Yet poverty is his, and mental pains. (Bloomfield, The Farmer’s Boy) Darkness o’er hangs thy origins and mine. (Bloomfield, ‘To My Old Oak Table’) …piety, sensibility and the most engaging and artless simplicity breathe throughout the whole, and irresistibly attack the feelings of the reader. (Nathan Drake, Literary Hours, 1800)[1] ‘Not inspiration, but a mind … Continue reading The Infection of Robert Bloomfield: Terrorising The Farmer’s Boy, by Ian Haywood