SOURCE: Bloomfield, Robert. Preface to Wild Flowers; or, Pastoral and Local Poetry, pp. vii-x. London: Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, Poultry; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row, 1806.

In the following essay, Bloomfield's preface to Wild Flowers; or, Pastoral and Local Poetry, the author offers insight into his subject matter.

A man of the first eminence, in whose day (fortunately perhaps for me) I was not destined to appear before the public, or to abide the Herculean crab-tree of his criticism, Dr. Johnson, has said, in his preface to Shakespeare, that—“Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature.” My representations of nature, whatever may be said of their justness, are not general, unless we admit, what I suspect to be the case, that nature in a village is very much like nature every where else. It will be observed that all my pictures...