It

Honington will in future be celebrated as the birthplace of Robert Bloomfield, one of the simplest and most captivating of our pastoral poets, and of his brother the author of the following elegy. A cottage near the church was inhabited by the family; and the mother of the poets finished her career under its friendly roof, in the year 1804. The spot, which is the subject of this ballad, is less than half an acre. was certainly an ornament to the village, and to the Bloomfields every circumstance gave it peculiar endearment. There the author of "The Farmer's Boy,” and of this ballad, first drew breath: there grew the first daisies which their feet pressed in childhood. On this little green their parents looked with delight; and the children caught the affection, and learned to love it as soon as they loved any thing.

As a poetical effusion, says Capel Lofft, it strikes me that this elegy has the tone, simplicity, sweetness, and pleasing melancholy of the ballad. There is a stroke or two of indignant severity: but the general character is such as I have described. And with filial gratitude and love there is blended, at the close, that turn for reflection, which is so remarkable in this author." A view of the Church and Green is prefixed to this poem.

THE proud City's gay wealthy train,
Who nought but refinements adore,
May wonder to hear me complain

That Honington Green is no more;
But if to the Church your e'er went,
If
you knew what the village has been,
You will sympathize, while I lament
The Enclosure of Honington Green.

That no more upon Honington Green
Dwells the Matron whom most I revere,
If, by pert observation unseen,

I e'en could indulge a fond tear.
Ere her bright morn of life was o'ercast,
When my senses first woke to the scene,
Some short happy hours she had past
On the margin of Honington Green.

Her parents with plenty were blest,

And num'rous her children, and young,
Youth's blossoms her cheek yet possest,
And melody woke when she sung:
A Widow so youthful to leave,

(Early clos'd the blest days he had seen) My Father was laid in his grave,

In the Church-yard on Honington Green.

I faintly remember the Man,

Who died when I was but a child;
But far as my young mind could scan,
His manners were gentle and mild:
He won infant ears with his lore,

Nor let young ideas run wild,
Tho' his hand the severe rod of pow'r
Never sway'd o'er a trembling child.

Not anxiously careful for pelf,

Melancholic and thoughtful, his mind
Look'd inward and dwelt on itself,
Still pensive, pathetic, and kind:
Yet oft in despondency, drown'd,

He from friends, and from converse would fly,

In weeping a luxury found,

And reliev❜d others' woes with a sigh.

In solitude long would he stay,
And long lock'd in silence his tongue;
Then he humm'd an elegiac lay,

Or a psalm penitential he sung:
But if with his friends he regal'd,

His mirth, as his griefs knew no bounds;
In no Tale of Mark Sargent he fail'd,
Nor in all Robin Hood's Derry-downs.

Thro' the poor Widow's long lonely years,
Her Father supported us all:

Yet sure she was loaded with cares,
Being left with six children so small.
Meagre want never lifted her latch;
Her cottage was still tight and clean;
And the casement beneath it's low thatch
Commanded a view o'er the Green:

O'er the Green, where so often she blest
The return of a husband or son,
Coming happily home to their rest,
At night, when their labour was done:
Where so oft in her earlier years,

She, with transport maternal, has seen
(While plying her housewifely cares)
Her children all safe on the Green.

The Green was.our pride through the year: For in Spring, when the wild flow'rets blew, Tho' many rich pastures were near,

Where cowslips and daffodils grew; And tho' such gallant flow'rs were our choice, It was bliss interrupted by fear

The fear of their. Owner's dread voice,

Harshly brawling "You've no business here."

While the Green, tho' but daisies it's boast,
Was free as the flow'rs to the bee;

In all seasons the Green we lov'd most,

Because on the Green we were free;
'Twas the prospect that first met my eyes,
And memory still blesses the scene;
For early my heart learnt to prize
The freedom of Honington Green.

No peasant had pin'd at his lot,

Tho' new fences the lone heath enclose; For, alas! the blest days are forgot,

When poor men had their sheep and their cows. Still had Labour been blest with Content,

Still Competence happy had been,

Nor Indigence utter'd a plaint,

Had Avarice spar'd but the Green.

Not Avarice itself could be mov'd
By desire of a morsel so small:
It could not be lucre he lov'd;

But to rob the poor folk of their all.
He in wantonness ope'd his wide jaws,
As a Shark may disport with the Fry;
Or a Lion, when licking his paws,
May wantonly snap at a Fly.

Could there live such an envious man,

Who endur'd not the halcyon scene,

When the infantine peasantry ran,

And roll'd on the daisy-deck'd Green?
Ah! sure 'twas Envy's despite,
Lest Indigence tasted of bliss,

That sternly decreed they've no right

To innocent pleasure like this.

Tho' the youth of to-day must deplore
The rough mounds that now sadden the scene,
The vain stretch of Misanthrophy's power,

The enclosure of Honington Green:
Yet when not a green` turf is left free,
When not one odd nook is left wild,
Will the children of Honington be

Less blest than when I was a child?

No!-childhood shall find the scene fair:
Then here let me cease my complaint;
Still shall health be inhal'd with the air,

Which at Honington cannot be taint:
And tho' Age may still talk of the Green,

Of the Heath, and free Commons of yore, Youth shall joy in the new-fangled scene, And boast of that change we deplore.

Dear to me was the wild-thorny hill;

And dear the brown heath's sober scene:

And youth shall find happiness still,

Tho' he roves not on common or green: Tho' the pressure of wealth's lordly hand Shall give emulation no scope,

And tho' all the appropriate land

Shall leave Indigence nothing to hope.

So happily flexile man's make,

So pliantly docile his mind,
Surrounding impressions we take,
And bliss in each circumstance find,

The youths of a more polish'd age

Shall not wish these rude commons to see;

To the bird that's inur'd to the cage,

It would not be bliss to be free.