and Neighbourhood. This has been carried into effect by himself and eleven other Friends: with a large proportion of those who have thus stood forth the Friends of Genius and Worth I have the pleasure of being acquainted.

Sir CHARLES BUNBURY has warmly express'd his approbation of the Poem; as not only excellent for a Farmer's Boy, but such as would do honour to any person, whatever his education: and he also has much contributed to make it early and advantageously known. Mr. GREEN of IPSWICH has spoken of it as a charming composition: reflecting in a very natural and vivid manner, the series of interesting images which touch'd the sensibility of a young, an artless, but a most intelligent observer of Nature; placed in a situation highly favourable to observation, though in fact not often productive of it. That Originality in such a subject is invaluable: and that this Poem appears to him (I know few men so qualified to judge on such a point) throughout original. And litterary characters, who have earnt to themselves much of true Praise by their own Productions, Mr. DYER, and Dr. DRAKE of HADLEIGH, have given full and appropriate encomium to the excellence, both in Plan and Execution, of this admirable RURAL POEM. My Friend Mr. BLACK

of Woodbridge has notic'd it in a very pleasing and characteristic Letter address'd to me in verse. I believe I shall not be just to the FARMER'S Boy if I omit to notice that the Taste and Genius of Mrs. OPIE, born to do honour to every department of the Fine Arts, have given her a high sentiment of its merits *.

I rejoice in that Fame which is just to living Merit, and wait not for the Tomb to present the tardy and then unvalued Wreath: I rejoice in the sense express'd not only of his Genius, but of his pure, benevolent, amiable Virtue, his affectionate Veneration to the DEITY, and his good Will to all....Obscurity and Adversity have not broken; Fame and Prosperity, I am persuaded, will not corrupt him.

I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of mentioning that, after an absence of twelve years †, the Author of the Farmer's Boy has revisited his native Plains. That he has seen his Mother in health

* It is highly pleasing to add, that the Poetic Wreath has been given to the Farmer's Boy by the MUSE of LICH

That Mother is since dead. And the Author of the FARMER'S BOY had the consolation of soothing her last moments: after having greatly contributed to the comfort

and spirits: seen her with a joy to both which even his own most expressive and pathetic language would imperfectly describe....Seen other near, affectionate, and belov'd Relatives: review'd, with the feelings of a truly poetic and benevolent Mind, the haunts of his youth; the Woods and Vales, the Cot, the Field, and the Tree, which even recollected after so many years, and at a distance, had awaken'd in such a manner the energies of his Heart and Intellect, and had inspir'd strains which will never cease to be repeated with pleasure and admiration *.

I would add, that, I believe, few Works of such Nature and Extent ever were so little altered from the first as this has been: and that few indeed, have been such as to require and properly admit of so little alteration. Some few Corrections, however, and Improvements have progressively been made. They are very few but those who possess the First Edition, and have sufficient criti

of her life; and particularly of those years of it which most wanted comfort. Her Epitaph, written by the Rev. RoBERT FELLOWES, is in Fakenham Church-yard. It has been printed in BLOOMFIELD Illustrated.

* Mr. BLOOMFIELD having omitted in the eighth Edition what I had said in the seventh, of the satisfaction I had in 1800 in being made personally acquainted with him here at Troston, I shall not restore it against his will. C. L.

'cal Taste to prompt them to the Enquiry, may

readily trace them; and it was proper to notice this becoming attention of the Author to his Work.

I understand there is a Prose Translation of The Farmer's Boy into French*; and it is translating into Italian. The first Book was early translated into Latin. This is one instance of its immediate celebrity, Another will be that in 1800, when the seventh Edition was printed, 26,000 Copies had been printed in two years and three quarters. To which two large Impressions have since been added.

* I have seen this Translation, entitled LE VAlet du FERMIER; accompanied with neat Copper-plate Copies of the Wooden Engravings. It is handsomely printed: and the Translation is spirited, easy, not unmusical in the cadence of its periods; and, except some passages which are omitted as intractable, generally correct. Proper names, as usual, suffer strange metamorphose; Rodwell into Rodwen: Bunbury into Bomberg: and, by being too literal, "O dear," in the pathetic exclamation of the poor Girl, becomes "O Cher," instead of "helas."-In the Memoirs of Dr. PRIESTLEY similar Instances as to proper Names will be found quoted by Mr. COOPER, as proofs of the manner in which they are disguised in the foreign Journals. Artor-jonge for the Editor of the ANNALS of AGRICULTURE: and what less admits of a guess, TADKOS for Taylor.

When the FIRST EDITION of this POEM appear'd in March 1800, I intimated a design of accompanying it with some CRITICAL REMARKS.

The FIRST of these will naturally be that which relates to the manner and circumstances of the Composition. There is such a proof in it of Genius disregarding difficulty, and of powers of retention and arrangement, that it will be believ'd I could not overpass it: and that it would have been stated at the first if it had been then in my power to state it *.

I now pass to part of what has been fully and excellently said by Dr. DRAKE of HADLEIGH,

* The communication here introduced in the former edition was by Mr. Swan; and relates to the retentive memory of the Author in composing, without committing to paper, the whole of his "Winter," and great part of his "Autumn;" a fact which is perhaps still worthy of being recorded; at the same time it is the Author's express wish that the Reader may, in this edition, be referred to a note in the 2d vol. page 128, of Poems by the late Hector Macneil, where it will at least be found that the boast belongs not wholly to himself. He will find that "the beau tiful ballad of Will and Jean,'- The Waes o' War,'The Links o' Forth,' and 'The Scottish Muse,' were all compos'd by memory, previously to the commitment of a single line to paper."-The same circumstance applies to Crebillon; the French Georgic Poet, C. L.