"But as my Brother Nat had married a Woolwich woman, it happen'd that Robert took a fancy to MARY-ANNE CHURCH, a comely young woman of that town, whose Father is a boat-builder in the Government yard there. He married 12th Dec. 1790."[Footnote: This Date from the Author. C.L.] "Soon after he married, Robert told me, in a Letter, that '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, amid six or seven other workmen, his active Mind employ'd itself in composing the Farmer's Boy."
"In my correspondence I have seen several poetical effusions of his; all of them of a good moral tendency; but which he very likely would think do him little credit: on that account I have not preserv'd them."
"ROBERT is a Ladies Shoemaker, and works for DAVIES, Lombard-street. He is of a slender make; of about 5 F. 4 I. high; very dark complexion…. His MOTHER, who is a very religions member of the Church of England, took all the pains she could in his infancy to make him pious: and as his Reason expanded, his love of God and Man increas'd with it. I never knew his fellow for mildness of temper and Goodness of Disposition. And since I left him, universally is he prais'd by those who know him best, for the best of Husbands, an indulgent Father, and quiet Neighbour. He is between thirty-three and four years old,[Footnote: Corrected from the above Date, p. vi, to his present Age, May 1800. C. L.] and has three Children;" two Daughters and a Son.[Footnote: Added from the information of Mr. R. BLOOMFIELD. Hannah, born 25 Oct. 1791. Mary Anne, 6 Sept. 1793. Charles, 15 Sept. 1798.]
Mr. GEORGE BLOOMFIELD concludes this clear, affectionate, and interesting Narrative, by a very kind Address to the Writer of this Preface. But, pleas'd as I am with the good opinion of a Man like him, I must not take praise to myself for not having neglected or suppress'd such a Work when it came into my hands. And I have no farther merit than that of seeing what it was impossible for an unprejudiced Mind not to see, and of doing what it was impossible not to do.
But I join with him cordially in his prayer, "that GOD, the Giver of thought, may, as mental light spreads, raise up many who will turn a listening ear, and will not despise
"The short and simple annals of the Poor."
Very few words will complete what remains to be added.
Struck with the Work, but not less struck with the remark, which is become a proverb, of the Roman Satirist, that "it is not easy [Footnote: Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi.] for those to emerge to notice whose circumstances obscure the observation of their Merits," I sent it to a Friend,[Footnote: This Friend, THOMAS HILL, Esq. I hope will forgive my mentioning him without asking his consent.] whom I knew to be above these prejudices: and who has deserv'd, and is deserving, well of the public, in many other instances, by his attention to Literature and the elegant Arts. He immediately express'd an high satisfaction in it; and communicated it to the Publishers. They adopted it upon terms honorable to themselves, and satisfactory to the Author, and to me in his behalf. They have publish'd it in a manner which speaks abundantly for itself; both as to the typographical accuracy and beauty, and the good taste and execution of the Ornaments in Wood.
My part has been this, and it has been a very pleasing one: to revise the MS. making occasionally corrections with respect to Orthography, and sometimes in the grammatical construction. The corrections, in point of Grammar, reduce themselves almost wholly to a circumstance of provincial usage, which even well educated persons in Suffolk and Norfolk do not wholly avoid; and which may be said, as to general custom, to have become in these Counties almost an established Dialect:… that of adopting the plural for the singular termination of verbs, so as to exclude the s. But not a line is added or substantially alter'd through the whole poem. I have requested the MS. to be preserv'd for the satisfaction of those who may wish to be satisfied on this head.