Heliotrope, in Mineralogy, a chalcedony or agate of a deep green colour, with blood-red spots interspersed through it. Tartary and Siberia are its chief localities. It occurs in Scotland in the isle of Rhum, in veins in trap rock.

Bloomfield, Robert, the author of several pastoral poems of great beauty, was born of very humble parents at the village of Honington in Suffolk, in 1766. Without education but what a village school afforded, and losing his father at the age of eleven, he was apprenticed to a farmer, and could only improve his taste by perusing such books as he could borrow. Among these, Thomson seems to have been his favourite author, and The Seasons inspired him with the ambition of being a poet. He came to London, and composed *The Farmer's Boy*, in a garret in Bell Alley. The MS. fell into the hands of the late Capel Loft, who encouraged him to print it; and it succeeded so well, that above 26,000 copies of it were sold. His reputation was increased by the appearance of his *Rural Tales, Songs and Ballads, News from the Farm, Wild Flowers, and The Banks of the Wye*. These are of unequal merit; but all breathe a spirit of purity and enthusiasm for the beauties of nature, that place the name of Bloomfield among the most natural and amiable of our pastoral poets. The extensive sale of *The Farmer's Boy* and *Wild Flowers* seem to have done little for the benefit of the poet. His broken health and pecuniary difficulties carried him off at Sheffield in Bedfordshire, in 1823, in his 57th year.