# Views in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Northamptonshire/Honington

HONINGTON
Will in future be celebrated as the birthplace of the most simple and captivating of our pastoral poets. The Cottage, which is on the right of the church, as seen in the Print, was purchased as a barn by the grandfather of the Poet, and has since been gradually improving to its present neat and comfortable appearance. It was formerly covered with thatch; but a new roof being necessary at a time when straw could scarcely be procured, the Poet, to whom it has since devolved, covered it with tiles, though with great reluctance, as he lamented the loss of its original simplicity. During the harvest of 1782 or 1783, the village of Honington suffered severely by fire. Four or five double tenemented cottages, the parsonage-house and out-houses, a farm-house and all its appurtenances, were levelled in little more than half an hour. This cottage was immediately in the line of the flames, and was saved almost miraculously by the exertions of the neighbours, assisted by Mr. Austin of Sapiston, and his men: it was on fire several times. The Poet's mother then kept a school at the cottage, and retreated from the distressing scene into the fields with a clock, ​and the title-deeds of the house in her lap, surrounded by a group of infant scholars, in full persuasion that her habitation was feeding the flames; but, contrary to her expectation, under its friendly roof, where she had long resided, she finished her career of mortality, and was buried close to the west end of the church, near her first husband, who died of the small-pox. A stone has been erected to her memory by the Duke of Grafton, on which is the following inscription, written by the Rev. R. Fellowes:
READER!
Go thou and do likewise.
Bloomfield has favoured us with permission to copy the annexed portrait of his mother from a picture in his possession, and has himself subjoined the following account of the last stage of her life, together with his first essay in Blank verse, which he has addressed to the Spindle that she left half filled.
"The portrait of my mother was taken on her last visit to London, in the summer of 1804, and about six months previous to her dissolution. During the period of evident decline in her strength and faculties, she conceived, in place of that patient resignation which she had before felt, an ungovernable dread of ultimate want, and observed to a relative with peculiar emphasis, that 'to meet 'Winter, Old Age, and Poverty, was like 'meeting three great giants.'
​"To the last hour of her life she was an excellent spinner; and latterly, the peculiar kind of wool "which she spun was brought exclusively for her, as being the only one in the village who exercised their industry on so fine a sort. During the tearful paroxysms of her last depression she spun with the utmost violence, and with vehemence exclaimed— ' I must spin! '; A paralytic affection struck her whole right side while at work, and obliged her to quit her spindle when only half filled, and she died within a fortnight afterwards! I have that spindle now. She was buried on the last day of the year 1804. She returned from her visit to London on Friday the 29th of June, just, to a day, twenty-three years after she brought me to London, which was also on a Friday, in the year 1781.
TO A SPINDLE.
Relic! I will not bow to thee, nor worship! Yet, treasure as thou art, remembrancer Of sunny days, that ever haunt my dreams. When thy brown felloes as a task I twirl'd. And sung my ditties, ere the Farm receiv'd My vagrant foot, and with its liberty And all its cheerful buds and opening flow'r? Had taught my heart to wander.— Relic of affection, come; Thou shalt a moral teach to me and mine.
The hand that wore thee smooth is cold, and spins No more. Debility press'd hard around The seat of life, and terrors fill'd her brain; Nor causeless terrors: Giants grim and bold. Three mighty ones she fear'd to meet; they came— Winter, Old Age, and Poverty, all came: The last had dropp'd his club, yet fancy made Him formidable; and when Death beheld Her tribulation, he fulfill'd his task, And to her trembling hand and heart, at once. Cried, ' Spin no more!' Thou then wert left half fill'd With this soft downy fleece, such as she wound Through all her days ! She who could spin so well! Half fill'd wert thou, half finish'd when she died. Half finish'd! 'tis the motto of the world! We spin vain threads, and dream, and strive, and die, With sillier things than Spindles in our hands. Then feeling, as I do, resistlessly, The bias set upon my soul for verse. Oh ! should Old Age still find my brain at work, And Death, o'er some poor fragment striding, cry, "Hold! spin no more ;" grant Heav'n, that purity Of thought and texture may assimilate That fragment unto thee, in usefulness. In strength, and snowy innocence. Then shall The village school-mistress shine brighter through The exit of her boy ; and both shall live. And virtue triumph too, and virtue's tears, Like Heav'n's pure blessings, fall upon her grave.