ways quickened his steps to get into the town on a Sunday evening soon enough to attend this lecture. "The preacher lived somewhere at the west end of the town-his name was Fawcet. 'His language,' says Mr. G. Bloomfield, was just such as the Rambler is written in; his action like a person acting a tragedy; his discourse rational, and free from the cant of Methodism.' "Of him Robert learned to accent what he called hard words; and otherwise improved himself; and gained the most enlarged notions of Providence." A small mistake shall be here rectified. Mr. FAWCETT did not live at the west end of the town. He preached in the morning at Walthamstow, where he resided. He has now for some time declined preaching, and is retired into the country. His lectures at the Old Jewry, the writer of this article attended, and he well remembers those beautiful strokes of oratory by which the imagination of Robert was so much delighted and improved. At this time the subject of our Memoir frequented the Debating Society at Coachmaker's Hall, and went a few times to Covent-Garden Theatre. The Review of the London Magazine also was a favourite topic of perusal and the poetical department in that publication cherished and excited his love of poetry. He therefore sat down and wrote his Milkmaid, on the first of May. For a poem, written in his sixteenth year, it is wonderful-it exhibits the same selection of sentiment and delicacy of expression by which his subsequent productions have been distinguished. About this period he became acquainted with Thomson's Seasons-of which performance he was most devoutly enamoured. He is known to have spoken more highly of that work than of any other which had engaged his attention. In 1784, a question was agitated between the shoemakers-whether those who had learnt without an apprenticeship could follow the trade. This dispute was carried to great lengths, and Robert was involved in the contest. He, however, at last thought proper to leave London, and to go back to his former situation in the country. Mr. Austin, the farmer, kindly received him, and here for two months he indulged his rural love and rural simplicity. The spirit of the Seasons, which he had read with so much rapture, now animated him. He wandered through the fields with a poet's eye, caught the inspiration of nature, and produced those glowing images of rustic life in his Farmer's Boy, which will not fail of conveying his name to a distant generation! He, however, again soon returned to London, and was bound to Mr. Dudbridge by Mr. In am, of BellAlley. His master acted towards him very honourably and here he learnt his business, in a manner against which there could be no future exceptions. In December, 1790, Robert married a young woman from Woolwich, by whom he has three children. To use his brother's words respecting him-" Like most poor men, he got a wife first, and had to get houshold stuff afterwards. 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 No. 14, BellAlley, Coleman-street. The landlord kindly gave him leave to sit and work in the light garret, two pair of stairs higher. In this garret, amid six or seven other workmen, his active mind employed itself in com, posing the Farmer's Boy." - This latter circumstance may, without exaggeration, be pronounced wonderful for such is the divine energy of genius, that it bursts through every impedi ment, shining forth with a peculiar effulgence and glory! The Farmer's Boy was published in 1799, under the immediate superintendence and patronage of Capel Loft, Esq. a gentleman well known in the republic of letters. His discernment enabled him instantly to perceive the merits of the poem, and his benevolence induced him to bring its author forward, with a distinguished degree of liberality. The production soon attracted the attention of the public-its sale rapidly increased-and the poet was noticed and carressed by some of the most respectable characters among us. "It is pleasing to think (says Mr. Loft), on a remark of Mr. G. Bloomfield concerning his brother, when he first came to London-"I have him in my mind's eye a little boy, not bigger than other boys generally are at twelve years old. When I met him and his mother at the inn (in Bishopsgate-street), be strutted before us dressed just as he came from keeping sheep, hogs, &c. his shoes filled full of stumps in the heels. He, looking about, slipped---his nails were unused to a flat pavement. I remember viewing him as he scampered up-how small he was. I little thought that little fatherless boy would be one day known and esteemed by the most learned, the most respected, the wisest, and the best men in the kingdom!" The profits have been large; and Mr. Bloomfield intends prosecuting his business (ladies' shoemaker) as a master, either in London or the country. We wish him every success. We hope also, that his prosperity will have no injurious effect upon his disposition or his manners. Poor Burns is a memorable instance on record and his fate suggests an useful lesson to individuals similarly circumstanced. The human mind sometimes cannot bear sudden changes-they irritate and overwhelm-they destroy that equanimity of soul which lies at the foundation of virtue and piety. Of the Farmer's Boy we have already spoken fully, in our REVIEW for January, to which the reader is respectfully referred. Another volume of poems is, we understand, in contemplation. May it confirm and perpetuate his well-earned fame down to the latest posterity! As by way of motto we chose Mr. Bloomfield's account of himself, under the title of Giles, we shall close the narrative with the concluding lines of the poem, in which the four seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, are so beautifully described : "E'en GILES, for all his cares and watchings past, Lisps from the tongue, and beams in every face: Wander the leaf-strewn wood, the frozen plain : Let the first flower, corn-waving field, plain, tree, • Here round my home, still lift my soul to THEE; And let me ever, midst thy bounties, raise 'An humble note of thankfulness and praise!" IN LITERARY IMPOSTURE. N the first number of the present volume, we noticed a work entitled Travels in the Interior of Africa, &c. by C. F.. Damberger, which has of late been pronounced an imposition upon the public.We shall lay before our readers the substance of the affair. Last year there appeared at Leipsick, a Journey to the East Indies, and in Egypt, performed by a Saxon artificer, named Joseph Schroeder. This traveller relates, among other wonders, that after having cmbarked at Pondicherry, on the 28th of April, 1797, and having assisted at a naval engagement near the coast of Africa, between the French and English, he was taken by the latter, and landed on the 16th of June, the same year, at Alexandria, where, the following year he was witness to the conquest of that country by the French, &c. Notwithstanding a heap of lies, as gross as his rapid passage from Pondicherry to Alexandria, Schroeder found readers, and even encomiasts. M. Paulus, the celebrated professor of Jena, and author of an excellent Supplement to Volney's Travels, did justice to this cheat, in the Literary Gazette of Jena. He exposed the imposture in the clearest manner, and no person defended it. About the same time appeared another work, entitled Travels in Africa, Asia, and America, by Zachariah Taurinius, who was born at Cairo, 1758, was the son of a Copht, named Stirish, and who went by Constantinople to Riga, and from thence to Nurem berg, where he changed his name and religion. He then went, to Wirtemberg, in Saxony, and became a journeyman printer.-M. Ebent, a profefsor in that town, and a man of merit besides, enriched his travels with a preface, which served as a certificate to Zacharias Taurinius. But though there was nothing absolutely impossible in the circumstance, that a native of Cairo should become a printer at Wirtemberg, the work itself presenting nothing but ill-selected, and ill-arranged extracts from Dampierre, Legenlil, Dapper, &c. which afforded the clearest proof that this author had never travelled, except in his closet. Scarcely had the second volume of Taurinius appeared, when a proposal was made to Martini, a bookseller of Leipsick, to publish an account of a Journey made in Africa, by a carpenter's apprentice in Suabia, named Damberger, and who also was residing at Wirtemberg. M. Martini, wishing to take his precautions, went to Wirtemberg, there formed a personal acquaintance with Damberger, and saw the papers and certificates of every kind, which he exhi bited; after which he thought he could no longer doubt that this new Anacharsis had, in reality, pushed his travels much farther than any of those who had attempted to penetrate into Africa. M. Martini made him come to Leipsick, where he had several interviews and conversations with a geo |