool and London. His contributions to the literature of his own religious denomination, the Wesleyan Methodists, were very numerous; and for many years he was a constant writer in theEclectic Review. From the beginning to the close of his public life he was held in high esteem as a preacher in the “circuits” of Cornwall, Liverpool, and London. The two universities of Aberdeen and London paid him a valuable compliment; the one conferring on him the degree of A.M., and the other, through certain members of the council, requesting him to be put in competition for the Chair ofMoral Philosophy.

But before all these things he was an earnest, high-souled, useful Christian man, who found his principal delight in diffusing around him the influence of a good example and a benevolent Christ-like spirit. His best memorials were inscribed on the hearts of the people among whom he spent his valuable life. His writings may now be but little read, and his name but little known outside the Christian community to which he was attached, yet he made a record as a faithful servant of God that will never perish, and obtained a memorial for his name that is safe against all the influence of time and change.

The subject of this sketch was born at St. Anstell, in Cornwall, on the 3d March, 1765. His parents were both members of families long resident in Cornwall. They were in but poor circumstances, the father being employed chiefly as a farm-laborer. Now and then he worked in connection with the tin mines of the neighborhood. Hard work, scant fare, and great economy were necessary to enable the parents to bring up their young family respectably. We may judge of their circumstances by the fact that the father found it not at all an easy thing to carry out a worthy determination he had formed to send his three children to school, where the fee for each scholar was only one penny per week. Little Sammy’s progress hardly compensated for this small outlay, for he was dull and careless and shockingly fond of playing truant. However, his school life did not last long. He was removed at the age of eight, as already stated, and put to work as abuddle-boy. The pits in which the tin-ore is washed after being broken up are calledbuddles, and it was the business of the buddle-boy to stir up the sediment of ore and metal at the bottom of the pit, in order that the stream of water which passed through it might carry off the sandy particles and leave the mineral behind. For this work Samuel was to receive three halfpence a week. But the poor little fellow was early taught the meaning of the terms “bad debt“ and ”failure in business.” His master kept the wages back, intending to pay them, as was customary, to the father. At the end of eight weeks the employer failed, and Samuel never received his first instalment of wages. When another man took the business, shortly after, the boys were paid twopence per week, and for the two years in which he continued at this work, the little buddle-boy never received more than this miserable pittance. It must be confessed that Samuel was a wilful, headstrong fellow. The circumstances which led to his removal from home were hardly to his credit. His own mother died when he was nine years old. She was a good woman, and took great pains to save her boy from the bad influence of low company at the tin-works. Samuel, though young and reckless, cherished a deep regard for his mother. About a year and a half after her death the father married again, and Samuel, not liking the idea of having a “new mother,” made himselfas obnoxious to her as he could. This improper conduct could not be permitted, and it was especially wrong in this instance, as the “new mother” was very attentive and kind to the children.

“At the age of ten and a half,” says his biographer, Samuel “was apprenticed for nine years to a shoemaker, living in a sequestered hamlet about three miles from St. Austell. His father and family at this time were not far distant, but removing soon after to Polpea, in Tywardreath, the poor lad’s intercourse with his relatives was, in a great measure, suspended, and he felt the loneliness of his situation.”

Drew’s apprenticeship life was well-nigh as miserable and unprofitable as it could be. In an account of the hardships he endured at this time he himself says: “My new abode at St. Blazey and new engagements were far from being agreeable. To any of the comforts and conveniences of life I was an entire stranger, and by every member of the family was viewed as an underling, come thither to subserve their wishes, or obey their mandates. To his trade of shoemaker my master added that of farmer. He had a few acres of ground under his care, and was a sober, industrious man; but, unfortunately for me, nearly one half of my time was taken up in agricultural pursuits. On this account I made no proficiency in my business, and felt no solicitude to rise above the farmers’ boys with whom I daily associated. While in this place I suffered many hardships. When, after having been in the fields all day, I came home with cold feet, and damp and dirty stockings, I was permitted, if the oven had been heated during the day, to throw them into it, that they might dry against the following morning; but frequently have I had to put them on in precisely the same state in which I had left them the preceding evening. To mend my stockings I had no one, and frequently have I wept at the holes which I could not conceal; though, when fortunate enough to procure a needle and some worsted, I have drawn the outlines of the holes together, and made, what I thought, a tolerable job.”

“During my apprenticeship,” he continues, “many bickerings and unpleasant occurrences took place. Some of these preyed so much on my mind, that several times I had determined to run away and enlist on board a privateer or man-of-war.” He seems to have had little inclination for reading during these unhappy days; and if he had been disposed for study there were but few books within his reach. Accident put intohis hands a few odd numbers of a publication circulated in the West of England calledThe Weekly Entertainer. He read and re-read the histories of “Paul Jones,” “The Serapis,” and “Bon Homme Richard,” until his imagination was inflamed with the thought of joining a pirate, and leading the jolly abandoned life of a sea-rover. Such reading as this did very little good for him. The only other book he seems to have met with during these days of servitude was “an odd number of the ‘History of England’ about the time of the Commonwealth.” But this spell of reading lasted only a short time. The odd volume of history, which charmed him at first, soon grew monotonous and wearisome, and was thrown aside. “With this,” he says, “I lost not only adispositionfor reading, but almost theabilityto read. The clamor of my companions and others engrossed nearly the whole of my attention, and, so far as my slender means would allow, carried me onward toward the vortex of dissipation.”

Much of his time was occupied with wild companions, among whom he was foremost in daring and mischief. Bird-nesting, orchard-robbing, and even poaching and smuggling were resorted to for amusement and profit. On one occasion he nearly lost his life by following sea-birds to their haunt on the edge of a lofty cliff overhanging the sea. At another time, in the dead of the night, when he and a number of men and boys were out on a poaching expedition, he and his companions were nearly scared out of their wits by some apparition, which confronted them with large fiery eyes, and suddenly disappeared.

Spite of these doubtful amusements his life at St. Blazey was becoming intolerable. He compares his position to that of “a toad under a harrow;” and declares that his master and mistress seemed bent on degrading him. At last, when he could brook his degradation no longer, he resolved to abscond, and accordingly, at the age of seventeen, after enduring six and a half years of bondage and cruelty, he ran off, intending to go to sea. But his plans were happily frustrated. On his way from St. Blazey to Plymouth he called at his old home, and as his father was absent his stepmother refused to give him money to assist him in his mad project. He then made off for Plymouth with only a few pence in his pocket. Passing through Liskeard he chanced to meet with a good-natured shoemaker, and entered into an engagement as a journeyman. In a short time he was discovered in his retreat, and persuaded to returnto his father’s roof. He agreed on condition that he should not be sent back to his old master. This being arranged, a situation was found for Drew at Millbrook and afterward at Kingsand and Crafthole.

It was during his stay at the last place that the event occurred which led to the most important change in his life. He had often engaged in smuggling expeditions during the time of his apprenticeship, these unlawful practices not being regarded as disgraceful in out-of-the-way places on the coast a century ago. The rough villagers were rather disposed to make a boast of their success in evading the law; and few, if any, of their neighbors offered any opposition or remonstrance. One dark night in December, 1784, when Samuel Drew was about nineteen years of age, a vessel laden with contraband goods made signals to have her cargo fetched on shore; and the daring youth agreed to form one of the boat’s crew for this purpose. The night was so stormy and dark that the captain of the vessel had been obliged to stand off a considerable distance from the shore. The smugglers were two miles out at sea when one of their number, in attempting to catch his hat, upset the boat. Three men were immediately drowned; Drew, who was a first-rate swimmer, managed by dint of the most violent effort to reach the rocks, and was picked up by some of his companions ‘more dead than alive,’ and carried to a farm-house, whose occupants were compelled, much against their will, to allow the half-drowned youth to be brought in and laid before the kitchen fire. A keg of brandy from the vessel was opened, and a bowlful of its contents placed to his lips. He had sense enough not to drink much, though recklessly urged to swallow itall! After lying by the fire until circulation was pretty well restored, he was able, with the help of friendly arms, to crawl to his lodgings, a distance of two miles, the ground being covered with snow.

It was a mad adventure, and nearly cost him his life, but proved, instead, the occasion of opening the way to a new life, brighter and better and happier than the one he had spent in thoughtless and sinful amusement. “Alas! what will be the end of my poor unhappy boy?” said his father, on hearing of Samuel’s narrow escape. Very wisely it was resolved to have him removed from his sinful companions at Crafthole, and a good situation was found for him under a steady master at St. Austell.

This little town was one of the numerous places in Cornwallthat had derived much benefit from the ministry of John and Charles Wesley; a “society” had been formed and a chapel built. Drew began to attend the services in this chapel soon after going to live at St. Austell. Here he heard the popular young preacher, a mere stripling, Adam Clarke, afterward well known to the world as the learned commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke. The fervid discourses of this young man, combined with the effect produced by the death of a gifted and pious brother, which happened at this time, brought about that change in Samuel Drew which the Saviour speaks of as the new birth, without which, He tells us, no one “can enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The change in Samuel Drew was complete. Body, mind, and spirit shared and rejoiced in it. The latent faculties of a great mind and noble heart were awakened and developed by the heavenly light and heat which now fell upon them. He felt at once a strong passion for self-culture, and the devotion of his gifts to useful purposes. The first thing was to pick up again his almost lost knowledge of the arts of reading and writing; for describing his accomplishments in this way at the time of his conversion he says, “I was scarcely able to read and almost totally unable to write. Literature was a term to which I could annex no idea. Grammar I knew not the meaning of. I was expert at trifles, acute at follies, and ingenious about nonsense.” As for his writing, a friend compared it to the traces of a spider dipped in ink, and set to crawl on paper. In this respect, sooth to say, it was neither better nor worse than the writing of many men whose education is not supposed to have been neglected. This description of Samuel Drew’s accomplishments, or rather want of them, refers to the beginning of the year 1785, when he was in his twentieth year. It is well to note this fact, as it will show how much of his time was wasted in youth, and how great must have been his industry in the work of self-culture after this date. Practically his education did not begin until he stood on the threshold of manhood, and even then it was not carried on in any thorough and systematic fashion. He had to help himself in the matter as best he could. At first he had no counsellors, no store of books, and no well-arranged course of reading. All depended on his good fortune in borrowing; and, what proved in his case as in so many others the best thing in the world, all depended on his following his own bent and satisfying his own taste in the choice of subjects for study. This in the majority of cases proves to be the secret of success in life. For ourtastefor a subject isthe result of our having a special aptitude for it. We like to do what comes easiest to us. The born artist, as he is termed, likes to draw and sketch because he can draw and sketch better than he can do anything else; the arithmetician enjoys working out problems in figures; the poet loves to indulge his fancy and clothe his imaginations in the guise of poetry; and the metaphysician is happiest when employed in the task of definition and reasoning.

Drew’s capacity, and therefore his taste, lay in the direction of metaphysics, and it is curious to notice how the future logician and theologian manages to make his most ungenial and untoward circumstances as a shoemaker in an obscure country town serve his purpose and help him forward to the accomplishment of his life-destiny. All this was partly the result of natural gifts and partly the fruit of strenuous application and toil. Men who have done notable things in the world have been spoken of as belonging to two classes. There is the man who “seems to have what is best in him as a possession;“ and the man who ”seems to show that what is regarded as an inspiration may come as the result of labor.”[33]This is but another method of stating the old distinction between “genius and talent.” If Samuel Drew must be classified at all, we should certainly place him in the former category. What wasbestin him was indeed a possession, not an acquirement. Yet, like all men of mark, he owed much to close study and hard work. Without these his fine natural gifts would have been useless.

Drew’s master at St. Austell combined the three somewhat kindred businesses of saddler, shoemaker, and bookbinder. His shop was also a regular meeting-place for the gossipers of the town; and as St. Austell was then in a ferment of religious excitement, most of the talk ran on religious topics. The Calvinist and Arminian divided the field between them, and in their contests, sometimes as arbiters, and sometimes as the champion of a party, Drew was often called in to contribute to the discussion. Here he found the first arena for the exhibition of his natural powers as a debater, and gained for himself no small renown.

About this time also a book came in his way, which seems to have made a revolution in his mind. This was Locke’s famous “Essay on the Human Understanding,” a copy of which was brought to Drew’s master’s to be bound. The young shoemaker had read nothing of the kind. It opened to his mind a world of thought that was new to his experience, yet one that seemed familiar on account of his natural aptitude for such studies. He read the luminous pages of the great philosopher with the utmost avidity. Henceforth reading became with him an intense appetite. Nothing came much amiss, but such books as led him into the ample domains of philosophy and religion afforded the greatest delight. He says, “This book (Locke’s Essay) set all my soul to think.... It gave the first metaphysical turn to my mind, and I cultivated the little knowledge of writing which I had acquired in order to put down my reflections. It awakened me from my stupor, and induced me to form a resolution to abandon the grovelling views which I had been accustomed to entertain.”

For two years after the change we have noticed Drew continued working industriously at his trade, and filling up all his spare moments by reading such books as came to the shop to be bound, or any others he could borrow from friends. Attracted by one science after another, and finding, as most eager minds do, a charm in each, he finally settled to metaphysics, because, as he sometimes shrewdly observed, among other recommendations it has this, that it requires fewer books than other branches of study, and may be followed at the least expense. “It appeared to be a thorny path; but I determined nevertheless to enter and begin to tread it,“ he remarks; and adds, ”To metaphysics I then applied myself, and became what the world and Dr. Clarke call aMetaphysician.”

By the advice and help of friends he resolved, in January, 1787, to commence business on his own account. His savings at this time amounted to only fourteen shillings. He was therefore compelled to borrow capital, or remain a journeyman. It was not difficult, however, to find a man in St. Austell who was willing to trust the now steady and hard-working shoemaker. A miller advanced him £5 on the security of his good character, saying, “And more if that’s not enough, and I’ll promise not to demand it till you can conveniently pay me.” Fortunately for him, at this time Dr. Franklin’s “Way to Wealth” came into his hands, and impressed him deeply with its sage maxims and sound principles of business and thrift. On one maxim, though severe, he often at this time acted literally, “It is better to go supperless to bed than to rise in debt.” The account which he gives of the hard work and rigid economy, and the good fruits they bore, during his first year’s experience of business,is highly creditable to him, and will be best told in his own words: “Eighteen hours out of the twenty-four did I regularly work, and sometimes longer, for my friends gave me plenty of employment, and until the bills became due I had no means of paying wages to a journeyman. I was indefatigable, and at the year’s end I had the satisfaction of paying the five pounds which had been so kindly lent me, and finding myself, with a tolerable stock of leather, clear of the world.” This wise resolve to pay his way and to live within his means, so vigorously carried out from the very beginning, was of the utmost service to him all through life, and saved him from the worry and discredit by which so many men of genius and literary gifts have been hampered and thwarted in their work. When once the resolute shoemaker had made a fair start and conquered the difficulties of early business-life, he was always at liberty to devote his mind to his favorite pursuits. He was poor enough, it is true; but he was comparatively independent, for he was free from debt. Nor did he forget others in their need. Many stories are told of his generosity. He was never rash and prodigal in his giving, but acted on the best rules of common sense and high principle. He would not give while he was himself in debt, sticking closely to the rule, “Be just before you are generous,” yet never making that wise adage a cloak, as some do, for stinginess. Nothing could be more characteristic of his wisdom and kindliness than the story told by his sister of his coming home after being invited to dinner with a friend, and saying, “The people at the place where I have been very kindly invited me to dinner; I can now honestly give away my own. Bring out what meat you have left; cut from it as much as you think I should have eaten, and carry it to Alice H.“ At another time he observed a poor woman, ”with an empty basket on one arm and a child on the other, looking wistfully at the butchers’ stalls;“ and adds, ”I guessed from her manner that she had no money, and was ashamed to ask credit: so as I passed her I put half a crown into her hand. The good woman was so affected that she burst into tears, and I could not help crying for company.” Having been enabled to start in business by a loan of money, he showed his gratitude by helping others in the same position, and, strange to say, a change of fortune having overtaken his old friend, the miller, Drew had the satisfaction of helping him in his time of need.

An incident which happened about this time will show to what dangers his social disposition and fondness for debate exposedhim, and how slight an incident saved him from the snare. He had become enamoured of political matters, and discussed them very vigorously with his customers and others who made his work-room a meeting-place where they might hear and debate the latest news. Sometimes these discussions drew him from home into the house of a neighbor, and so absorbed his time that he found himself at the end of the day far behind in his work, and obliged to sit up till midnight in order to finish it. One night, however, he received a severe rebuke from some anonymous counsellor, which effectually put a stop to this bad habit. As he sat at work after most of the neighbors were in bed, he heard footsteps at the door, and presently a boy’s shrill voice accosted him through the keyhole with this sage remark: “Shoemaker, shoemaker, work by night, and run about by day!“ ”And did you,” inquired a friend to whom Drew told the story, “pursue the boy and chastise him for his insolence?” “No, no,” replied Drew, who had the wisdom to see that there was more fault in himself than the boy, and had also the moral courage and firmness of character to turn the annoyance to profitable account—“No, no. Had a pistol been fired off at my ear I could not have been more dismayed or confounded. I dropped my work, saying to myself, ‘True, true, but you shall never have that to say of me again!’” Right well did he keep to his resolve, and with what results we shall see.

In 1791, at the age of twenty-seven, he married Honor Halls of St. Austell, and now, fairly settled in his domestic affairs, he devoted his attention and leisure time, such as he could snatch from intervals of work, to careful reading and thought on philosophical and religious subjects. His first literary productions were, according to rule in such cases, in the shape ofpoetry. “An Ode to Christmas,” dated 1791, and “Reflections on St. Austell Churchyard,” dated 1792, appear to have been his earliest attempts. Though he had fine poetic feeling and considerable readiness in expression, he was not destined to shine in this field of literature. His first venture in print was entitled “Remarks on Paine’s ‘Age of Reason.’” This infidel work by the notorious Tom Paine had many readers and great influence among the working class at the close of the last century. It appears that a young surgeon who had been in the habit of visiting the thoughtful and well-read shoemaker, had procured a copy of the “Age of Reason,” and had read and endorsed its atheistic doctrines. He strongly urged Drew to read thebook, in order that they might discuss its contents together. The two disputants met night after night, the shoemaker attacking and the surgeon defending the principles of the famous infidel book. At length the discussion came to an end by the surgeon giving up his faith in Voltaire, Rousseau, Gibbon, Hume, and Tom Paine, and accepting the teaching and consolation of the religion of Jesus Christ. The young man died soon after this occurrence, and confessed to the great service which had been rendered him by Samuel Drew in removing doubt and laying the basis for Christian faith. On showing his notes of this discussion to two Wesleyan preachers then stationed at St. Austell, he was advised to publish them, and did so in 1799. This pamphlet had a rapid sale. It was, as we have said, Drew’s introduction to the world of literature, and it brought him no little fame and credit in the religious world of his day. Great was the astonishment evinced when it was known that the writer of what was deemed a masterly piece of argument in good, clear, forcible English was a “cobbler” and an entirely self-taught man. The flattering reception and notice given to this pamphlet emboldened him in the following year to venture on the publication of an ode on the death, by accident, of an influential townsman. A literary friend, who had praised his first attempt very highly, spoke so plainly yet kindly of this production that Drew very wisely abandoned the muse and stuck to metaphysics and prose. In the same year also he wrote a pamphlet which, in the locality of St. Austell, at all events, sustained his fame. This was a reply to some aspersions cast on the Wesleyan Methodists by a clergyman, the then vicar of Manaccan, Cornwall. So completely did the worthy Methodist local preacher disprove the statements of the clergyman, and withal in so temperate a spirit, that the latter eventually not only confessed his defeat in a generous and manly spirit, but very gracefully acknowledged his obligations to his humble antagonist. Drew had now a greater task in hand which was drawing near its completion. For several years he had occupied his mind with the subject of the immortality of the soul, having read every book he could procure on the subject. None of these books quite satisfied him. “He imagined,” as he says, that the immortality of the soul admitted of more rational proof than he had ever seen. Accordingly in 1798 he resolved to make notes of his thoughts on this vast theme. In 1801 these were fully prepared for the press and submitted to the judgment of the judicious friend referred toabove—Rev. John Whittaker, of Ruan Lanyhorne, in Cornwall. By his advice Drew committed the work to the press, with the title, “The Immateriality and Immortality of the Soul.” It was published by subscription; “the best families” in the county giving their names as subscribers. The first edition numbered 700 copies, of which subscriptions were entered for 640. A few weeks after its publication, Drew received a letter from a publisher in Bristol asking the author to state his terms for the copyright.Twenty poundsand thirty copies of the new edition was all he asked, so little did he suspect the popularity his work would attain, and so low did he rate his own abilities as an author. A pleasing circumstance deserves mention here in connection with the appearance of the first edition of this essay. A highly favorable review of it appeared in theAnti-Jacobin, which Drew afterward discovered to have been written by no other than Mr. Polwhele, the clergyman whose pamphlet anent the Wesleyans Drew had so resolutely and successfully attacked. Such an act of grace was infinitely creditable to the critic as well as gratifying to the author. In regard to the history of this essay, the following note, written by Samuel Drew’s son,[34]is full of interest: “After passing through five editions in England and two in America, and being translated and printed in France, the ‘Essay on the Soul,’ the copyright of which Mr. Drew had disposed of on the terms just named, and which, before its first appearance, a Cornish bookseller had refused at the price oftenpounds, became again his property at the end of twenty-eight years. He gave it a final revision, added much important matter, and sold it a second time for £250.”

The literary reputation of the metaphysical shoemaker was now established. Journals and reviews spoke in terms of high praise. Literary men, clergymen, and ministers of various denominations, wrote in congratulatory terms, and proffered friendship and assistance. The best libraries in the locality were placed at his service, and invitations or visits came so thick upon him, that the modest shoemaker was at times fairly bewildered by them. A little book, issued in 1803, the year after Drew’s essay appeared, brought his circumstances before the public. It was entitled, “Literature and Literary Characters of Cornwall,” and was edited by the above-named Mr. Polwhele. To this book Drew, by request of the editor, sent a short autobiographical sketch. “His lowly origin,” says his son, “and humble situation being thus made public, the singular contrast which it presented to his growing literary fame attracted much attention. St. Austell became noted as the birthplace and residence of Mr. Drew, and strangers coming into the county for the gratification of their curiosity did not consider that object accomplished until they had seen ‘the metaphysical shoemaker.’” Referring to those flattering attentions, he once shrewdly observed: “These gentlemen certainly honor me by their visits; but I do not forget that many of them merely wish to say that they have seen the cobbler who wrote a book.”

The following picture of the literary shoemaker during this period of his life must not be omitted here, for it gives us a glimpse of his method of working at this time when employed on his double task of makingbootsandbooks. It recalls the sketch given in the life of Bloomfield, much of whose poetry was composed under similar conditions. Indeed, it were hard to say who had the worst of it, the poet in the crowded garret or the theologian in the noisy kitchen. The first paragraph is written by Samuel Drew himself, and the second by his son.

“During my literary pursuits I regularly and constantly attended on my business, and I do not recollect that through these one customer was ever disappointed by me. My mode of writing and study may have in them, perhaps, something peculiar. Immersed in the common concerns of life, I endeavor to lift my thoughts to objects more sublime than those with which I am surrounded; and, while attending to my trade, I sometimes catch the fibres of an argument which I endeavor to note, and keep a pen and ink by me for that purpose. In this state what I can collect through the day remains on any paper which I may have at hand till the business of the day is despatched and my shop shut, when, in the midst of my family, I endeavor to analyze such thoughts as had crossed my mind during the day. I have no study, I have no retirement. I write amid the cries and cradles of my children; and frequently when I review what I have written, endeavor to cultivate ‘the art to blot.’ Such are the methods which I have pursued, and such the disadvantages under which I write.”

“His usual seat,” adds his son, “after closing the business of the day, was a low nursing-chair beside the kitchen-fire. Here, with the bellows on his knees for a desk, and the usual culinary and domestic matters in progress around him, his works, prior to 1805, were chiefly written.”

Samuel Drew’s life as a shoemaker came to an end with the year 1805. It will not be possible for us to give in detail the events which fill up the remainder of his honorable career. Nor is it needful; the chief interest of his history lies in that portion of it which shows us the self-taught Cornishman plying his lowly craft while he lays the foundation for his fame as a theologian. His preaching engagements were very numerous from the time when he was first put on the Wesleyan preachers’ “plan,” and they were never suspended until within a few weeks of his death. His status as a local preacher was of the very best, and frequently brought him into the company of the leading men of his denomination. His friendship with Mr., now Dr., Adam Clarke, one of the leading men among the Wesleyans, had been maintained from the time when Clarke was on the St. Austell circuit. The good name acquired by Drew as a literary man, and his high standing among his own religious society, led to his appointment under Dr. Coke, the founder of the Wesleyan Methodist Missions. The shoemaker now abandoned the awl and last for the pen, and devoted himself, as a secretary and joint-editor, entirely to literary work. He assisted Dr. Coke in preparing for the press his “Commentary on the New Testament,” “History of the Bible,” and other works. In 1806, through Dr. Adam Clarke’s influence, Drew began to contribute to theEclectic Review. Before he had abandoned the shoemaker’s stall the materials for another theological work had been collected and partly prepared for publication. Having treated the question of the Immortality of the Soul, he had wished, and was strongly urged by several clerical friends, to take up the subject of the “Identity and Resurrection of the Human Body.” A work bearing this title appeared in 1809, having been submitted in manuscript to his old friends the Revs. Mr. Whittaker and Mr. Gregor, and to Archdeacon Moore. It was not a little remarkable that men of this class should have been the foremost to patronize and aid the Methodist shoemaker in his literary enterprises, and that one of them should call himself “friend and admirer,“ while another spoke of feeling ”a pride and pleasure in being employed as the scourer of his armor.” The most extensive work Drew ventured to publish was entitled “A Treatise on the Being and Attributes of God.” This was undertaken at the earnest solicitation of Dr. Reid, then Professor of Oriental Languages at the Marischal College, Aberdeen, as a competition for a prize of £1500 offered for the best essay on that subject. Thoughthis work failed to gain the first place in the list, it stood very high, and, certainly, it was no small testimony to its worth that it should have been deemed worthy to rank as a close competitor with the successful works of Dr. A. M. Brown, Principal of Marischal College, and the Rev. J. B. Sumner, afterward Bishop of Chester and Archbishop of Canterbury. Drew’s treatise was not published till 1820, when it came out in two octavo volumes. In 1813 he published a controversial pamphlet on the Divinity of Christ, which had a large sale, and for which, such was the value now set on his writings, his publisher, Mr. Edwards, paid as much as he had previously given for the Essay on the Soul. Under the direction of F. Hitchens, Esq., of St. Ives, Drew now took up a laborious task which had been in that gentleman’s hands for several years, and brought it to completion. This was the publication of a History of Cornwall. It appeared in 1815-17, and consisted of 1500 quarto pages, all of which “was sent to the printer in his,“ Drew’s, ”own manuscript.” At the request of the executors of Dr. Coke, Drew published a memoir of his friend, which appeared in 1817. This task made a visit to London necessary. Here the learned shoemaker met with the Rev. Legh Richmond, author of “The Dairyman’s Daughter,” and with Dr. Mason of New York. He was, of course, asked to preach in several London “circuits,” where his fame as a writer had preceded him. His “uncouth and unclerical appearance,” for he wore top-boots and light-colored breeches, excited no small curiosity; but his excellent preaching and delightful simplicity and modesty of manner awoke universal respect. The preacher was fifty years of age (1815) when he paid this visit to the metropolis, and it was the first time he had travelled more than a few miles from the locality where he was born.

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