ROBERT

See also:

• BLOOMFIELD
• BLOOMFIELD, MAURICE (1855- )
• ROBERT BLOOMFIELD (1766-1823)

BLOOMFIELD (1766-1823)  , English poet, was born of humble parents at the village of Honington, Suffolk, on the 3rd of December 1766 . He was apprenticed at the age of eleven to a farmer, but he was too small and frail for field labour, and four years later he came to London to work for a shoemaker . The poem that made his reputation, The Farmer's Boy, was written in a garret in Bell Alley . The manuscript, declined by several publishers, fell into the hands of Capell Lofft, who arranged for its publication with woodcuts by Bewick in 1800 . The success of the poem was remarkable, over 25,000 copies being sold in the next two years . His reputation was increased by the appearance of his Rural Tales (1802), News from the Farm (1804), Wild Flowers (18o6) and The Banks of the Wye (1811) . Influential friends attempted to provide for Bloomfield, but ill-health and possibly faults of temperament prevented the success of these efforts, and the poet died in poverty at Shefford, Bedfordshire, on the 19th of August 1823 . His Remains in Poetry and Verse appeared in 1824 .