without detriment to the General Plan, or to any individual Interest.
I wish it had: and most who love Poetry, and respect Genius, and are
anxious to preserve the little innocent Gratifications of the Poor,
will have the same wish.

As a poetical effusion, it strikes me that it has the tone, simplicity,
and 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 describ'd. And with filial Gratitude and Love there is blended,
in the close, that turn for Reflection which is so remarkable in this
Author.... I wish'd and recommended that some at least of the ornaments
of 'THE FARMER'S BOY' should be sketches of local scenery: knowing
how much more interesting they would have been, and how much more
appropriate to the Poem. In that recommendation I was not successful:
but I am glad, in this instance, to see a faithful and agreeable Sketch
of Honington-Green from a very young pencil[5]. It will be remember'd,
at a far remote Period, that the double Cottage at the end of the Green
was the Birth-place of the BLOOMFIELDS. It is still, (and may it yet be
long so) the habitation of their Mother: and has been repair'd lately
by ROBERT. And I much doubt whether any House or Green will see two such
Poets born of the same Parents.

THE CULPRIT is the next in this Collection, and I had not seen it, nor
was it written, when I saw the two first. They decided my Opinion; and
had no more appeared, they would have been publish'd alone; as they
abundantly deserved.

THE CULPRIT strikes me as an original and highly affecting Poem. The
very attempt to sketch the successive conflicting feelings of one thus
circumstanc'd is no common effort. And what compass of thought; what