could see what the literary men were doing, and could learn how to judge of the most of the works that came out. And I observed that he always looked at the Poet's corner. One day he repeated a song which he had composed to an old tune. I was surprised that a boy of sixteen should make so smooth verses; and I persuaded him to try whether the editor of our paper would give him a place in the Poet's corner. He succeeded, and they were printed; and as I forget his other early productions, I shall copy this.

THE MILK-MAID ON THE FIRST OF MAY.

Hail May! lovely May! how replenished my pail !

The young dawn overspreads the East streak'd with gold!
My glad heart beats time to the laugh of the vale,
And Colin's voice rings through the woods from the fold.

The wood to the mountain submissively bends,

Whose blue misty summits first glow with the sun!
See thence a gay train by the wild rill descends

To join the glad sports:-hark! the tumult's begun

Be cloudless ye skies!-Be my Colin but there,
Not the dew-spangled bents on the wide level dale,
Nor morning's first blush can more lovely appear

Than his looks, since my wishes I could not conceal.

Swift down the mad dance, while blest health prompts to move,

We'll count joys to come, and excharge vows of truth;

And haply when age cools the transports of love,

Decry, like good folks, the vain pleasures of youth.

"I remember a little piece which he called 'The Sailor's Return,' in which he tried to describe the feelings of an honest tar, who, after a long absence, saw his dear native village first rising into view. This, too, obtained a place in the Poet's corner. And, as he was so young, it shows some genius in him, and some industry, to have acquired so much knowledge of the use of words in so little time. Indeed, at this time, myself and my fellow-workmen in the garret began to get instruc tions from him, though not more than sixteen years old. About this time there came a man to lodge at our lodgings that was troubled with fits. Robert was so much hurt to see this poor creature drawn into such frightful forms, and to hear his horrid screams, that I was obliged to leave the lodgings. We went to Blue Hart-court, Bell alley. In our new garret we found a singular character, James Hay, a native of Dundee. He was a middle-aged man, of a good understanding, and yet a furious Calvinist. He had many books, and some which he did not value: such as the Seasons,' Paradise Lost,' and some novels. These books he lent to Robert; who spent all his leisure hours in reading the SEASONS. I never heard him praise any book equal to that.

"I think it was in the year 1784, that the question came to be decided between the journeymen shoemakers, whether those who had learned without serving an apprenticeship could follow the trade. The person by whom Robert and I were employed, Mr Chamberlayne of Cheapside, took an active part against the lawful journeymen; and even went so far as to pay off every man that worked for him that had joined their clubs. This so exasperated the men, that their acting committee soon

looked for unlawful men, as they called them, among Chamberlayne's workmen. Robert, naturally fond of peace, and fearful for my personal safety, begged to be suffered to retire from the storm. He came home and Mr Austin kindly bade him make his house his home till he could return to me. And here, with his mind glowing with the fine descriptions of rural scenery which he found in Thomson's 'Seasons,' he again retraced the very fields where first he began to think. Here, free from the smoke, the noise, and the contention of the city, he imbibed that love of rural simplicity and rural innocence which fitted him, in a great degree, to be the writer of The Farmer's Boy.' Here he lived two months at length, as the dispute in the trade remained undecided, Mr Dudbridge offered to take him as his apprentice, to secure him, at all events, from any consequences of the litigation, and he was accordingly bound. When I left London he was turned eighteen; and much of my happiness since has arisen from a constant correspondence with him. After I left him he studied music, and became a good player on the violin. As my brother Nat had married a Woolwich woman, it happened that Robert took a fancy to a comely young woman of that town, whose father is a boat-builder in the Government-yard there. His name is Church. Soon after he married, Robert told me in a letter 'he had sold his fiddle and got a wife.' Like most poor men, he got a wife first, and had to get household stuff afterward. It took him some years to get out of ready furnished lodgings. At length, by hard working, &c., he acquired a bed of his own, and hired the room up one pair of stairs at 14, Bell-alley, Coleman-street. The landlord kindly gave him leave to sit and work in the light garret, two pair of stairs higher. In this garret, among six or seven other workmen, his active mind employed itself in composing The Farmer's Boy.'

Re

The MS., when completed, was put into the hands of Capel Lofft, Esq. of Troston, near Bury St Edmund's, who benevolently revised it, superintended its progress through the press, and prefixed to it an ample biographical and critical memoir, from which we have selected such passages only as are given in the words of George Bloomfield. specting this poem an anecdote has been related by Mr Swan, in a letter to Mr Lofft: "Among other subjects of conversation, with respect to 'The Farmer's Boy,' I wished to be informed of his manner of composition. I inquired, as he composed it in a garret, amidst the bustle and noise of six or seven fellow-workmen, whether he used a slate, or wrote it on paper with a pencil, or pen and ink; but what was my surprise when he told me that he had used neither! My business during the greatest part of my life, having led me into the line of literary pursuits, and made me acquainted with literary men, I am consequently pretty well informed of the methods used by authors for the retention of their productions. We are told, if my recollection is just, that Milton, when blind, took his daughters as his amanuenses; that Savage, when his poverty precluded him from the conveniency of pen, ink, and paper, used to study in the streets, and go into shops to record the productions of his fertile genius; that Pope, when on visits at Lord Bolingbroke's, used to ring up the servants at any hour of the night, for pen and ink, to write any thought that struck his lively and wakeful imagination; that Dr Blacklock, though blind, had the happy facility of writing down, in a very legible hand, the chaste and elegant productions of his muse.

With these, and many other methods of composition we are acquainted, but that of a great part of 'The Farmer's Boy,' in my opinion, stands first on the list of literary phenomena. Sir, Mr Bloomfield, either from the contracted state of his pecuniary resources to purchase paper, or for other reasons, composed the latter part of his 'Autumn,' and the whole of his ، Winter,' in his head, without committing one line to paper ! This cannot fail to surprise the literary world, who are well acquainted with the treacherousness of memory, and how soon the most happy ideas, for want of sufficient quickness in writing down, are lost in the rapidity of thought! But this is not all, he went still a step farther :he not only composed and committed that part of his work to his faithful and retentive memory, but he corrected it all in his head !!!and, as he said, when it was thus prepared, 'I had nothing to do but to write it down.' By this new and wonderful mode of composition, he studied and completed his 'Farmer's Boy' in a garret, among six or seven of his fellow-workmen, without their ever once suspecting or knowing any thing of the matter !"

Bloomfield continued to employ his poetical powers, and, besides contributing several pieces to The Monthly Mirror,' published three volumes of poems, in 1802, 1804, and 1806, successively. In 1811 appeared his Banks of the Wye,' the result of a tour made by him into South Wales, the mountain scenery of which country made a novel and pleasing impression on his mind. Not long afterwards, owing to his engaging in the book trade, he became a bankrupt; and about the same time, suffering much from the dropsy, he left London and took up his abode at Shefford in Bucks, for the benefit of his health. His death took place at Shefford, on the 19th of August, 1823. He left a widow and four children; and had published, shortly before his death, May Day with the Muses,' and 'Hazlewood Hall,' a village drama, in three

acts.

The characteristics of ، The Farmer's Boy' are well-known. Parr, Southey, Aiken, Watson, and all our most eminent critics have praised it. Dr Drake, in his 'Literary Hours,' says, "such are its merits, that, in true pastoral imagery and simplicity, I do not think any production can be put in competition with it since the days of Theocritus."

Edward Jenner.

BORN A. D. 1749.-DIED A. D. 1823.

EDWARD JENNER was born at Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, where his father, Stephen Jenner, was vicar, on the 17th May, 1749. At an early period of his life he lost his father, and at the age of eight years he was put to school at Wotton-under-Edge, and soon after at Cirencester under the care of Dr Washbourn. One of his early propensities was for the study of natural history, and the hours usually devoted to play were spent by him in collecting fossils or studying the habits of birds and insects. His professional education commenced under the care of Mr Ludlow, a surgeon at Sudbury, near Bristol. His apprenticeship being finished, he went to London, and had the good fortune to be taken under the care of the celebrated John Hunter, with whom

he resided. Under these favourable circumstances his zeal for natural history could not fail to be increased, his views became more enlarged, and his talents and industry progressed in a like proportion. Between such congenial spirits as those of John Hunter and Edward Jenner, a friendship of the closest description was, notwithstanding the disparity in years, unavoidable; and though the amount of benefit received was on the side of Jenner much the greater, there is not a doubt that the great master found in the rising talents of his favourite pupil a reward which fully recompensed him for all that he bestowed. So long as Mr Hunter lived their correspondence was uninterrupted, and the respect of the pupil was never diminished. The recommendation of Mr Hunter procured for Jenner, in 1771, the task of arranging the collection of specimens of natural history of Sir Joseph Banks, when Captain Cook returned from his first voyage of discovery. His reputation being thus increased, he was requested to accompany the expedition of 1772 as naturalist; but a desire to return to his native place led him to decline the tempting offer. He returned accordingly to Berkeley, where he settled as a general practitioner, and soon acquired a high reputation and an extensive practice. He continued to improve every advantage which presented itself for the study of his favourite science, and prepared a paper on the Cuckoo, which was read before the Royal society in 1788, and appeared in their transactions. He used to indulge himself occasionally in writing poetry; many of his little pieces display considerable feeling and versatility of talent. About 1778 Jenner took an active part in the formation of a medical society, intended to promote at the same time medical science, conviviality, and good fellowship. He is known to have communicated some very valuable papers to this society, some of which were unfortunately dispersed and could not be recovered. Of another society in Alviston he was an active member, and first made known to the members of it his views on the prophylactic virtues of cow-pox, but did not receive that encouragement which he so eminently deserved. On the 6th of March, 1788, he married Miss Catharine Kingscote, daughter of Anthony Kingscote, Esq., a kinsman of the great Sir Matthew Hale. This marriage proved the source of much happiness to him. In 1792 he resigned his general practice as being too fatiguing, and, obtaining the degree of M. D. from the university of St Andrews, practised afterwards only as a physician. In 1794 he suffered severely from typhus fever, along with several other members of his family.

In 1798 the first part of his 'Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of Variola Vaccina' was laid before the public. This was the result of much labour and long experience, and on account of it the name of Jenner will ever stand high on the list of the benefactors of the human race. An account of the history of the cow-pox can no where be with more propriety introduced than in connection with the name which it has rendered illustrious.

The history of the origin and progress of Dr Jenner's discovery is very well given by his biographer, Dr Baron; and perhaps the best thing that can be done here will be to give an analysis of that portion of the work of Dr Baron. The attention of Jenner was drawn to the subject while he was yet little more than a boy, by the observation of a countrywoman, in whose presence the subject of small-pox was men

tioned, "I cannot take that disease, for I have had cow-pox."

This shows

that the notion was a popular one, and though it takes away from Jenner the merit of actual discovery, it does not at all detract from the honour which has been so long acknowledged as justly and peculiarly his own. His mind became first alive to the possibility of averting the evils arising both from the natural and the inoculated small-pox, and he exerted his powers to the utmost, in the face of neglect and ridicule, to convince the world of the efficacy of the means he proposed. John Hunter was early made acquainted with the ideas of Jenner on this subject, and though not impressed so fully with the importance of them, he did not fail to give the young student every encouragement to perseverance, and to communicate his notions to other men of science. To most of these the evidence seemed unsatisfactory, and it was not till 1780 that Jenner was able to acquire sufficient information to confirm his own confidence in the new means he proposed for guarding against this dangerous disease. In that year he communicated his information to his friend Edward Gardner. Among the difficulties which at different times impeded his progress, was one which arose from a considerable similarity between two diseases, both of which were commonly called the cow-pox, but which differed in this essential point, that the one did, and the other did not, afford a protection against the contagion of small-pox. Fortunately he discovered in a disease called the grease, affecting the heels of horses, the origin of the true cow-pox, as he denominated that which was the object of his researches, in contradistinction to the false, which did not produce the same beneficial effects. In 1788 he got a drawing of the disease, as produced on the hands of milk-women when the cows are affected, and showed it to Sir Everard Home, who gave him every encouragement to proceed in his researches. It was not till the 14th May, 1796, that he was enabled to make an experiment, which decided the virtues of his method. It remained to be proved whether the disease propagated from one human being to another continued to produce the same desirable effect upon the constitution, as that obtained directly from the diseased animal. This was completely decided by the experiment now referred to. In May the matter taken from the hand of a woman was used to inoculate a boy of eight years of age. The pustule was produced, and run its course in a regular manner. In July variolous matter was taken from a pustule and inserted in several places under the skin of the boy, and the gratification of Jenner may well be conceived, when the result is stated—no disease followed. "I shall now," he said, in a letter to a friend, "pursue my experiments with redoubled ardour." In 1798 Dr Jenner repaired to London for the purpose of making an experiment in order to satisfy his medical friends there. It will hardly be credited that in the space of three months he could not procure one person on whom he might exhibit the disease. It is to the honour of Mr Cline, surgeon of St Thomas' hospital, that he exerted himself in favour of Jenner and his views. Much opposition had to be encountered from the less liberal members of the profession; but Jenner lived to see his triumph over it all. It was the opinion of Dr Jenner that the cow-pox and smallpox are modifications of the same disease. Of course the discussion of

that question does not belong to this place. In 1798 he fell in with Dr Ingenhousz, with whom he had a contro