238. George Bloomfield to William
Holloway, before 11 June 1809*
To Mr Willam Holloway
Dear Sir
I beg leave to give you my
sincere thanks for your Minor Minstrel, [1] I hope you,
and all those you love are healthfull and happy, I lent your charming poems to
my particular friends, all of whom speak highly of them, Last week I read you
every time I took my tea, and great delight I took with you in your rural
excursions; You have great variety this time,—I found that sort of pleasure I
have so often found in roaming about the flower-deck't meadows at Honington with my Brothers—But all at once I found you gon over the
Stile! left the pleasant meadows and peacefull Towns for war. [2] this bestir'd the water in my brain, and after the
agitation ceaced I fell into a rhyme-atical sleep and dream'd of a
Brother I dearly love, and of an unknown
friend, they were conversing after this sort——
The poets at Odds,
Observe cried
Nat
and learn the cause,
Of all those fatal cruel
wars,
[3] Men like the Bees in swarms combined,
In hopes each social joy to find,
As they increase their food grow scant,
They
reather choose to fight then want;
Too soon
they'r formd in Martial bands,
Intent to pillage
forign lands,
Wars scythe produced swift
decrace,
The cause remov'd men wish for
peace,
'Was man a social creature made,
'To thin his race with Murders blade,
'Ah tell us
not at Honors call,
'More myriads every age must
fall,
'That thus th'encumber'd world has
need
'Its victims oft shoud fight and
bleed,
'I hear the God of truth reply,
'—Twas Hells arch-fiend devis'd the Lye,'—
Softly dear
Will, I pray be civel,
Perhaps thy zeal
belye the Devil,
If the satanic King
declare,
That mankind still are thin'd by
war
Whoever reads the historic page
Of ev'ry climb, of ev'ry age,
This obvious Truth needs must find,
(unless by
prejudice they'r blind)
All historians display
it,
Truth, is Truth, let who will say
it
Think on Gods Word!——
'His
Gospel bids our bick'rings ceace,
'And only
whispers—love and peace
'Could not the power who
life supplied
'For all his creatures wants
provide.
'Accomodate th increasing race
'With food, convenience, health and space,
'And in the course of nature give
'Sufficiency for all that live,
'Let truth
oppose the Sophist band,
'Lo Sin and Death go
hand, in hand,
I made the search of scripture truth,
The study of my early youth,
Tis
said to mankind great and small,
Resist not,*
injuries atall,
Resist not, says the Law of
Love
Yet you defensive war
approve!!
No doubt but God the great first
cause,
Could force obedience to his
laws,
Bid national distinction ceace,
The schemes of patriots Eface,
Self int'rest drown in the great sea,
Of general
phylanthrophy,
That peace and Love the world might
crown,
The soldier and his trade
unknown,
And for room, should men be
scanted,
Could make another world and plant
it.
'Ungreatfull Time to rob the brave,
'Whom Heaven ordain'd to shield and save,
'Of laurels Worthy to be worn,
'From fierce ambitions trophies torn
'When
tyrants rouse the world to arms,
And deck
Destructions form with charms,
'But would the
proud and mighty hear,
'And listen with impartial
ear,
'Whatever system they defend,
'How'er successfully contend,
'Beyond the rule of self defence,
'Unjust is
every Vague pretence.
Give me your hand for I protest
My sentiments you have express'd
Nor can there be
twixt any two,
More concord then twixt me and
you
'Commissiond War is but the
rod
'And scourge of an offended
God,—
As each contending state declare,
Theirs the just
cause for waging war,
Each warft their prayers to
the skies,
For aid to crush their
enemies,
Then how shall any mortal
white
Dare to decide whose cause is
right,
And arrogate the place of God
O're fellow sinners shake the rod
Abstract perfection leads us far,
From what
mere mortals realy are,
Proimiscuous, Mans lot
may seem
As good, and bad, swim down Lifes
stream
But yet there is a choosen race,
Who follow after Love and peace,
Nor do the storms of war destroy,
Their hopes of sollid Lasting joy,
We Deplore
what cant be mended
Tis fickle Man, Not God
offended,—
Yet I know————————
Here I awoke and Lo it was a Dream!!—
yours
George
Bloomfield
* Matthew 5, 39 V,
P.S. Dear Sir I have beg'd of Mr Hill to give these
Lines a place in his Mirror I wish I could
have Done them better I know Nat would be the last man
to defend his opinion, though no one is more Capable. he is to much a Christian
to return a blow, he was Cruelly hunted Down by the Critics [4] and may be considerd as a dead man and I am jealous of
any one who Disturb his Ghost
Poor Henry Kirk
White did him justice [5]
But Henry is dead to—
Oh for a scrap
of Latin or Greek to tagg this
with but Allass I am no scholar——— [6]
[1] The Minor
Minstrel; or Poetical Pieces, Chiefly Familiar and Descriptive
(London, 1808). BACK
[2] Holloway's poem 'War' is on pp. 172-76
of The Minor Minstrel. BACK
[3]
This verse-debate about war springs from the differing sentiments
expressed in Nathaniel Bloomfield's 'Essay on War', published in An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington
Green, a Ballad . . . and Other Poems (London, 1803). Nathaniel’s
poem took the grim line argued by Thomas Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)
that war was to be welcomed because it relieved poverty by keeping
population in check. The argument of Holloway (here referred to as ‘Will’)
was that it was an evil, a punishment for humanity’s sinfulness. BACK
[4] Critical reaction to Nathaniel’s An Essay on War was hostile. The Critical Review, 37 (1803), 406–15 criticised
the Malthusian argument of An Essay as
a perversion of Christian doctrine and suggested Nathaniel lacked the
strength of mind required to write blank verse. Other reviews focused on the
poem’s awkwardness and suggested that the hyperbolical praise that Lofft
heaped upon it in his preface did the author a disservice. The Annual Review, 2 (1803), 585–88, called Lofft
‘mistaken’ in supposing he had ‘found a nest of poets’ and remarked, ‘the
poem being bad, Mr. Capel Lofft is ignorant. Q.E.D, lamentably ignorant, and
presumptuously obtrusive in his ignorance’ (p. 587). Cf. The Monthly Review, 42 (1803), 379–81. The British Critic, 22 (1803), 81–82
declared ‘Another Bloomfield, and a poet! Are all the Bloomfields poets?’
(p. 81). All noted that Lofft had drawn attention to Nathaniel’s
embarrassment at being a tailor and, while disavowing any snobbery about
this profession, argued that he was not a good enough poet to give it up.
Byron was crueller about labourer poets, and Nathaniel in particular, in
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
(London, 1809), lines 765–94.
When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall,
Employs a pen less pointed than his awl,
Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of
shoes,
St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for
the muse,
Heavens! how the vulgar stare!
how crowds applaud!
How ladies read, and
literati laud!
If chance some wicked wag
should pass his jest,
‘Tis sheer
ill-nature—don’t the world know best?
Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme,
And Capel Lofft declares ‘tis quite
sublime.
Here, then, ye happy sons of
needless trade!
Swains! quit the plough,
resign the useless spade!
Lo! Burns and
Bloomfield, nay, a greater far,
Gifford
was born beneath an adverse star,
Forsook
the labours of a servile state,
Stemm’d
the rude storm, and triumph’d over fate;
Then why no more? if Phoebus smiled on you,
Bloomfield! why not on brother Nathan too?
Him too the mania, not the muse, has
seized;
Not inspiration, but a mind
diseased;
And now no boor can seek his
last abode,
No common be enclosed without
an ode.
Oh! since increased refinement
deigns to smile
On Britain’s sons, and
bless our genial isle,
Let poesy go forth,
pervade the whole,
Alike the rustic, and
mechanic soul!
Ye tuneful cobblers! still
your notes prolong,
Compose at once a
slipper and a song;
So shall the fair your
handywork peruse,
Your sonnets sure shall
please—perhaps your shoes.
Byron added a footnote: ‘See
Nathaniel Bloomfield’s ode, elegy, or whatever he or any one else chooses to
call it, on the enclosure of “Honington Green.”’ See the text of
‘Honington Green’.
BACK[5] Henry Kirke White wrote
positively about Nathaniel Bloomfield's poetry in his 'Melancholy Hours',
which appeared in the November 1803 number of The Monthly Mirror (301–4). BACK
[6] In a
document dated 28 December 1822, George copied this letter, with variants,
and provided a commentary upon it (which should be compared with his remarks
in Letter 423). The commentary runs as follows:
In this happy Country bless’d as we are with A free
press. The Rich
and the poor acquire A degree of knowlege, unknown in less happy
Lands
The poorest Men have
oppinions of their own, and however silly those oppinions may be, they
will if able express
them.—
My Brothers and my self
placed amongst the poorerest of the poor, have through Life been much
amused by the bustle and strife amongst The higher classes of society
for wealth and power,
But poor Nat who have some talent wrote A
poem, an Assay on War
indeavouring to prove that War is a natural consequence of the rapid increase of Man, And
though to be deplored, is mercifully suffered by kind providence, as War is mercy itself
compared with famine
Poor Nat
little thought what A dressing he would receive from the snarling
Critics !! Those Nameless Critics seemed to have A rancorous spite at
Capel Lofft, The Editor (Than whom a better meaning man never
existed)
And sneering said, another Bloomfield
poor Mr L thought he had found A whole Nest of poets !!! — Nats poems
certainly possess Merit of A poetic kind but those Gentlemen would admit
of no species Merit as to his augument they Scouted it as Derogatory to
the human Charracter !!!
:: Are
mankind then like the brute creation, !! – forced by instinct
into propogate their Species, blindly, as if they
were not endowed with reason !!—
In short they hunted him down as if he were A mad Dog,
And yet since that when the Revd Mr
Malthurst proposed to Check the increase of population that Gentleman
was as Roughly handled as Nat—
When Mr Holoway published his Minor Minstrel he
made me a present of A Coppy, And as I had Corrisponded with that author
Very freely I wrote the following Letter to him, I felt hurt to find A
poem in that collection extreemly severe against Nats augument, holding
up War as the most
dreadfull and sinfull of all the
curses attendant on humanity It struck me that as Mr H and Nat are both
admirers of the Christian Morality and are certainly as far as they can
practical Christians it were a pity they seemd to differ, Had Mr H been
placed Like Nat amongst the poor, his Views Might have been like Nats,
he never had a near View of real positive want of
employment or in other word the real want of the
nessaries
Nescessaries of Life, had he seen this he would not wonder that the
thousands Of poor fly to Arms and with joy take up the Terrible Trade of
Soldier,
Dec 28th1822
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