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GRANT me, kind Heaven! to call mine own,

A little cottage, overgrown
With honeysuckle and with rose;
In whose small garden, duly blows
Carnation, lilies, jasmine spreading,
And all the juicy fruits that redden:
A cottage near a lane, whose banks,
Steep and romantic, equal ranks;
Of high, umbrageous trees embower,
(Sweet shelter from a transientshower!)
Thick sown with violets, and made
Of nightingales the leafy shade;
Where I may walk in summer night
Through breath of flowers, and soft
moonlight!

Let a clear spring refreshing run,
Far from the hot glance of the sun,
Beside my straw-roofed cot, whose
willows

May thickly sweep its mimic billows,
Deep in some distant dell, retire
From which the silver bells may oft
The peaceful hamlet's ivied spire,
Ring round their changes, sweet and
soft,

O'er some wild common's calm expanse
Where I might stray in musing trance.
Then add to this a plenteous store
Of ancient and of modern lore;
A chosen friend with whom to talk,
Or read, or gather flowers, or walk;

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Whose kind, approving looks might be
My heaviest toil's o'erpaying fee,
To whom I dedicate my life,
Either as sister, friend, or wife:
O add but these, and thou canst grant,
Nought else that I should wish or

want.

HOME

Oh! 'tis sweet to retire from the world and its wiles,

And renounce all life's idle inducements to roam;

To fly from its tumults, to court not its smiles,

'Why so good dame?' the sage replied, "Because you'd love me then," she cried.

'Why that might be,' he straight rejoin'd,

'But 'twould depend upon the kind'An Almanack, for instance, dear, 'To have a new one every year.'

FROM THE ITALIAN OF PANANTI.

“Pentiti a un dissoluto moribondo,” And centre our joys in the circle at To the sick patient on his bed. "Repent, my son," a friar said

home.

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"I saw the demon on the watch At the stairs' foot thy soul to catch." "What was he like?" the sick man cried :

"Why like an ass," the monk replied. "An ass!" the sick man mutter'd, "Pshaw!

'Twas your own shadow that you saw."

To the Editor of the Oxford Entertaining Miscellany.

SIR,

Having read your Paper respecting the publishing of the Oxford Entertaining Miscellany, I beg to acquaint you that I am highly pleased with your laudable design, and that I think the Work admirably adapted to afford entertainment and instruction to its readers. If, Mr. Editor, the Subscribers to your Publication will take the trouble to transmit to you any beautiful quotation they may happen to meet with in the course of their reading, or a brilliant thought of their own, the Oxford Entertaining Miscellany will form an highly pleasing companion at the breakfast table for its wit, and furnish subjects for consideration during more deliberate hours. Let this therefore serve as a respectful invitation to the Oxonians to con tribute by their abilities and accomplishments to the promotion of your praise-worthy views.

am, Mr. Editor,
Your obedt. Servant,
A. Z.

Holywell, Oxford,

June 7th, 1824.

[Printed and Published by F. Trash, Oxford.

BLOOMFIELD THE POET.

volumes and attending the lectures of the late Rev. Mr. Fawcett, of the Old Jewry, he imbibed a thirst for literature, and obtained a knowledge of geography and history; paid some attention to music and drawing, to the latter of which

The following brief sketch may not be unacceptable to many of our readers unacquainted with the history of this Poet of Nature; and others to whom his published memoirs have been highly gratify-he afterwards devoted consider, ing, will find some difference in regard to dates, which have been

able attention. Here the first exertions of his muse were register

obtained from indisputable au-ed in the poet's corner of a Mornthority.

ing Paper; but they were not written exactly at the early age which Mr. George Bloomfield has assigned in his letter to Mr. Capel Lofft. He was in his 20th year when they appeared, though previously he had made some slight attempts to array his ideas in a

Robert Bloomfield was born in the village of Honington, near Euston, Suffolk, December 3, 1766. He was the son of a tailor, whose death, by the small pox ere our poet attained the age of twelve months, left his wife with six children unprovided for, and the num-political garb. He continued to ber was augmented by the issue exercise the trade of a shoemaker, of a second marriage. At the age in which he met with numerous of eleven he was placed in the obstacles from not having been house of her relative, Mr. Austin, regularly apprenticed, when chance at an adjoining village, called threw in his way "Paradise Lost," Stapleton, from whence he was and Thomson's Seasons." From removed to London in June, 1781, the last be caught the idea of his to the care of his brother, John "Farmer's Boy," and conceived Bloomfield, a shoemaker, who un- and wrote the chief part of that dertook his maintenance and in- beautiful and celebrated poem, struction in his trade, while Na- while working amid the din of thaniel, another brother, who ex-six or seven men engaged in a ercised the calling of a tailor, similar avocation to his own. undertook to provide him with clothes.

His brother resided at No. 7, Pitcher's Court, Coleman-street, and worked with four other shoemakers in a garret. The situation of Robert was for some time little superior to that of an errand boy, By the use of a few odd

From the success of the "Farmer's Boy," he was induced to attempt other works, and his "Rural Tales," "Wild Flowers," and subsequent works, added to his domestic comforts (occasionally afflicted with illness and the cares of family,) and increased his literary fame. He quitted the

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drudgery of trade, and resided for
some time in the City Road, where
he manufactured and sold Eolian
barps. Among his numerous ad-
mirers and patrons was the Duke
of Grafton, who procured him a
situation connected with the re-
ceipt of money for stamps on
wills, and the legacy duty. This
being utterly remote to his dispo-
sition, he soon relinquished, and
retired to Shefford, where he pro-
'duced his " May Day with the
Muses,"
," "Hazlewood Hall," and

of her husband, a firm believer in the impositions of Joanna Southcote, but the unfortunate delusion has happily subsided.

Shefford is a small, neat market town, forty-one miles distant from London, situated on the river Ivel, Bedfordshire. The residence is a neat red-brick fronted house, containing six rooms, and a small garden; the surrounding scenery is well adapted to an admirer of rural life. Bloomfield's residence here was at the suggestiou of a other works; but his health, which friend. He appears to have been had been gradually declining, pro- much esteemed by the females of duced a painful illness, of which the place, who quote frequently he'died, in August, 1823, in em- his "Richard and Kate," "Milbarrassed circumstances, and was ler's Maid," "Broken Crutch," buried in the church-yard of and other productions; but the Campton, one mile distant from male residents, who are not much his house, there being no burial 'ground in Shefford, without a stone to mark the spot of his remains, leaving four children, who are ́grown up, and fortunately possess mer pursuits, and imply in the the means of providing for them-language of the songselves.

His widow having administered to his effects, became pressed for the payment of his debts, and a compromise was entered into connected with certain copywrights and arrangements with booksellers, from which the creditors have received a dividend of seven shillings and sixpence in the pound, as a full acquittal of all -demands. She is about fifty-five years of age, of a respectable and decent appearance, and was for some time previous to the death

prone to poetry, while they admit and commend his placid and unassuming deportment, seem to lament his want of success in for

"That learning is not half so good as leather."

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All shall lament thee, Nature's bard-
All who can rural themes enjoy;
And testify their fond regard,

In weeping with the "Farmer's
Boy."

The rustic and untutor'd "Giles,"
Nurtur'd and train'd in Nature's
schools,

Whose face, adorned with honest smiles,

Laughs at and scorns improvement's

rules,

Shall check his glee, as in the vale
He reaps creation's golden store,
And scarce believe the doleful tale-
His darling minstrel is no more.

The tear shall start in "Walter's

eye,

And June, alas! shall vainly weep! Phabe and George no more be gay, Ev'n aged Richard's mirth shall sleep.

For he is gone who call'd them forth,

His name is all now we possess ;

Death came and claim'd him of our

earth,

With all his stern relentlessness.

Time show'd his glass-the sands run down,

Spoke in a language far too plain; He pointed to "its conic crown,"

But would not "turn it up again."

Let Nature then descend in showers,
To water what she could not save,
And nourish wild and rural flowers,
To decorate her Poet's grave.

LORD BYRON.

(Continued from page 8.)

Yet all this giddy waste of years,
This tiresome round of palling
pleasures;
These varied loves, these matron's

fears,

These thoughtless strains to pas sion's measures.

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no se.

1 conquer half my bosom's sadness.”
Yet e'en in these, a thought will steal,,
In spite of every vain endeavour;
And fiends might pity what I feel,
To know, that thou art lost for ever."

On arriving at the age of man-
hood, Lord Byron took a long,
leave of his native country, in the
view of making a tour in foreign
lands, but as the ordinary course
of travelling through Europe, was
much impeded by the war which.
then prevailed between England
and France, he embarked at Fal-
mouth for Lisbon. In 1809, he
passed through Portugal and
Spain, touched at Malta and Sicily,
and proceeded to the Morea and
Constantinople, While the Sal-.
sette, in which Lord Byron was a
passenger to Constantinople, lay.
in the Dardanelles, a discourse
arose among some of the Officers
respecting the practicability of
swimming across the Hellespont.
-Lord Byron and Lieut. Eken-
head agreed to make the trial;
they accordingly attempted this
enterprise on the 3d of May, 1810.
The following is the account given
of it by his Lordship :—“ The
whole distance from Abydos, the
place from whence we started, to
our landing at Sestos on the other
side, including the length we were
carried by the current, was com-
puted by those on board the frigate
at upwards of four English miles;

If thou wert mine, had all been hush'd;
This cheek now pale from early riot,
With passion's hectic ne'er had flush'd,
But bloom'd in calm domestic quiet.
Yes, once the rural scene was sweet,
For Nature seem'd to smile before
thee;
And once my breast abhorr'd deceit, though the actual breadth is barely

For then it beat but to adore thee. one.

The rapidity of the current

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