Page:Views in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Northamptonshire.djvu/31

 cannot now be told; but it is a very curious and remarkable circumstance, that an event which occurred in America about two years ago. appears to bear a strong; reference to the above narrative. Elizabeth Bloomfield, an elder sister to Robert, is now resident in George Town, Potomac; and in a letter which she sent to her brother, of the date of February 11, 1805, is the following passage:

"Your Poems, &c., make a great bustle here; they are printing again at New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia; and before I left Philadelphia the Governor of the State of Jersey sent for me. He is an original in his manner; his name is Bloomfield; and every one of that name he meets with he sends for, and examines his genealogy to find if they spring from the same branch. I assure you I have not been so catechized since I was a baby: he seemed to wish to find himself allied to the Poet, as he was pleased to call you. He is an old man; he tells me his great-great-grandfather fled from England in the time of the revolution in England, in the time of Oliver Cromwell. He has a town in the Jerseys called Bloomfield, the inhabitants chiefly composed of that name, which he has hunted out:— he finished by telling me, if ever I wanted assistance,