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THE FARMER'S KITCHEN.

DOES any one now read The Farmer's Boy,' by Robert Bloomfield? I have before me the edition of 1803, at which time it is recorded that twentysix thousand copies had been sold since the first publication of the poem in 1800. Byron has left a contemptuous notice of Bloomfield in the English Bards.' But The Farmer's Boy,' for all that, will not be wholly forgotten. It is a truthful poem, founded upon accurate observation of common things, and describing the most familiar incidents and feelings with a rare fidelity-rare, amidst the conventional generalities of the verse-making of that day. At a very early age I had means of testing the truth of its descriptions. Let me give from my own recollections, a picture of a farmer's household, not long after the time when Bloomfield's poem was first published.

On one of the roads from Windsor to Binfield, in the parish of Warfield, stands, or stood, a small farm-house, with gabled roof and latticed windows. A rude woodbine-covered porch led into a broad passage, which would have been dark had not the great oaken door generally stood open. To the right of the passage was a large kitchen, beyond which loomed a sacred room-the parlour-unopened except on rare occasions of festivity. To this

grange I travelled in a jolting cart, on a spring afternoon, seated by the side of the good wife, who had carried her butter and eggs and fowls to market, and was now returning home, proud of her gains, from whose accumulations she boasted that she well nigh paid the rent of the little farm. I was in feeble health; and a summer's run was decreed for me, out of the way of school and books. My life for six months was very like playing at Farmer's Boy.

That small bed-room where I slept, with its worm-eaten floor and undraperied lattices, was, I suspect, not very perfect in its arrangements for ventilation; but then neither door nor window shut close, and the free air, redolent of heath and furze, found its way in, and did its purifying offices after an imperfect fashion. The first morning began my new country life-and a very novel life it was. It was Sunday. The house was quiet; and when I crept down into the kitchen, I found my friend the farmer's wife preparing breakfast. On one side of that family room was a large oaken table covered with huge basins, and a mighty loaf; over a turf fire hung an enormous skillet, full to the brim with simmering milk. One by one three or four young men dropped in, jauntily dressed in the cleanest smock-frocks-the son of the house had a smart Sunday coat, with an expansive nosegay of daffodils and wallflowers. They sat quietly down at the oak table, and their portions of milk were distributed to each. Now entered the

farmer-of whom I still think with deep respecta yeoman of simple habits but of large intelligence. He had been in the household of the Governor of Pennsylvania before the War of Independence; and could tell me of a wonderful man named Franklin, whom he had known; and of the Torpedo, on which he had seen Governor Walsh make experiments; and of lightning drawn from the clouds. The farmer, his wife, and the little boy who had come to dwell with them, sat down at a round table nearer the fire. Sunday was a great day in that household. There was the cheerful walk to church; the anticipations of the coming dinner, not loud but earnest; the promise of the afternoon cricket. Returned from church, the kitchen had been somewhat changed in appearance since the morning; the oak table was moved into the centre, and covered with a coarse cloth as white as the May-blossom; the turf fire gave out a fierce heat, almost unbearable by the urchin who sat on a low stool, turning, with no mechanical aid, the spit which rested upon two andirons, or dogs, and supported in his labour by the grateful fragrance of the steaming beef. To that Sunday dinnerthe one dinner of fresh meat for the week-all sat down; and a happy meal it was, with no lack even of dainties for there was a flowing bowl of cream to make palatable the hard suet pudding, and a large vinegar-bottle with notches in the cork to besprinkle the cabbage, and a Dutch cheese-and if I dream not, a taste from a flask that immerged

VOL. II.

I

mysteriously from a corner cupboard. Then came the cricket and trap-ball of Southern England, yawns in the twilight, a glimmering candle, the chapter in the Family Bible, and an early bed.

I

The morning of Monday was a busier scene. was roused at six; but the common breakfast was over. The skillet had been boiled at five; the farmer was off to sell a calf; the ploughmen had taken their teams a-field. The kitchen was solitary. I should have thought myself alone in that world, but for a noisy companionship of chickens and ducklings, that came freely in to pick the crumbs off the floor. I wandered into the farmyard, ankle-deep in muck. In a shed I found my hostess, not disdaining to milk her petted cows. Her hand and her eye were everywhere-from the cow-stall to the dairy, from the hen's nest to the fatting coop. Are there any such wives left amongst Bloomfield has described the milking-time, pretty much as I saw it in those primitive days :—

"Forth comes the Maid, and like the morning smiles;
The Mistress, too, and follow'd close by Giles.
A friendly tripod forms their humble seat,
With pails bright scour❜d and delicately sweet.
Where shadowing elms obstruct the morning ray-
Begins their work, begins the simple lay;

The full-charg'd udder yields its willing streams;
While Mary sings some lover's amorous dreams;
And crouching Giles beneath a neighbouring tree
Tugs o'er his pail, and chants with equal glee;
Whose hat with tatter'd brim, of nap so bare,
From the cow's side purloins a coat of hair,
A mottled ensign of his harmless trade,
An unambitious, peaceable cockade.

As unambitious too that cheerful aid

The Mistress yields beside her rosy Maid;
With joy she views her plenteous reeking store,
And bears a brimmer to the dairy door;

Her cows dismiss'd, the luscious mead to roam,
Till eve again recall them loaded home."

After the milking-time was the breakfast for the good wife and for "Mary." Twice a-week there was churning to be done; and as the butter came more quickly in the warmth of the kitchen the churn was removed there in that chilly spring-time. There was no formal dinner on week-days in that house. The loaf stood upon the table, with a vast piece of bacon, an abundant supply of which rested upon a strong rack below the ceiling. Some of the men had taken their dinner to the distant field; another or so came carelessly in, and cutting a huge slice of the brown bread and the home-cured, pulled out what was called a pocket-knife, and despatched the meal with intense enjoyment. At three, the ploughmen returned home. That was an hour of delight to me, for I was privileged to ride a horse to water in a neighbouring pond. The afternoon, as far as I remember, was one of idleness. In the gloaming (why should we not Anglicise the word?) the young men slid into the kitchen. The farmer sat reading, the wife knitting. There was a corner in the enormous chimney, where I dwelt apart, watching the turf smoke as it curled up the vast chasm. There was no assumption of dignity in the master when a song was called for. How well do I remember that song of Dibdin :

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