A BUDDING BLOOMFIELD.

I remember a farmer's boy, named James Turner, who I think should and would have been a good rustic poet had he had a better education, more books, and fairly intellectual society. In fact, could he have had even less chance than myself of seeing the world, men, and books, I think there might have been one more poet to name with Bloomfield. Turner and myself worked on the same farm for some few months, and his mania was for songs and ballads of all kinds. Every penny, and indeed every halfpenny he had to spend, went to an old ballad hawker, who came our way once a week, and was Turner's adviser in song and literary matters, giving him a sort of cue to the tunes of the new songs, either by humming or whistling them. Perhaps Turner's strongest point was whistling; he would whistle faint resemblances of the airs of numerous songs one after the other, and it was almost wonderful what a retentive memory he had, for he could in his way sing or recite song after song word for word without the slightest prompting. Some weeks Turner's purchases from the old song merchant amounted to as much as three pence, and as he carried all his library about with him, as a rule his pockets were stuffed with the little tissue paper broadsides.