John Clare and Robert Bloomfield: Brother Bards, by Tim Fulford

Clare regarded Bloomfield as an inspiring figure – both for what he wrote and for the fact that, as a poor labourer, he had become a successful, best-selling poet. He called him ‘the most original poet of the age & the greatest Pastoral Poet England ever gave birth too’ because he ‘not only lived among them, but felt and shared the pastoral pleasures with the peasantry of whom he sung’. [1]  Bloomfield, for his part, admired the young Clare’s first collection and encouraged him – not as a newcomer but as an equal, a ‘brother bard’.

Here we present Bloomfield and Clare’s correspondence: two poor, labouring-class poets forging a mutually sustaining community. [2] 

Robert Bloomfield to John Clare, 25 July 1820

Brother bard and fellow labourer,

Some weeks past Mr Drury of Stamford sent me your Vollm. [3]  and I have only been prevented from answering by ill health, which began in January and seems to threaten a longer continuance. I am however very glad to have lived to see your poems: they have given me and my family an uncommon pleasure, and, they will have the same effect on all kindred minds and that’s enough; for, as for writing rhimes for Clods and sticks and expecting them to read them, I never found any fun in that in all my life, and I have past your age 26 years. I am delighted with your ‘Address to the Lark’, ‘Summer Morning’, and ‘Evening’ [4]  &c &c. in fact I had better not turn critic in my first letter, but say the truth, that nothing upon the great theatre of what is called the world (our English world) can give me half the pleasure I feel at seeing a man start up from the humble walks of life and show himself to be what I think you are,—What that is, ask a higher power,—for though learning is not to be contemn’d it did not give you this. I must write to Mr. Drury, and Mr. Clayton but not now, I am far from well—have just been walking amidst the most luxuriant crops with my eldest daughter and two sons, but find myself tired.

Let nothing prevent you from writing, for though I cannot further your interest I can feel an interest in it, and I assure you I do.

I am heartily tired, (not of my subject) and must beg you to accept my congratulations and my wishes for your health, which I find after all is one of the most essential blessings of life.

Yours Sir, Most Cordially Robert Bloomfield

P.S. I have written this on ‘My Old Oak Table’ [5]  and I think you know what I mean.

Address: To Mr. John Clare, / Poet, / Helpston near Peterborough, / Northamptonshire
[BL MS Eg. 2245, f. 186]

Robert Bloomfield to John Clare, 3 May 1822

Shefford, Beds, May 3d. 1822

Neighbour John,

If we were still nearer neighbours I would see you, and thank you personally for the two vollums of your poems sent me so long ago. I write with such labour and difficulty that I cannot venture to praise or discriminate like a critic, but must only say that you have given us great pleasure.

I beg your acceptance of my just publishd little vollumn; [6]  and, sick and ill as I continually feel, I can join you heartily in your exclamation—‘What is Life?’ [7] 

With best regards and wishes I am yours sincerely Robt. Bloomfield

[Private collection (copy in Northamptonshire Central Library)]

John Clare to Joseph Weston, 7 March 1825

Helpstone March 7. 1825

Dear Sir

In answer to yours of the third I am sorry to say that I posses but little of the corespondence of my departed ‘brother bard’ what I do posses you are welcome too & as to my letters to him you may do with them just as you please & make what use of them you like

I deeply regret that ill health prevented our corespondence & that death prevented us from being better acquainted I sincerely loved the man & admired his Genius & had a strong anxiety to make a journey to spend a day with him on my second visit to London & I intended to have stopt at Biggleswade on my return home for that purpose but my purse got too near the bottom for a stoppage on the road & as it was too great a distance to walk home this with other matters prevented me from seeing him as one of my family was very ill at the same time & hastened my return—Whatever cause his friends may have to regret the death of the Poet—Fame is not one [of] them for he dyed ripe for immortality & had he written nothing else but ‘Richard & Kate’ that fine picture of Rural Life were sufficient to establish his name as the English Theocritus &the first of rural Bards in this country & as Fashion (that feeble substitute for Fame) had nothing to do in his exaltation its neglect will have nothing to affect his memory it is built on a more solid foundation & time will bring its own reward to the ‘Farmers Boy’—I beg you will have the kindness to take care of the M.S. & return it when you have done with it as I wish to preserve a scrap of his handwriting—the Copy on the other side is a note which accompanied his present of ‘Mayday with the Muses’ I gave the origional to Allan Cunningham the Poet who has a high respect for Bloomfields genius & whose request on that account to posses a scrap of his writing) I was proud & happy to gratifye—soon after the Poets death I wrote in a mellancholy feeling 3 Sonnets to his memory.

I was not aware that his ‘Remains’ woud have had such insertions or I shoud have sent them to his daughter [8]  —I shall fill this sheet with them for your perusal tho I expect they will come out in the Volume now in the press that will be published this Spring: [9]  with my best wishes that your kindly labours for the memory of the departed Poet may meet with the success it deserves

I remain yours very faithfully John Clare

Three Sonnets on Bloomfield

S1.

Some feed on living fame with conscious pride
& in that gay ship popularity
They stem with painted oars the hollow tide
Proud of the noise which flatterys aids supply
Joind with to days sun gilded butterflye
The breed of fashion haughtily they ride
As tho her breath was immortality
Which are but bladder puffs of common air
Or water bubbles that are blown to dye
Let not their fancys think tis muses fare
While feeding on the publics gross supplye
Times wave rolls on—mortality must share
A mortals fate—& many a fame shall lye
A dead wreck on the shore of dark posterity

S2.

Sweet unasuming Minstrel not to thee
The dazzling fashions of the day belong
Natures mild pictures field & cloud & tree
& quiet brooks far distant from the throng
In murmurs tender as the toiling bee
Make the sweet music of thy gentle song
Well, nature owns thee let the crowd pass bye
The tide of fashion is a stream too strong
For pastoral brooks that gently flow & sing
But nature is their source & earth & sky
Their annual offerings to her current bring
Thy injurd muse & memory need no sigh
For thine shall murmur on to many a spring
When their proud streams is summer burnt & dry

S3.

The shepherd musing oer his meadow dreams
The mayday wild flowers in the summer grass
The sunshine sparkling in the valley streams
The singing ploughman & hay making lass
These live the summer of thy rural themes
Thy green memorials these & they surpass
The cobweb praise of fashion—every May
Shall find a native ‘Giles’ beside his plough
Joining the skylarks song at early day
& summer rustling in the ripened corn
Shall find thy rustic loves as sweet as now
Offering to Mary’s lips ‘the brimming horn’
& seasons round thy humble grave shall be
Fond lingering pilgrims to remember thee

Address: Jos Weston Esqr / 12 Providence Row / Finsbury Square / London / March 8th
[BL Add. MS 30809, ff. 66–67]

Hannah Bloomfield to John Clare, [after 10 March 1825]

Dear Sir,

I am unwilling to let pass the opportunity which this space gives me of saying how much I admire, and thank you for, your Sonn[ets to] the memory of my dear Father,

You can never know how much he regretted not seeing you at Shefford he had set his heart upon that pleasure, and attributed his disappointment to Mr Inksips meeting you in London, and giving you such an account of his health &c as made you think a visit then would be ill-timed,—in short he was displeased with him for monopolising you.

I am very glad to hear of a new volume from you, and with best wishes for your health and the welfare of your family. I am dear sir

very respectfully Yours Hannah Bloomfield

[BL MS Eg. 2246, f. 466]

**************

[1] The Letters of John Clare, ed. Mark Storey (Oxford, 1985), pp. 302, 300. BACK

[2] On this, see John Goodridge, John Clare and Community (Cambridge, 2013), chapter 4 ‘Neighbour John: Bloomfield, Companionship and Isolation’. BACK

[3] Clare’s Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (London, 1820). BACK

[4] ‘Address to the Lark, singing in Winter’, ‘Summer Morning’, ‘Summer Evening’ are all to be found in Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery. BACK

[5] Bloomfield alludes to his poem, ‘To My Old Oak Table’ (published in Wild Flowers (London, 1806)), describing the table on which he wrote The Farmer’s Boy. BACK

[6] Bloomfield’s last collection, May Day with the Muses (London, 1822). BACK

[7] An allusion to Clare’s poem ‘What is life? An hour glass on the run’, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, p. 25. BACK

[8] Hannah Bloomfield had been involved in gathering materials for the posthumous collection, which Joseph Weston had been editing, The Remains of Robert Bloomfield (London, 1824). BACK

[9] The sonnets appeared in The Scientific Receptacle, 1 (1825), 306–7, with variants. The second was included in Clare’s collection The Rural Muse (London, 1835).

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