Letter 175 - The Letters of Robert Bloomfield

175. Robert Bloomfield to Joseph Holland, [by 1806]* 

(Extract)

You are not the first who has noticed the Omission of the Hay-making: the best excuse I have to offer is, that in composing the Poem I was determined that what I said on farming should be EXPERIMENTALLY true. There was on that small farm no hay to make; it formed no part of my business; and Thompson has described it most charmingly. [1] 

Notes

* Quoted in Joseph Holland's An Appendix to the Season of Spring, in the Rural Poem, "The Farmer's Boy" (Croydon, 1806), p. 3 BACK

[1] Thompson: James Thomson, whose Georgic poem The Seasons was Bloomfield's inspiration as a young writer. BACK


Bloomfield Letters / Letter 175