MELANCHOLY HOURS. [No. VI.] Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, Gray. POETRY is a blossom of very delicate growth; it requires the maturing influence of vernal suns, and every encouragement of culture and attention, to bring it to its natural perfection. The pursuits of the mathematician, or the mechanical genius, are such as require rather strength and insensibility of mind, than that ex. quisite and finely-wrought susceptibility, which invari ably marks the temperament of the true poet; and, it is for this reason, that while men of science have, not un frequently, arisen from the abodes of poverty and labour; very few legitimate children of the Muse have ever emerged from the shades of hereditary obscurity. It is painful to reflect how many a bard now lies, nameless and forgotten, in the narrow house, who, had he been born to competence and leisure, might have usurped the laurels from the most distinguished personages in the temple of Fame. The very consciousness of merit itself often acts in direct opposition to a stimulus to exertion, by exciting that mournful indignation at suppositious neglect, which urges a sullen concealment of talents, and drives its possessor to that misanthropic discontent which preys on the vitals, and soon produces untimely mortality. A sentiment like this has, no doubt, often actuated beings, who attracted notice, perhaps, while they lived, only by their singularity, and who were forgotten almost ere their parent earth had closed over their heads;-beings who lived but to mourn and to languish for what they were never destined to enjoy, and whose exalted endowments were buried with them in their graves, by the want of a little of that superfluity which serves to painper the debased appetites of the enervated sons of luxury and sloth. The present age, however, has furnished, us with two illustrious instances of poverty bursting through the cloud of surrounding impediments, into the full blaze of notoriety and eminence. I allude to the two Bloomfieldsbards who may challenge a comparison with the most distinguished favourites of the Muse, and who both passed the day-spring of life in labour, indigence, and obscurity. The author of the Farmer's Boy hath already received the applause he justly deserved. It yet remains for the Essay on War to enjoy all the distinction it so richly merits, as well from its sterling worth, as from the circumstances of its author. Whether the present age will be inclined to do it full justice, may indeed be feared. Had Mr. Nathaniel Bloomfield made his appearance in the horizon of letters prior to his brother, he would undoubtedly have been considered as a meteor of uncommon attraction; the critics would have admired, because it would have been the fashion to admire. But it is to be apprehended that our countrymen become enured to phenomena:-it is to be apprehended, that the frivolity of the age cannot endure a repetition of the uncommon:-that it will no longer be the rage to patronize indigent 'merit: that the beau monde will therefore neglect, and that, by a necessary consequence, the critics will sneer!! Nevertheless, sooner or later, merit will meet with its reward; and though the popularity of Mr. Bloomfield may be delayed, he must, at one time or other, receive the meed due to his deserts. Posterity will judge impartially; and if bold and vivid images, and original conceptions, luminously displayed, and judiciously apposed, have any claim to the regard of mankind, the name of Nathaniel Bloomfield will not be without its high and appropriate honours. Rousseau very truly observes, that with whatever talent a man may be born, the art of writing is not easily obtained. If this be applicable to men enjoying every advantage of scholastic initiation, how much more forcibly must it apply to the offspring of a poor village tailor, untaught, and destitute both of the means and the time necessary for the cultivation of the mind! If the art of writing be of difficult attainment to those who make it the study of their lives, what must it be to him, who, perhaps, for the first forty years of his life, never entertained a thought that any thing he could write would be deemed worthy of the attention of the public! --whose only time for rumination was such as a sedentary and sickly employment would allow; on the tailor's board, surrounded with men, perhaps, of depraved and rude habits, and impure conversation! And yet, that Mr. N. Bloomfield's poems display acuteness of remark, and delicacy of sentiment, combined with much strength, and considerable selection of diction, few will deny. The Pean to Gunpowder would alone prove both his power of language, and the fertility of his imagination; and the following extract presents him to us in the still higher character of a bold and vivid painter. Describing the field after a battle, he says, Now here and there, about the horrid field, The shriek of torture, and the groan of death, To veil the horrors of the mourning field, A With cautious step shaping his devious way, P. 12, Essay on War. If Mr. Bloomfield had written nothing besides the Elegy on the Enclosure of Honington Green, he would have had a right to be considered as a poet of no mean excellence. The heart which can read passages like the following, without a sympathetic emotion, must be dead to every feeling of sensibility. STANZA VI. The proud city's gay wealthy train, VII. That no more upon Honington Green Dwells the matron whom most I revere, If by pert observation unseen, I e'en now could indulge a fond tear. |