5. Robert Bloomfield to Elizabeth Glover, 22-[29] October 1797
5. Robert Bloomfield to Elizabeth Glover, 22–[29] October 1797*
Sunday night, October 22d. 1797
Dear Mother
I have constantly seen your letters to Nat, and have always been anxious to hear of your wellfare, whenever you have appeared full of hopes and domestic peace I have read your letters with pleasure, when you have been under the pressure of ill health or bad prospects, the natural though painful conclusion is, I cant help you; you I believe often think over those things, you know the difficulty of keeping afloat in the dirty stream of the world, and I think you know too the hearts of us all, that the power, and not the will, is wanted. — It is sixteen years last June since I washed my old hat in the Horse-pond and sold my smock for a shilling to Sam Shelver's boy, and set off to London to turn shoemaker, and I always remark that though I am aquainted with the principle alterations and deaths and changes, children grown to Men and Women since &c, the first thought that is, I mean whenever not thinking of other things my mind returns to the country, for the first moment, it always presents the old picture. I see my uncle master of the farm instead of my cousin, and can see in imagination my old neighbours and things just as they were; fixing the memory thus, brings in a strong point of view the quick successions and changes amongst us; for if I had 16 years ago fixt my attention on a flourishing oak, or a whole grove of oaks, the alteration might be disernable, but not striking. Ridlesworth hallNat tells me is not far beyond Fakenham wood, I sometimes allmost envy Kitty her situation, being always shut up in a garrot I am debard from the pleasures for which I have so strong a relish, but let me not grumble neither, for I have other pleasures, perhaps quite my share; for at this very time I have pleasure in telling you that my wife is now fast recovering from a short indisposition that alarmd me a good deal at first, by the simtoms her disorder showd we could not but suppose that the [illegible word] pain she felt must proceed from the Gravel, but on applying to a surgeon it did not appear to be that and he was obliged to use instrumental as well as phisical help, whereby she is now almost well, and we shall again meet the winter cheerfully. Our chief visitor is my Wifes Father; he generally comes from Woolwich once or twice in a summer, and again at Christmas. He is always doubly welcome, for as well as being a chearful, smiling man he is sure to more than pay for his entertainment by some means or other, he works at boatbuilding in the king's yard at Woolwich, he is 64 years old, is quite harty, and when useless to work he is sure of being put on the superannuated list, and receive 20£ a year as long as he lives, but this will not keep him and he don't much like the prospect good as it is, for he is fixd upon independence, he comes regularly the first Sunday in every month to his sisters at Rotherhithe, I believe I have spoke of those people before, they are well able to keep him, but he would rather trust to himself, — My Hannah goes to school, and I think shows signs of a good memory, the mistress teach them to repeat by heart, hymns, and moral verses, I like the method vastly; and like to hear them spoken by such young tongues, Hannah have learnd the morning hymn 'Awake my soul and with the Sun', [1] and the evening hymn, 'Glory to thee my God this night', [2] she likewise recites Pope's 'Universal Prayer', [3] and Goldsmith's beautiful verse, 'pitty the sorrows [of] a poor old Man', [4] my children give me a deal of pleasure now and I hope they always will, — there are times, when the fire burns clear, and we are all well, and our beer drawn good, and the candle fresh snuffd, that I feel myself quite happy, when the muddy stream of the world, as I before calld it, seem quite clear and palatable, indeed I always admired some verse I have somewhere seen, beginning, 'The hearth was clean, the fire clear, the kettle on for tea', [5] ——You seem to dispair of hearing from Bet, but I think it very likely that we shall, and that shortly; because when she went away she was to write from New York if she could; she did not even know that she should go on shore there, but perhaps sent coastways to philadelphia, in which case we were not to hear from her till Autumn; my Landlady has a young brother who went for a soldier, and was drafted off to go to the East Indies, they received a letter from him to day (Oct 29) dated as far back as last february; Bets will not be so long on its passage, we are expecting news every week, —
Give our respects and remembrance to my Father, tell Isaac I have not happened to have a musical shopmate for some years past, I have therefore made no progress that way, my love to his wife and little ones; and I remain your affectionate and dutiful Son
Rt. Bloomfield
Nat and family are all well
Address: Mrs Glover Hunnington
[1] 'Awake my soul and with the sun', written by Thomas Ken and included in his Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College (London, 1674). François H. Barthélémon wrote music for Ken's verses, under the title 'Morning Hymn'; this was first published in A Supplement to the Hymns and Psalms Used at the Asylum or House of Refuge for Female Orphans, printed for William Gawler, organist to the Asylum (London, c. 1785):
[2] 'Glory to thee my God this night', also written by Thomas Ken:
[3] Alexander Pope's 'Universal Prayer' (1738):
[4] This line, which was revised in manuscript by Oliver Goldsmith, appears in Thomas Moss's poem 'The Beggar's Petition', published in his Poems on Several Occasions (Wolverhampton, 1769):
[5] 'The hearth was clean, the fire clear, the kettle on for tea'. William Hazlitt also quotes this anonymous lyric, 'The Happy Fireside', in The Round Table: a Collection of Essays on Literature, Men and Manners, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1817):
