Page:Views in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Northamptonshire.djvu/27

 indeed particularly exerted in the two last divisions of his poem: the whole of his Winter and great part of his Autumn having been entirely finished before a single verse was written down.

When the manuscript was completed, it passed through several hands before it was examined by any person of sufficient judgment to appreciate its value; or, in other words, before it had the fortune to be read by any one enough superior to prejudice, to allow that a good poem could be composed by an uneducated and unpresuming mechanic. At length, in November 1798, it was referred to the well-known Capel Lofft, Esq., of Troston Hall, near Bury; and under his patronage, and most warmly supported by his influence, it was published in March 1800. To the taste and superior sense of this gentleman, therefore, are the public indebted for all the pleasure they have derived from the productions of a Bloomfield: and while the wreath of immortality is decreed to the poet, the civic crown shall encircle the brow of his protector and his friend.

The publication of The Farmers Boy proved eminently successful, and a greater number perhaps was sold in a less space of time, than had ever occurred with any poem previously committed to