a fee for taking in the late letter. John Clare fumbled in his pockets, and found that he had not so much as a farthing in his possession. In a rueful voice he asked the man at the wicket to take the letter without the penny. The clerk glanced at the singular piece of paper handed to him, the pencilled, ill-spelt address, the coarse pitch, instead of sealing-wax, at the back, and with a contemptuous smile, threw the letter into a box at his side. Without uttering another word, he then shut the door in Clare’s face. And the poor poet hurried home, burying his face in his hands.
THE TURN OF FORTUNE.
In about a week after the despatch of the pitch-sealed letter, there came a reply from Mr. Henson, of Market Deeping. It intimated that the prospectuses, with appended specimen poem, were nearly ready, and would be handed over to John Clare, on a given day, at the Dolphin inn, Stamford. Accordingly, on the day named, Clare went over to Stamford, his heart fluttering high with expectations. When Mr. Henson handed him the ‘Address to the Public,’ with the ‘Sonnet to the Setting Sun’ on the other side, both neatly corrected and printed in large type, he was beside himself for joy. In its new dress, his poetry looked so charmingly beautiful, that he scarcely knew it again. His hopes rose to the highest pitch when he found that the admiration of his printed verses was shared by others. While they were sitting in the parlour of the Dolphin inn, drinking and talking, there came in a clerical-looking gentleman, who, after having listened a while to the conversation about the forthcoming volume of poetry, politely inquired for the title of the book. Mr. Henson, with business-like anxiety, at once came forward, explaining all the circumstances of the case, not forgetting to praise the verses and the writer to the skies. The gentleman, evidently touched by the recital, at once told Mr. Henson to put his name down as a subscriber, giving his address as the Rev. Mr. Mounsey, Master of the Stamford Grammar-school. John Clare was ready to fall on the neck of the kind subscriber, first admirer of his poetry; but prudently restraining himself, he only mumbled his thanks, with an ill-suppressed tear in his eye. After having made arrangements for the circulation of the prospectuses, boldly undertaking to distribute a hundred himself, John Clare then went back to his lodgings at Pickworth, dancing more than walking.
The first bright vision of fame and happiness thus engendered was as short as it was intense. It was followed, for a time, by a long array of troubles and misfortune, making the poor poet more wretched than he had ever been before. Soon after his meeting with Mr. Henson at the Dolphin inn, he had a quarrel with his mistress, and a more serious disagreement with her parents, followed by a harsh interdict to set his foot again within the confines of Walkherd Lodge. A few weeks subsequently, his master discharged him, under the probably well-justified accusation that he was neglecting his work, scribbling verses all day long, and running about to distribute his prospectuses. This discharge came in the autumn of 1818, and put Clare to the severest distress. The expenses connected with his poetical speculation had swallowed up all his hoardings, and left him absolutely without a penny in the world. After several ineffectual efforts to find work as a lime-burner either at Pickworth or Casterton, he bethought himself to seek again employment as a farm-labourer, and for this purpose went back to Helpston. His parents, now quite reduced to the mercies of the workhouse, and subsisting entirely upon parish relief, received him with joy; but nearly all other doors were shut against him. The wide-spread rumour that he was going to publish a book, had created a great sensation in the village, but, so far from gaining him any friends, had raised up a host of jealous detractors and enemies. Among the most ignorant of the villagers, the cry prevailed that he was a schemer and impostor; while the better-informed people, including the small farmers of the neighbourhood, set him down as a man who had taken up pursuits incompatible with his position. Perhaps the latter view was not an altogether unjust one; at any rate, the farmers, all of them people of small means, acted upon good precedent in refusing John Clare work, after he had been discharged, by his last employer, for gross neglect of duty. It was in vain that Clare offered to do ‘jobs,’ or work by contract; his very anxiety to get into employment, of whatever kind it might be, was held to be presumptuous, and all his offers and promises met with nothing but distrust. In this frightful state of things, there was only one resource remaining to John Clare, to escape starvation–to do as his parents, and beg a dry loaf of bread from the tender mercies of the parish. His name, accordingly, was enrolled in the list of paupers.
But as if the cup of his distress was not yet full enough, John Clare, while reduced to this lowest state of misery, got a note from Mr. Henson, of Market-Deeping, informing him that the distributed prospectuses had only brought seven subscribers, and that the scheme of printing the poems would have to be dropped entirely, unless he could advance fifteen pounds to meet the necessary expenses. To Clare, this information sounded like mockery. To ask him, while in absolute want of food, to raise fifteen pounds, appeared to him an insult–which probably it was not meant to be. Mr. Henson, the printer and bookseller, had very little knowledge of the actual state of his correspondent, and looking upon the whole scheme of publishing poetry as the driest matter of business, addressed Clare as he would have any other customer. This, however, was not the way in which the deeply-distressed poet viewed the proceedings. He gave way to his feelings in a very angry letter, after despatching which he sank into deep despondency. It seemed to him as if he had now made shipwreck of his life and all his hopes.
Recovering from this sudden access of grief, he made a fresh resolve. At twenty-five, men seldom die of despondency–not even poets. John Clare, too, decided not to give up the battle of life at once, but prolong it a short while by becoming a soldier. However, he was afraid to add to the distress of his father and mother by informing them of this plan, and, therefore, left home under the pretence that he was going to seek work. It was a fine spring morning–year 1819–when he took once more the road to Stamford. Passing by Burghley Park, he was strongly reminded of that other sunny day in spring when he came the same way with Thomson’s ‘Seasons’ in hand; when he was seized with the sudden passion for poetry, and when he wrote his first verses under the hedge of the gardens, fall of joy and happiness. And he pondered upon the sad change which had taken place in these ten years. He had written many more verses–far better verses, he fully believed; and yet was poorer than ever, and more wretched and miserable than he had imagined he could possibly be. Thus ran the flow of his thoughts: sad and gloomy, though not without an undercurrent of more hopeful nature. There was a deep-rooted belief in his heart that the poems he had written were not entirely worthless, and that notwithstanding the coldness and antipathy of the world, notwithstanding his own poverty and wretchedness, the day would come when their value would be appreciated. The new sanguine spirit took more and more hold of him while looking over the hedge into the park, and around on the fields, smiling in their first green of new-born loveliness, and enlivened with the melodious song of birds. Once more, his heart was warmed as of old, and he sat down under a tree, to compose another song. It was a poem in praise of nature, gradually changing into a love-song; and while writing down the lines, his heart grew melancholy in thoughts of his absent mistress, his sweet ‘Patty of the Vale,’ separated from him, perhaps, for ever. To see her once more, before enlisting as a soldier, now came to be the most ardent desire of his heart.
The shades of evening were sinking fast, when John Clare reached Bridge Casterton, on his way to Walkherd Cottage. He was just in view of the smiling little garden in front of the house, when a figure, but too well known, crossed has path. It was Patty. She wanted to speak, and she wanted to fly; her lips moved, but she did not utter a word. Clare, too, was lost, for a minute, in mute embarrassment; but, recovering himself, he rushed towards her, and with fervent passion pressed her to his heart. Patty was too much a child of nature not to respond to this burst of affection, and for some minutes the lovers held each other in sweet embrace. They might have prolonged their embrace for hours, but were disturbed by calls from the neighbouring lodge. The anxious parent within heard words, and sounds, and stifled kisses, and doubting whether they came from the shoemaker, sent forth shrill cries for Martha to come in without delay. But darkness made Patty bold; she assured her mother that there was ‘nobody,’ accompanying the word by another kiss. Then, with loving caress, she tore herself from Clare’s arms, flying up the narrow path to the cottage. John Clare was transfixed to the spot for a few minutes, and, having gazed again and again at the rose-embowered dwelling, made his way back to Stamford, joyful, yet sad at heart. On the road, close to Casterton, he met some old acquaintances of the lime-kiln, going to the same destination, intent on an evening’s drinking bout. John was asked to join, and after some reluctance, consented. The lime-burners had their pockets well-filled for the night, and the jug of ale went round with much rapidity. When gaiety was at the culminating point, a tall gentleman, in the uniform of the Royal Artillery, joined the merry company. The jug passed to him, and he returned the compliment by ordering a fresh supply of good old ale. Now the talk grew fast and loud, opening the sluices of mutual confidence. John Clare loudly proclaimed his intention of becoming a soldier, ready to fight his way up to generalship.
‘Do you mean it?’ inquired the tall gentleman in uniform.
‘Of course I do,’ retorted John, somewhat nettled at the incredulity of his neighbour.
‘Well, if you really mean it,’ resumed the artilleryman, ‘take that shilling.’
John, without hesitation, took the shilling. After which, he fell fast asleep.
When he awoke, the next morning, he found that he was lying on a bench, behind a long table, strewn with jugs, bottles, and glasses. The room was filled with fumes of tobacco and stale beer, through which the sun shone with a dull uncertain light. Rubbing his eyes, Clare jumped from his hard couch, and in a moment was out of doors. The first person he met in the passage was the military gentleman of the previous evening. John Clare was astonished; and so was the man in uniform. John was surprised to find the gentleman so very tall, and the gentleman was surprised to find John so very small–two facts observed by neither of them at the convivial table the evening before. The man in uniform was the first to recover his astonishment, and, approaching Clare with a cordial shake of the hand, expressed his regret that, in the excitement of the previous night, things should have happened which would not have occurred otherwise. But it was not likely that one of his Majesty’s officers in the artillery would take an advantage of such an accident, keeping as a recruit a friend who, he was sure, meant the whole only a joke. A burden fell from John’s heavily-oppressed heart when he heard these words. Of course, it was only a joke, he muttered forth; and the proof of it was that he kept the shilling intact, just as it had been given to him. With which he handed the potent coin back to the tall gentleman. It was the identical shilling he had received; there could he no mistake, inasmuch as it was the only shilling he had had in his possession for many a day. The man in uniform smiled; smiled still more when John Clare searched in his pockets, withdrawing a much-creased, dirty-looking piece of paper. ‘Original Trifles,’ exclaimed the tall gentleman; reading the paper; ‘Ah, I thank you, thank you very much. Not in my line.’ Which saying, he vanished behind the counter of the tap-room. John Clare was lost, as to many other things, so to the Royal Artillery.
In a very uncertain mood, his head still somewhat heavy, John Clare took his way back to Helpston. He congratulated himself of having had a very lucky escape from a kind of servitude for which, of all others, he was most unfit; and yet, notwithstanding this piece of good fortune, he felt by no means easy in his mind. What to do next? was the great question he was unable to solve, and which got more intricate the more he thought of it. While giving the spur to his reflections for the hundredth time, he ran against an old fellow-labourer from Helpston, a man named Coblee. The latter was exactly in the same position as John Clare. He had no work, and wanted very much to get a living; but did not know how to get it. Talking the matter over, the two agreed temporarily to join their efforts, under the supposition that such a partnership might possibly be useful to both–as, indeed, it could not make their position worse. This matter settled, plans came to be proposed on both sides. To leave Helpston, and leave it immediately, was a point at once agreed upon; but next came the more difficult matter, as to subsequent proceedings. John Clare was in favour of going northward, into Yorkshire, which county he had heard spoken of as one of milk and honey; while friend Coblee was anxious to seek work in an easterly direction, in the fen-country, where he had some friends and acquaintances. There was great waste of good arguments on both sides, until friend Coblee’s experience suggested to decide the matter by a toss. Being the fortunate possessor of a halfpenny, he produced it forthwith, and chance was called upon for an answer. It declared in favour of John, whereupon Coblee–a man seemingly born to be a lawyer–raised various minor questions. He argued that as the subject was one of high importance, it ought not to be left to the decision of a single toss; and, moreover, chance itself, and not the winner, ought to declare in which direction they ought to go. After protracted discussion, the final settlement of the question was postponed to the following day, a Sunday–a very important Sunday in the life of John Clare.
Early on the Sunday morning, the two friends met, as agreed upon, at Bachelors’ Hall, the general club and meeting place of the young men of Helpston. The news that Clare and Coblee were on the point of leaving the village together, to seek fortune in distant places, had spread rapidly, and attracted a large number of old friends and acquaintances. Clare was not a popular man, but Coblee was; and to honour the latter, various bottles were brought in from the neighbouring public-house. Due justice having been done to the contents of these flasks, the discussion respecting the final consultation of Dame Fortune was renewed, and happily brought to an end. It was proposed by the brothers Billing, tenants of the Hall, and adopted by a majority of votes, that a stick should be put firmly in the ground, in the middle of the room, and that they should dance around it in a ring till it fell from its erect position. The way in which it fell was to indicate the direction in which the two emigrants were to go. John Clare and Coblee both promised to abide by this award, the latter specially agreeing not to raise any minor questions afterwards. All this having been duly arranged, the stick was put into the clay, the circle was formed, and the visitors at Bachelors’ Hall began their dance. They danced fast and furiously; danced like men with a great object before them, and empty bottles behind. Suddenly a loud knocking was heard at the gate. The stick stood still upright, and there was a moment’s pause in the dance. ‘John Clare must come home at once,’ said a shrill little voice outside; ‘there are two gentlemen waiting for him: two real gentlemen.’ ‘Shall I go?’ inquired John. ‘Go, by all means,’ dictated the elder of the Bachelor Brothers, ‘we will wait for you.’ They waited long, but John did not return.
JOHN CLARE’S FIRST PATRON.
The two ‘real gentlemen,’ who were waiting at the little cottage, wishing to see John Clare, were Mr. Edward Drury, bookseller, of Stamford, and Mr. R. Newcomb, a friend of the latter, proprietor of the _Stamford Mercury_. Mr. Drury, who had not been long established in business, having but a short time before bought the ‘New Public Library’ in the High Street, from a Mr. Thompson, had heard of John Clare in a rather singular manner. One day, while still in treaty about the business, there came into the ‘New Public Library,’ a gaunt, awkward-looking man, in the garb of a labourer, yet with somewhat of the bearing of a country squire. Addressing Mr. Thompson, he told him, in a haughty manner, that there would be ‘no debts paid at present,’ and ‘not until the poems are out.’ The man who said this was Mr. Thomas Porter, of Ashton, the friend of John Clare, and propounder of the awful question concerning grammar and the spelling-book. Though severe upon his young poetical friend, he nevertheless remained attached to him with true devotion, and latterly had assisted him in the distribution of prospectuses and other errands relating thereto. It was on one of these excursions that he came to the ‘New Public Library,’ in Stamford High Street. John Clare had been so extravagant, while burning lime at Pickworth, as to take in a number of periodical publications, among them the _Boston Inquirer_, and getting into debt on this account, to the amount of fifteen shillings, which he was unable to pay after his dismissal from the lime-kiln, Mr. Thompson had written several urgent letters demanding payment. In reply to one of these, Clare despatched his friend Thomas Porter to Stamford, instructing him to pacify his angry creditor, and to deliver to him some prospectuses of the ‘Original Trifles.’ It was in order to be the more effective that Thomas Porter adopted a haughty tone, quite in keeping with his tall gaunt figure; and, talking in a lofty manner of his friend the poet, almost repudiated the right of the bookseller to ask for payment of his little debt. The proprietor of the ‘New Public Library,’ a quick-tempered man, got exceedingly irritated on hearing this language. Speaking of John Clare in the most offensive terms, he took the prospectuses and threw them on the floor, at the same time ordering Thomas Porter out of his shop. The long wiry arms of John Clare’s tall friend were about reaching across the counter and pulling the little shopkeeper from his seat, when Mr. Drury interfered. He had listened to the dialogue with intense astonishment, being quite bewildered as to the meaning of the terms poet, lime-burner, and swindler, all applied to one person, of whom it was clear only that he was a friend of the gaunt man. When the latter had taken his leave, pacified by much politeness and many kind words from Mr. Drury, an explanation was sought and obtained. Mr. Thompson, still trembling with rage, informed his successor in the business, that the lime-burning rogue had pretensions to be a poet, and wanted to swindle people out of their money under pretext of publishing a volume of verses. Picking up one of the prospectuses, Mr. Drury saw that this, in a sense, was the case. But examining the ‘Address to the Public,’ he could not help thinking that it was a prospectus singularly free from all indications of puffing, and less still of roguery. Indeed, he thought that he had never seen a more modest invitation to subscribe to a book; or one which, in his own opinion, was more unfit to attain the object with which it was written. The writer evidently depreciated his work throughout, and took the lowliest and humblest view of his own doings. That such a very unbusiness-like address could not possibly secure a dozen subscribers, Mr. Drury knew but too well; but this made him the more anxious to get some further knowledge of the modest author. He accordingly paid the debt of fifteen shillings to the delighted Mr. Thompson, and put Clare’s prospectus in his pocket-book; and, having got somewhat at home in his new business, settling the most urgent matters connected with the transferment, started on a visit to Helpston, in company with a friend.
Entering the little cottage, the two visitors, though they expected to see poverty, were greatly surprised at the look of extreme destitution visible everywhere. Old Parker Clare, now a cripple scarcely able to move, was crouched in a corner, on what appeared to be a log of wood, covered with rags; while his wife, pale and haggard in the extreme, was warming her thin hands before a little fire of dry sticks. It was Sunday; but there was no Sunday meal on the table, nor preparations for any visible in the low, narrow room, the whole furniture of which consisted of but a rickety table and a few broken-down chairs. The astonishment of Mr. Drury and his friend rose when John Clare appeared on the threshold of his humble dwelling. A man of short stature, with keen, eager eyes, high forehead, long hair, falling down in wild and almost grotesque fashion over his shoulders, and garments tattered and torn, altogether little removed from rags–the figure thus presented to view was strikingly unlike the picture of the rural poet which the Stamford bookseller had formed in his own mind. John Clare, shy and awkward as ever, remained standing in the doorway, without uttering a word; while Mr. Drury, on his part, did not know how to address this singular being. The oppressive silence was broken at last by the remark of Drury’s friend, that they had come to subscribe to the ‘Original Trifles,’ a few manuscript specimens of which, he said, they would be glad to see. John Clare did not like the remark, nor the patronizing tone in which it was uttered, and bluntly informed the inquirer that nearly all his verses were in the possession of Mr. Henson, of Market-Deeping, who had agreed to print them. The further question as to how many subscribers he had for his poems, irritated Clare still more, eliciting the answer that this was a matter between him and Mr. Henson. Mr. Drury, with superior tact, now saw that it was high time to change the conversation, which he did by asking leave to sit down, and exchange a few words with ‘Mr. Clare’ and his parents. Addressing old Parker Clare and his wife in a friendly manner, stroking the cat on the hearth, and sending a little boy, lounging about the door, for a bottle of ale, he at last succeeded in breaking the ice.
To win confidence, Mr. Drury began giving an account of himself. He told John Clare that he had taken the shop of Mr. Thompson, at Stamford, and having found among the papers some prospectuses of a book of poetry, with a specimen sonnet, he had felt anxious to pay a visit to the author. After awarding some high praise to the sonnet of the ‘Setting Sun,’ he next asked Clare whether the publication of the poems had been definitely agreed upon between him and Mr. Henson, of Market-Deeping.
‘No,’ answered John Clare, beginning to be won over by the frankness of his visitor. To further questions, carefully worded, he replied, that as yet he had only seven subscribers–nominally seven; in reality only one, the Rev. Mr. Mounsey, of the Stamford Grammar-school–and that Mr. Henson refused to commence printing the poems, unless the sum of fifteen pounds was advanced to him.
There now was a moment’s pause, broken by Mr. Drury, who said, addressing Clare, ‘Well, if you have made no agreement with Mr. Henson, and will entrust me with your poems, I will undertake to print them without any advance of money, and leave you the profits, after deducting my expenses.’
John Clare’s heart rose within him when he heard these words, and but for the pompous man at Mr. Drury’s side, he would have run up and pressed the good bookseller to his heart. ‘Yes, you shall have all my papers,’ he eagerly exclaimed; ‘shall have them as soon as I get them back from Market-Deeping. And I can show you a few verses at once.’ Which saying, he left the room, returning in a few minutes with a queer bundle of odd-sized scraps of paper, tied round with a thick rope, and scribbled over, in an almost illegible manner, in all directions. At the top of the bundle was a poem, beginning, ‘My love, thou art a nosegay sweet,’ which Mr. Drury had no sooner deciphered, than he shook Clare warmly by the hand.
‘I think that will do,’ he exclaimed, with some enthusiasm, looking at his companion.
The latter fancied he ought to say something. ‘Mr. Clare, I shall be happy to see you to dinner, any of these days,’ he exclaimed, with a dignified nod and gracious smile. Thereupon, both Mr. Drury and Mr. Newcomb took their farewell, Clare once more promising that he would take his papers to the ‘New Public Library,’ as soon as obtained from Market-Deeping.
On the threshold, Mr. Newcomb was seized with a new idea. ‘If you get the manuscripts from Deeping, Mr. Clare, we shall be glad to see you,’ he exclaimed; ‘if not, we can say nothing further about the matter.’ Thus the friendly visitor got rid of the overwhelming fear of giving a dinner to a poor man for nothing. However, John Clare never in his life troubled Mr. Newcomb of Stamford for a dinner.
Disagreeable, and almost offensive, as the conversation of one of his visitors had been to John Clare, he was very much pleased with that of the other. For Mr. Edward Drury he felt a real liking, and deeming the proposition which the latter had made exceedingly liberal, he at once set to work carrying the proposal into execution. Fearing that Mr. Henson might, possibly, put obstacles in his way, John persuaded his mother to go to Market-Deeping and fetch his poems. The good old dame gladly fulfilled her son’s wish, and the next morning trudged over to the neighbouring town. Clever diplomatist, like all ladies, young or old, she managed to get, with some difficulty, her son’s bundle of many-coloured papers, in the midst of which stuck, like the hard kernel in a soft plum, a stout, linen-bound book. John, over-anxious now to possess his verses, awaited the result of the journey half-way between Deeping and Helpston, near the village of Maxey. Here both mother and son sat down in a field, the latter examining his paper bundle with great care. It was all right; nothing was missing, not even the pitch-sealed document containing the prospectus of the ‘Original Trifles.’ Joyful at heart, the two went back to the little cottage, already expanded, in John’s imagination, into a large comfortable house. The first difficulty of getting them printed overcome, the success of his poems was to John Clare a matter of no doubt whatever. His fancy painted to him, in glowing colours, what honour they would bring him, what friends, and what, worldly reward. He would be enabled to get a nice dwelling for his old parents, abundance of good cheer for them, and abundance of good books for himself. And then–his heart swelled at the thought–he would be able to carry home his beloved mistress, his ‘Patty of the Vale.’ The idea made him dance along the road; and he kissed his mother, and the good old dame began dancing, too, all through the green fields, in which the birds wore singing, and the flowers bending their faces in the wind.
On the following morning, John Clare walked to Stamford with his papers, handing them over to Mr. Drury. The latter presented him with a guinea, as a sort of purchase-money ‘on hand,’ encouraging him, at the same time, to write more verses, and to complete all the remaining manuscript poetry in his possession, John went home elated with joy, promising to return to Stamford at the end of a week. To John Clare it was a week of joy, while Mr. Edward Drury, on his part, felt somewhat uneasy in his mind. He was a man of good education, a relative of Mr. John Taylor–head of the formerly eminent publishing firm of Taylor and Hessey, Fleet Street, London–but, though with fair natural gifts, and a lover of poetry, was not exactly a judge of literary productions. John Clare’s sonnet ‘To the Setting Sun,’ which had first attracted his attention, looked well in its printed and corrected form; but the rest of the manuscript poems, when he came to look over them, appeared to him to possess little or no value. Written on dirty bits of coarse paper, ill-spelt, full of grammatical blunders, and without any punctuation whatever, it required, indeed, a judge of more than ordinary capacity to pronounce on the intrinsic poetical value of these productions. Mr. Drury, having spent a day in scanning over the uncouth papers, began to feel very uneasy, doubting whether he had not promised too much in agreeing that he would print them, and also whether he had not paid too dear for them already in giving John Clare a guinea. Full of these doubts, yet not wishing to make a mistake in the matter, he resolved to submit the question to a higher tribunal. One of his customers, the Rev. Mr Twopenny, incumbent of Little Casterton, had the reputation of a most learned critic, having published various theological and other treatises; and he being the only literary man known to Mr. Drury in or near Stamford, the owner of the ‘New Public Library’ resolved to make his appeal to him. Clare’s rough bundle of verses accordingly found its way to Little Casterton parsonage, to the great surprise of the learned minister, who, though deep in theology, Hebrew, and Greek, knew, probably, much less of the value of English verse than even Mr. Drury. This, however, did not prevent the learned man from giving an opinion, for having examined the blurred and somewhat unclean MSS. submitted to him, and finding them full of many blunders in grammar and spelling, he expressed himself in a decisive manner to the effect that the so-called poetry was a mere mass of useless rubbish. Mr. Edward Drury felt much downcast when he received this oracular note, which happened to come in on the very morning of the day arranged for the second visit of the poet of Helpston.
When John Clare came into the shop in High Street, joyful and excited, with another large bundle of rope-tied poetry under his arm, Mr. Drury received him with a somewhat elongated face. Instead of expressing a wish to see the new manuscripts, he told his visitor, after some hesitation, that unexpected circumstances prevented him from carrying out the promised publication of the poems at the moment, and that he would have to postpone it for some time. John Clare was ready to burst out crying; the blow came so unexpectedly that he did not know what to think of it. Although with little experience of the world, he saw perfectly well, from Mr. Drury’s manner, that something unfavourable had occurred to produce a change respecting the poems. After a short pause, summoning up courage, he pressed his patron to explain the matter. Thereupon the letter of the Rev. Mr. Twopenny was handed to Clare. He read it over; read it once, twice; and then grasped the counter to prevent himself from falling to the ground. It was the first harsh literary criticism the poor poet had to submit to in his life. The blood rushed to his face; his hands clinched the fatal letter, as if to annihilate its existence. After a while, he could not contain himself any longer, but bursting into tears, ran out of the shop. Good-natured Mr. Drury saw that he had made a mistake–perhaps a great, and certainly a cruel mistake. He rushed after his humble friend, and brought him back to the shop, and into the parlour behind, there soothing him as best he could. It was easy to persuade John Clare that the Rev. Mr. Twopenny’s opinion was, after all, but the opinion of one man; that men differed much in almost everything, and in nothing less than the value they set upon poetry. The remarks were so evidently true, that the much-humbled poet brightened up visibly; brightened up still more when Mr. Drury got a bottle of old ale from the cupboard and began filling two glasses. Viewed through this medium, the future looked much more cheery to John Clare; the world, there seemed no doubt, would appreciate good poetry, though the Rev. Mr. Twopenny did not. Having got his poetical friend into this happy mood, Mr. Drury talked to him seriously and sensibly. He advised John Clare to seek work immediately, either as a farm-labourer or lime-burner, and to devote only his spare time to the writing of verses. As to the verses already written, he promised to lay them before other judges, and to publish them, at any rate, more or less corrected and altered. This, too, sounded hopeful, and when John Clare shook hands with the owner of the ‘New Public Library’ in the High Street of Stamford, he thought he was a good deal nearer his long cherished object than he had ever been before.
PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION.
Acting upon Mr. Drury’s advice, John Clare, at the end of a few days, visited his former employer, Mr. Wilders, at Bridge Casterton, who, upon his earnest application, set him to work at once, first as a gardener, and, after a while, as labourer in one of his lime-kilns. Here John stayed the whole of the spring and summer of 1819; in many respects one of the most pleasing periods of his whole life. At the end of each day’s hard work, he visited his beloved mistress at Walkherd Lodge, with whom he was becoming very intimate–too intimate, alas!–while the spare hours of morning, noon, and evening were devoted to poetry, and the whole of Sunday to reading and music. Mr. Drury, beginning to feel more and more sympathy with his young friend, invited him to spend every Sunday at the shop in the High Street, unrestrained by any forms and ceremonies whatever, and acting entirely as his own master. John Clare accepted the first invitation with some shyness; but before long felt himself fully at home at his friend’s house, examining the books, maps, and pictures spread out before him with a blissful enjoyment never before known. The Sunday visits to Stamford, after a while, became to him such an intense delight that he could scarcely await the happy day, and even neglected his love affairs in its expectation. There were no visits to Walkherd Lodge on Saturday evenings, when John went early to bed, in order to rise earlier the next morning. The Sunday found him awake hours before the cock had sounded the alarm, and many a time he had got over the two miles of road from Casterton to Stamford, and stood in front of the ‘New Public Library,’ before even the sun had risen. Good-natured Mr. Drury now had to get out of bed, let his friend into the shop, and compose himself as best he could, to sleep again. John now read for an hour or two; but when he thought his friend had slept long enough, he took up his fiddle, safely kept among the books, and began playing a merry gypsy tune. This had the invariable effect of bringing Mr. Edward Drury, passionately fond of music, down to his books and his friend, and, coffee having been prepared, the long day of talking, reading, and fiddling set in for both.
While these proceedings were going on, the fate of Clare’s poems had been decided; unknown, however, to the poet. Mr. Drury, after the very unfavourable judgment of the Rev. Mr. Twopenny, resolved upon sending his odd bundle of verses to London, to get the final opinion of his experienced relative, Mr. John Taylor, the publisher of Fleet Street. Mr. Taylor, a talented author as well as bookseller, at a glance perceived the true poetic nature of John Clare. He saw that, under an uncouth garb, there were nameless beauties in the verses submitted to him; a wealth of feeling, and a depth of imagination seldom found in poetic descriptions of the external aspects of nature. Mr. Taylor saw–perhaps somewhat dimly, but still he saw–that Clare was one of the born poets of the earth; a man who could no more help singing, than birds can keep from pouring forth their own harmonious melodies. But he saw also that John Clare’s works were diamonds which wanted polishing, and this labour he resolved to undertake. He informed Mr. Drury of his intention to bring out the poems under his own editorship and supervision, telling him to encourage John Clare to devote himself more and more to the study of style and grammar, as well as to the improvement of his general education. Mr. Drury, who, by this time, knew his young friend intimately, hesitated to communicate Mr. Taylor’s advice and directions. Thoroughly acquainted with the excitable nature of the poet, he feared that, in launching him again on a sea of expectations, which, after all, might remain unfulfilled, he would do far more harm than good, and he therefore resolved to keep his imagination in leading-strings. He told John Clare that Messrs. Taylor and Hessey were willing to publish his poems, Mr. Taylor himself making the necessary grammatical and other corrections; but that the success of the publication, as of all other books, being doubtful, he must not, for the present, indulge in too sanguine hopes of gaining either fame or fortune through his book. John was quite content with this information, and kept on steadily in his course; reading and fiddling the first day, and making love and burning lime the other six days of the week.
The love-making, after a while, took a turn not entirely creditable to the interested parties. Having re-established his confidential intercourse with Martha Turner, yet not won the good graces of her parents, who more than ever favoured the suit of the rival shoemaker, John induced his sweetheart to meet him at places where she should not have gone, and made proposals to which she should not have listened. Poor Patty, loving not wisely but too well, did go and did listen to her lover, with the ordinary sad consequences. The sequel was as usual. She got sad and he got cold; and her complaints becoming numerous and frequent, he left her and began flirting with other girls, trying to persuade himself that he was the injured party, inasmuch as Patty’s parents treated him with scorn and contempt. An accidental occurrence, in the summer of 1819, contributed much to make him forgetful of his moral obligations. At a convivial meeting of lime-burners, held at a Stamford tavern, Martha Turner, who was present, frequently danced with another man, which so irritated John Clare that he, in his turn, paid his attentions to a young damsel of the neighbourhood, known as Betty Sell, the daughter of a labourer at Southorp. Betty was a lass of sixteen, pretty and unaffected, with dark hair and hazel eyes; and her prattle about green fields, flowers, and sunshine, of which she seemed passionately fond, so intoxicated John that he got enamoured of her on the spot. It was a mere passing fancy; but to revenge himself upon Patty for coquetting, as he thought, with others, he did not go near her, and, at the end of the entertainment, accompanied Betty Sell to her home, some three miles distant The quarrel, thus commenced, did not end soon. Patty was angry with John; and John, in consequence, renewed his attentions to Betty Sell. Not long, and his first liking increased to a feeling akin to real love. Betty was so sweet and artless in her doings and sayings, and, above all, hung with such evident fondness on every word of her admirer about his life and his struggles, his intense admiration of nature, his poetry, and his hopes of rising in the world through his poetry, that the susceptible heart of John Clare soon got inflamed to ardent devotion of his new mistress. His infatuation rose to such a height that he neglected even his visits to Mr. Drury, preferring, for once in his life, glowing eyes and lips to verses, music, and books. The Stamford bookseller was somewhat surprised on missing his young friend and his fiddle on several subsequent Sundays, and on inquiring the cause, was met by replies more or less unsatisfactory. Taking a real interest in John’s welfare, Mr. Drury thereupon determined to get at the bottom of the affair, and succeeded in discovering the secret one evening, after a merry supper. Having taken an unusual quantity of drink, John Clare became confidential, and his friend learnt all that was to be learnt respecting Martha Turner and Betty Sell. Like an honourable man, Mr. Drury was not slow in catechising John, telling him in a severe tone that unless he returned to his old love and gave up all acquaintance with the new, he would withdraw his friendship from him, as a creature unworthy of it. This had a deep effect upon Clare, and though the immediate promise of reform made by him, was not fulfilled to the letter, his life, for the next seven or eight months, was a constant struggle between duty and affection, in which duty at last got the upper hand.
After the severe admonition of his friend and patron, John renewed his frequent visits to the ‘New Public Library,’ spending not only his Sundays, but many evenings of the week at the shop in Stamford. It was on one of these evenings that he was startled by the appearance of a sedate-looking gentleman, in spectacles, who went up to him with much ceremony, inquiring whether he had the pleasure to address Mr. John Clare. John, very confused, scarcely knew what to answer, until Mr. Drury came up, introducing the visitor as Mr. John Taylor, of London, the editor and publisher of his poems. A lengthened conversation followed, which, though it seemed to delight Mr. Taylor, was not by any means pleasant to the shy and awkward poet. Deeply conscious, as always, of his defective education, his rustic mode of expressing his thoughts, and, most of all, his tattered and dirty garments, he had scarcely the courage to look Mr. Taylor in the face, but kept hiding himself in a corner, looking for an opportunity to escape from the room. The opportunity, however, did not come, and worse afflictions remained behind. After Mr. Taylor was gone, and John had settled down to his favourite books, a servant appeared in the shop, inviting Clare to visit the house of Mr. Octavius Gilchrist, a few doors from the ‘New Public Library.’ John was fairly inclined to run away, as soon as he heard the message; but found that escape was not so easy. Mr. Drury told him that it was a matter, not of pleasure, but of duty; that Mr. Gilchrist was a very influential man in the literary world; that at the house of Mr. Gilchrist he would meet Mr. Taylor, and that the success of his first volume of poems depended, to a certain extent, upon this interview. This ended all opposition on the part of Clare. He allowed himself to be dragged, like a lamb, into Mr. Gilchrist’s house, which, though it was but a grocer’s shop on the ground-floor, seemed to him a most magnificent dwelling. The drawing-room was lighted with wax candles, and was full of gilded paintings, carpets and fine furniture, amidst which his dirty clothes, fresh from the lime-kiln, appeared entirely out of place. Nevertheless, he was graciously received by Mr. and Mrs. Gilchrist, and warmly welcomed by his previous acquaintance, Mr. John Taylor.
Mr. Octavius Gilchrist, in whose house John Clare now found himself, and who came to exercise a considerable influence over his future career, was a literary man of some note in his day. He was born in 1779, the son of a gentleman settled at Twickenham, who had served during the German war as lieutenant and surgeon in the third regiment of Dragoon Guards. Octavius was destined by his parents to be a clergyman, and went to Magdalene College, Oxford; but before taking his degree, or entering holy orders, his means began to fail, upon which he went to Stamford, to assist a well-to-do uncle in the grocery business The change from the study of the classics at Magdalene College to the weighing-out of halfpenny worths’ of soap and sugar to the rustics of Lincolnshire, amounted to a melancholy fall in life; however, Octavius Gilchrist bore it gaily, softening the drudgery by a continuation of his studies in spare hours, and frequent attempts to contribute to the periodical literature of the day. The Stamford Mercury having inserted several of his articles, he got bolder, and sent essays to several London Magazines, which met with, a like fortunate fate. In 1803, the Stamford uncle died, after willing all his property, including the profitable grocery business, to his nephew. This induced Mr. Gilchrist to devote himself more than ever to literature, leaving the shop to his assistants, and taking to the scales only on Fair days and other solemn occasions. Having married, in 1804, the daughter of Mr. James Nowlan, of London, he was drawn still more into literary society, got acquainted with William Gifford, and became a contributor to the ‘Quarterly Review.’ He assisted Gifford in his edition of Ben Jonson’s works, and in 1808 published a book of his own, entitled ‘Examination of the charges of Ben Jonson’s enmity towards Shakspeare.’ This was followed, in the same year, by ‘Poems of Richard Corbet, Bishop of Norwich, with notes, and a life of the author;’ and in 1811, by a ‘Letter to William Gifford, Esq., on a late edition of Ford’s plays.’ On one of his periodical visits to London, Mr. Gilchrist made the casual acquaintance of Mr. John Taylor. The acquaintance soon ripened into friendship, leading to much personal intercourse and a variety of literary schemes. Mr. Gilchrist first started a proposal to publish a ‘Select collection of Old Plays,’ in fifteen volumes, and on the failure of this scheme, owing to the sudden appearance of a flimsy kind of work called ‘Old Plays,’ Mr. Taylor and he agreed to launch a new monthly publication, under the revived title of ‘The London Magazine.’ The negotiations for carrying out this work were pending between writer and publisher, when the first instalment of Clare’s manuscripts was sent by Mr. Drury to his relative Mr. John Taylor. The latter read and liked the verses, and being desirous to know something of the writer, requested information from Mr. Gilchrist. ‘I know nothing whatever of your poet,’ was the reply; ‘never heard his name in my life.’ This somewhat surprised the cautious publisher; he thought that Stamford being so near to Helpston, and poets being not quite as plentiful as blackberries in the fen-country, John Clare and his prospectuses ought to be of at least local fame. To clear the matter up, as well as to make some further arrangements respecting the early issue of the ‘London Magazine,’ Mr. Taylor went down to Stamford, called upon his relative at the ‘New Public Library,’ where, as accident would have it, he met John Clare, and then went to take up his quarters at the house of Mr. Gilchrist. The latter saw John Clare for the first time when introduced to him in his drawing-room over the grocery shop.
Clare was more than ever shy and awkward when ushered into this drawing-room, and it took a considerable time to make him feel at his ease. To do so, Mr. Gilchrist engaged him in conversation, and with the aid of Mr. Taylor and sundry bottles of wine, succeeded in getting from him a rough account of his life and struggles. Wine and spirits were temptations which John Clare was totally unable to withstand, indulging, on most occasions, far more freely in drink than was warranted by propriety and good sense. Perhaps, at Mr. Gilchrist’s house, the host was as much to blame as the guest; the former encouraging Clare’s weakness for the purpose of overcoming his extreme shyness and getting at the desired autobiographical information. By the time this was extracted, the poet had taken decidedly too much wine, and when a young lady in the room sat down to the piano and sang ‘Auld Robin Gray,’ he began crying. The sight was somewhat ludicrous, and Mr. Gilchrist sought to annul it by reading an antiquarian paper on Woodcroft Castle, which had the effect of driving John Clare out of the room and back to his bookshop. Here he sat down, and, still under the influence of the entertainment, wrote some doggerel verses called ‘The Invitation,’ which Mr. Gilchrist had the cruelty to print in number one of the ‘London Magazine,’ in which the English public received the first information of the existence of ‘John Clare, an agricultural labourer and poet.’
It seems somewhat doubtful whether at this time either Mr. Gilchrist or Mr. John Taylor thoroughly appreciated John Clare. Both, although encouraging his poetical talent, never did justice to the noble and manly, nay lofty heart that beat under the ragged lime-burner’s dress. Mr. Taylor, on his part, wanted a hero for his forthcoming monthly magazine, and he seemed to think that John Clare was the best that could be had. He therefore induced Mr. Gilchrist to limn the rustic novelty to the greatest advantage, which was done accordingly in the first number of the ‘London Magazine.’ A paper headed, ‘Some account of John Clare, an agricultural labourer and poet,’ intended evidently as a preliminary puff of the poems, and consisting of a rather pompous description of the visit of Clare to Mr. Gilchrist’s house, was, on the whole, in the tone in which a _parvenu_ might speak of a pauper. The chief fact dwelt upon was the extreme kindness of ‘the person who has generously undertaken the charge of giving a selection of Clare’s poems to the press,’ thus trying to make the world believe that a London publisher should so far forget himself as to neglect his own interest in favour of that of a poor author. Though perhaps well-meant in the first instance, this patronizing manner in speaking of Clare, and attracting public attention to him, less as a poetical genius, but as happening to be a poor man, did infinite mischief in the end. It did more than this–it killed John Clare.
After his first interview with Mr. Gilchrist, John continued to visit at the house, and was openly taken under the great literary man’s protection. By his desire, William Hilton, R.A., happening to pass through Stamford, consented to paint Clare’s portrait for exhibition in London. The poet was delighted; and all went on well, until one day when Mr. Gilchrist, desirous of aiding to his utmost power the success of the forthcoming volume, asked, or ordered, Clare to write to Viscount Milton, eldest son of the Earl Fitzwilliam, humbly requesting permission to dedicate the poems to his lordship. John Clare, remembering his former visit to Milton Park, in company with the nimble parish clerk of Helpston, refused the demand, to the great annoyance of Mr. Gilchrist. At length, however, giving way to Mr. Drury’s importunities, Clare sat down and penned his humble epistle, which was duly despatched by Mr. Gilchrist. But there never came an answer from Viscount Milton, who, probably, at the time, held it to be a vile conspiracy to extract a five-pound note from his pocket. Mr. Gilchrist was mortified; but John Clare was rather pleased than otherwise. He was more pleased when, a few weeks after, Mr. Drury showed him an advertisement in a London paper, announcing, ‘Poems descriptive of rural life and scenery, by John Clare, a Northamptonshire peasant.’ It was stated, in capital letters, that the book was ‘preparing for publication.’
SUCCESS.
In October, 1819, Clare left the lime-kiln at Bridge-Casterton, where he had been working during the greater part of the year, and returned to Helpston. He did so partly on account of a new reduction of wages, but partly also because suffering from constant ill-health. His old enemy, the fever of the fens, continued its attacks at intervals, and he found that he was less able to withstand the foe in the lime-kiln than when working in the open air. This time he was fortunate enough to find regular work as a farm labourer in the neighbourhood of Helpston, and having got somewhat better, he set with new energy to thrashing and ploughing. His visits to Mr. Drury and Mr. Gilchrist henceforth became somewhat more scarce. Though conscious of being deeply indebted to both these friends, he could not bear being constantly reminded of this indebtedness in the patronizing air which they assumed, and the high tone of superiority which they arrogated to themselves in their intercourse with him. With Mr. Gilchrist, especially, he found fault for attempting to guide him in a manner which, he held, this gentleman had no right to do. John Clare had become acquainted, in the spring of 1819, with the Rev. Mr. Holland, minister of the congregational church at Market-Deeping. Mr. Holland, a well-educated man, with a fine appreciation of poetry, happened to see Clare’s prospectus, with the sonnet to the ‘Setting Sun,’ at a farm-house near Northborough, and being struck with the verses, as well as with the account which the farmer, who knew Clare, gave of the author, he at once went in search of the poet. After some trouble, he discovered him in the lime-kiln at Bridge-Casterton, just while Clare was resting from his work, and scribbling poems upon the usual shreds of paper spread out on the crown of his hat. Mr. Holland, much astonished at the sight, forthwith entered into conversation, and being a simple man, with nothing of the patron about him, at once won Clare’s affection. The acquaintance thus begun soon ripened into friendship, with, however, but scant personal intercourse, owing to the many occupations of the active dissenting minister, and the distance of his place of residence from Casterton. But John Clare did not fail to lay most of the verses he was writing before his clerical friend, and was delighted to meet always with hearty encouragement. ‘If this kind of poetry does not succeed,’ Mr. Holland said on one occasion, looking over Clare’s shoulder, while the latter was writing the ‘Village Funeral;’ ‘if this kind of poetry does not succeed, the world deserves a worse opinion than I am inclined to give it.’ These words made a deep impression upon Clare, and he kept on repeating them to himself whenever his mind was fluttered with doubts of success and apprehensions of failure. Very naturally, upon the man who had cheered him with such hearty and well-timed approval, Clare looked as one of his best friends, and lost no occasion to proclaim the fact.
He told the story of his acquaintance with the Rev. Mr. Holland, as at many other times, so at the first interview with Mr. Gilchrist. The latter seemed rather displeased when he heard that the young rustic, presented to his patronage, was acquainted with a dissenting minister, although professing to be a member of the Church of England. Mr. Gilchrist took at once occasion of rebuking him for this conduct, and in the account given of Clare in the ‘London Magazine,’ alluded to the subject at some length, explaining that ‘Mr. Holland, a Calvinistic preacher in an adjoining hamlet, had paid him some attention, but his means of aiding the needy youth was small, whatever might have been his wish, and he has now quitted his charge.’ The statement was untrue in several respects; for Mr. Holland was neither a ‘Calvinistic preacher,’ nor stationed in a ‘hamlet,’ nor had he ‘quitted his charge,’ that is, given up his friendship with Clare. To make at least the ultimate assertion true, Mr. Gilchrist, after having been acquainted for some time with John, insisted that he should cease all communication with the ‘Calvinistic preacher.’ This Clare refused at once, looking upon his intercourse with Mr. Holland as an entirely private matter, not in the least connected with religious opinions. The refusal brought about a great coldness on the part of Mr. Gilchrist, which Clare no sooner perceived than he absented himself from his house. This was very unfortunate; but could scarcely be helped for the moment. John Clare was totally unable to understand the orthodox high-church principles of the former student of Magdalene College, while Mr. Gilchrist, on his part, was incapacitated from appreciating the lofty feeling of independence that existed in the breast of the poor lime-burner and farm labourer. In his account in the ‘London Magazine,’ Mr. Gilchrist’s estimate of the poet’s character was expressed in the words:–‘Nothing could exceed the meekness, and simplicity, and diffidence with which he answered the various inquiries concerning his life and habits;’ and it was upon this supposed ‘meekness’ that all subsequent treatment of Clare by him and other friends and patrons was based. But it was an estimate of character entirely false. Though meek and humble outwardly, the consequence of early training and later habit, John Clare had all the towering pride of genius–more than this, of genius misunderstood.
The year of 1820 broke dull and gloomy upon Clare. He had expected his poems to be published in the month of November, or the beginning of December previous; but was without any information whatever, either from Stamford or London, and did not know when the long-expected book would appear, or whether it would appear at all. The little money he had received from Mr. Drury at various periods–some twenty pounds altogether–had been spent by this time, and, being out of work, he was once more face to face with grim poverty. Day after day passed, yet no news, till, in the last week of January, the smiling face of a friend suddenly lighted up the gloom. It was a rainy day, and Clare was unable to take his usual ramble through the fields, when the clattering of hoofs was heard outside the little cottage. A man on horseback alighted at the door, and shaking off the dripping wet, rushed into the room, where Clare and his father and mother were sitting round the little fire. It was the Rev. Mr. Holland. ‘Am I not a good prophet?’ he cried, running towards John, and shaking him warmly by the hand. John looked up in astonishment; he had not the slightest notion of what his friend meant or alluded to. But Mr. Holland kept on laughing and dancing, shaking himself like a wet poodle. ‘Am I not a good prophet?’ he repeated, again and again. The long face of his melancholy young friend at last brought him to a sense of the actual state of affairs. ‘You have had no letter from your publishers?’ he inquired. ‘None whatever,’ was the reply. ‘Then let me be the first herald of good news,’ cried Mr. Holland; ‘I can assure you that your utmost expectations have been realized. I have had a letter from a friend in London, this morning, telling me that your poems are talked of by everybody; in fact, are a great success.’ How the words cheered the heart of John Clare! He fancied he had a slight touch of the ague in the morning; but it seemed to fall like scales off his body, and he thought he had never been so well all his life. Mr. Holland was about getting into his wet saddle again. ‘Oh, do stop a little longer,’ said John, imploringly; ‘have something to eat and drink.’ And he looked at his father and mother; and father and mother looked at him. Alas! they all knew too well that there was nothing in the house to eat; and no money wherewith to purchase food. Good Mr. Holland, at a glance, perceived the actual state of affairs. ‘Well,’ he exclaimed, ‘I intended having some dinner at the inn round the corner; but if you will allow me, I will have it sent here, and take it in your company.’ And in a twinkling of the eye, he was out of doors, leading his horse, which had been tied to a post, towards the ‘Blue Bell.’ He was back in ten minutes; and in another ten minutes there appeared the potboy from the ‘Blue Bell’ carrying a huge tray, smoking hot. Thrice the messenger from the ‘Blue Bell’ came and returned, each time carrying something heavy in his fat, red hands, and going away with empty trays. When he had turned his back for the third and last time, they all sat down around the little ricketty table, the Rev. Mr. Holland, John, his father and mother. ‘Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights,’ said the minister. ‘Amen!’ fervently exclaimed John.
The good news of which the Rev. Mr. Holland had been the bearer was soon confirmed on all sides. Early the next morning there came a messenger from Stamford, asking Clare to visit Mr. Drury as well as Mr. Gilchrist. He called first at the house of the latter, and was very graciously received, being informed that his poems were published, and that Mr. William Gifford, editor of the ‘Quarterly Review’ had taken a great interest in him and his book. John Clare, who had never heard either of Mr. Gifford, or the ‘Quarterly,’ listened to the news with much indifference, to the evident surprise of his friend. Leaving Mr. Gilchrist, he went next door, to Mr. Drury, and, entering the shop, fell back with astonishment on hearing a tall aristocratic-looking elderly gentleman inquire for ‘John Clare’s Poems.’ It sounded like sweet music to his ear, the cracked voice of the old gentleman. Mr. Drury, not noticing the entrance of Clare, took a small octavo volume from the top of a parcel of similar books lying on his counter, and handed it to the gentleman, informing his customer at the same time that the poems were ‘universally applauded both by the critics of London and the public.’ John kept firm in his corner near the door; he thought his friend Drury the most eloquent speaker he had ever heard. ‘And, pray, who is this John Clare?’ asked the tall aristocratic-looking gentleman. ‘He is …’ began Mr. Drury, but suddenly stopped short, seeing a whole row of his books tumble to the ground. John Clare, in his terrible excitement, had pressed too close towards an overhanging shelf of heavily-bound folios and quartos, which came down with a tremendous crash. It seemed as if an earthquake was overturning the ‘New Public Library;’ and the astonishment of the owner did not subside when he saw his poetical friend creeping out from under the ruins of five-score dictionaries, gazetteers, and account-books. Having somewhat recovered his composure, Mr. Drury, with a grave mien, turned towards the tall gentleman, exclaiming, ‘I beg to introduce to you Mr. Clare, the poet.’ The gentleman burst out laughing at the intensely ludicrous scene before him; yet checked himself instantly, seeing the colour mount into Clare’s face. ‘I beg you a thousand pardons, Mr. Clare,’ he exclaimed; ‘I hope you have not been hurt.’ And as if to compensate for his rude hilarity, the tall gentleman entered into a conversation with Clare, ending by an invitation to visit him at his residence on the following day: ‘Mr. Drury will give you my address; good morning.’ John Clare made no reply, and only bowed; he did not feel much liking for his new acquaintance. However, when Mr. Drury told him that the stranger was General Birch Reynardson, a gentleman of large property, residing near Stamford, on an estate called Holywell Park, and that his acquaintance might be of the greatest benefit for the success of his book, if not for himself, Clare consented to pay the desired visit. The allusion to his published poems by Mr. Drury was pleasant to his ears, and Clare eagerly sat down to examine _his_ book. It was not by any means a handsome volume in outward appearance, being bound in thick blue cardboard, with a small piece of coarse linen on the back. But the coarseness of the material was relieved by the inscription, ‘Clare’s Poems,’ printed on the back in large letters; and the plain appearance of the book was forgotten over the title-page, ‘Poems descriptive of rural life and scenery, by John Clare, a Northamptonshire peasant.’ He eagerly ran his eye over the poems, and was more than ever pleased with them in their new dress, with slightly altered spelling, and all the signs of punctuation added. There was only one part of the book with which he was not pleased, which was the part headed ‘introduction.’ It gave an untrue account of his life, and, what was still more galling to the pride of the poet, spoke of his poverty as the main point deserving public attention. All this deeply hurt his feelings; nevertheless the predominating sentiment of joy and satisfaction prevented him saying anything on the subject to Mr. Drury. He stayed some hours at the shop, and it was arranged that early on the next morning he should call again to get ready for the important visit to General Reynardson. When on the point of leaving, Mr. Drury put a letter in Clare’s hands. ‘I had almost forgotten it,’ he said; ‘it has been lying at the shop for several days. I suppose it is from your sweetheart.’
The letter was from the ‘sweetheart;’ but a very melancholy letter it was nevertheless. Poor Martha Turner told her lover, what he knew long ago, that she was about becoming a mother before being a wife; that her situation was known to her parents; that her father and mother refused to forgive her frailty; and that she was cruelly treated and on the point of being expelled from under their roof. John Clare read the letter on the roadside, between Stamford and Helpston; he read it over again and again, and his burning tears fell upon the little sheet of paper. A fierce conflict of passions and desires arose within his soul. He fancied that he did not love Martha Turner half so well as the pretty little lass of Southorp; he fancied that since his first overwhelming affection for ‘Mary,’ he had never been devoted, heart and soul, so much to any one as to Betty Sell. Yet to Martha Turner, once his sweet ‘Patty of the Vale,’ he knew he was bound by even stronger ties than those of affection and love–he trembled thinking thus, yet held firm to the nobler element in his breast. The secret struggle, short and intense, ended with a firm resolve that duty should conquer passion.
Early on the day following, John Clare made his appearance at Mr. Drury’s shop. The busy tradesman had already provided an outfit for his friend, whom he meant to patronize more than ever, now that his poems promised to be successful. In the course of half an hour, John found himself clothed in garments such as he had never before worn. He had a black coat, waistcoat, and trousers, a silk necktie, and a noble, though very uncomfortable, high hat; while his heavy shoes seemed changed by a covering of brilliant polish. Surveying his figure, thus altered, in a looking-glass, John was greatly satisfied with himself, and with a proud step marched off towards Holywell Park. General Birch Reynardson received him with great affability; at once took him by the hand, and led him into the library. It was the finest collection of books Clare had ever seen, and he warmly expressed his admiration of it. After a while, the General took a small quarto, bound in red morocco, from the shelves, and showing it to his guest, asked him what he thought of the contents. They were poems written by the general’s father; and Clare, seeing the fact stated on the title-page, was polite enough to declare them to be very beautiful. Another red-morocco volume thereupon came down from the shelves, full of manuscript poetry of the General’s own composition. John Clare began to see that genius was hereditary in the family, and expressing as much to his host, earned a grateful smile, and a warm pressure of the hand. He was asked next to promenade in the gardens till dinner was ready.
The gardens of Holywell Park were laid out with great taste, and John Clare soon lost himself in admiration of the many beautiful views opened before him. While wandering along the banks of an artificial lake, fed by a cascade at the upper end, he was joined by a young lady of extraordinary beauty. He believed it was the wife of the General; yet, though showing the deepest respect to the lady who addressed him while walking at his side, he could not help looking up into her face now and then, in mute admiration of her exquisite loveliness. The General, after a while, joined the promenaders, when John, somewhat to his surprise, learnt that his fair companion was not the hostess of the establishment, but the governess. Notwithstanding the presence of the master of the house, the young lady continued speaking to Clare in the freest and most unrestrained manner, bewitching him alike by the tones of her voice and the soft words of flattering praise she poured into his ear. She told him that she had read twice through the volume of poetry which the General had brought home the preceding evening, having sat up for this purpose the greater part of the night. Clare’s face got scarlet when he heard these bewitching words; never before had praise sounded so sweet to his ear; never before had it come to him from such honeyed lips. He was beside himself for joy, when, as a proof of her good memory, she began reciting one of his poems: ‘My love, thou art a nosegay sweet.’ And when she came to the last line, ‘And everlasting love thee,’ Clare’s eyes and those of the beautiful girl met, and he felt her glances burning into his very soul. The general did not seem to take much notice of his companions, being busy picking up stones in the footpath, and examining the state of the grass on the borders of his flower beds. On returning towards the house, he informed Clare that the servants were about sitting down to their dinner, and told him to join them in the hall. The young governess appeared intensely surprised at the words; she looked up, first at the General and then at Clare. Probably it seemed to her a gross insult that a poet should be sent to take his meal with the footmen and scullery-maids. But Clare’s face looked bright and serene; to him, as much as to the master of the house, it appeared perfectly natural to be returned to his proper social sphere, after a momentary dream-like rise into higher social regions.
He walked into the hall, and humbly sat down at the lower end of the servants’ table. The big lackeys whispered among themselves, looking with a haughty air upon the base intruder. John Clare heeded it not; his soul was far away in a world of bliss. Before him, in his imagination still hovered that sweet beautiful face which he had seen in the gardens; in his ear still sounded the soft tones of her voice: ‘And everlasting love thee.’ Thus he sat at the table, among the footmen and kitchen wenches, tasting neither food nor drink–an object of utter contempt to his neighbours. Before long, however, there came a message from the housekeeper’s room, inviting Clare to proceed to the select apartments of this potent lady. He followed the servant mechanically, careless where he was going; but was joyfully surprised on entering the room to see his dream changed into reality. There, opposite the table, sat his beautiful garden-companion, smiling more sweetly, and looking more exquisitely enchanting than ever. She stretched out her little white hand, and Clare sat down near her, utterly unmindful of the presence of the mistress of the apartment, the lady housekeeper. The latter felt somewhat offended in her dignity, yet overlooked it for the moment, being desirous to proffer a request. Having succeeded in rousing Clare’s attention, she informed her visitor, with becoming condescension, that she was very fond of poetry; also that she had a son who was very fond of poetry. But it so happened that, though very fond of reading verses, neither she nor her son was able to produce any. Now hearing, from her friend the governess, that there was a poet in the house, she had taken the liberty to send for him, to do some trifling work. What she wanted was an address of filial love, as touching and affectionate as possible; this she would send to her son, and her dear son would return it to her, signed by his own name. She hoped it could be done at once, while she was getting the tea ready. Could it be done at once? Clare started on hearing himself addressed a second time by the high-toned lady–he did not remember a word of all that had been said to him. But he bowed in silence, and the dignified elderly person left the room to make the tea, firmly persuaded that her poetry would be got ready in the meantime. When she was gone, Clare looked up, and found a pair of burning eyes fixed upon him. He tried to speak, but could not; the words, rising from his heart, seemed to perish on his tongue. After a long pause, the young governess, flushed with emotion, found courage to address her neighbour: ‘I hope to see you again, Mr. Clare; I hope you will write to me sometimes.’ He had no time to reply before the bell rang and a servant entered the room, reporting that General Birch Reynardson wished to see John Clare before leaving. The intimation was understood. John went up to the library, bowed before his stately host, muttered a few words of thanks, he knew not exactly for what, and left the house. When the gate closed after him, he felt as if expelled from the garden of Eden.
Slowly he walked up the road, when suddenly a white figure started up on his path. The young governess again stood before Clare. ‘I could not hear of your going,’ cried the beautiful girl, her bright face suffused with blushes, and her long auburn hair fluttering in the wind; ‘I could not hear of your going, without saying good-bye.’ Clare again tried to speak, and again the words died upon his lips. But she continued addressing him; ‘Oh, do not forget to write to me,’ she said earnestly, with a tinge of melancholy in her soft voice. It thrilled through his soul, and opened his lips at last. ‘I will write,’ he answered, ‘and I will send you some new poems.’ Thus saying, he bent forward and took both her hands, and their eyes met, full of unspeakable passion. But a sudden noise from the distance startled Clare and his fair companion. There was a man on horseback coming up with full speed, riding in the direction of Holywell Park. The young governess softly loosened her hands, turned a last fond look upon the poet, and fled away like a frightened hind into a neighbouring wood.
John Clare hurried forward, his face flushed, his head trembling; forgetful of all the things around him. At last, feeling exhausted, he sat down on a stone, at the turning of two roads. The one of the roads was leading to Stamford; the other to Bridge Casterton and Walkherd Lodge. Clare felt like one entranced. Joy unutterable was struggling in his bosom together with infinite sadness, and the wild pulsation of his heart seemed to drive his blood, like living fire, to his very soul. And he held his burning head in his hands, sitting at the corner of the two roads. The image of the beautiful girl he had just left, an image more perfect, more sweet and angelic than ever conceived by his imagination, appeared standing in one of the roads, and the picture of a sad, suffering woman, surrounded by angry parents, in the other. Lower sank the sun on the horizon; it was beginning to get dark; but Clare still kept sitting at the corner of the two roads, his throbbing head bent to his knees. The clouds in the west glowed with a fierce purple, when he started up at last. He started up and walked, swiftly and with firm step, towards Walkherd Lodge. The clouds in the west seemed to glow with an unearthly light.
‘OPINIONS OF THE PRESS’ AND CONSEQUENCES.
The London book-season of 1820 was a dull one. The number of books published was very small, and there were but few extraordinary good or extraordinary bad ones amongst them. All the ‘reviewers’ were at their wits’ end; for wit, sharp as a razor, must get dull over books undeserving of praise, yet incapable of being ‘cut up’ with due brilliancy of style. Into this mournful critical desert, there fell like manna the ‘Poems descriptive of rural life and scenery.’ Mr. John Taylor and his literary coadjutors had taken great pains to spread the news far and wide that a new Burns had been discovered on the margin of the Lincolnshire fens, and was to be publicly exhibited before a most discerning public. There were low rumours, besides, that William Gifford intended to place the new Burns on the pedestal of the ‘Quarterly,’ spreading the fame of the humble poet into the most distant regions. Accordingly, when the first volume of Clare’s poems was published, on the 16th of January, 1820, there was an immediate rush to the shop of Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, in Fleet Street. Before many days were over, a first edition was exhausted; and before many weeks were gone, all the critical reviews began singing the praises of the book. The ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ leading the van, got, eloquent over ‘the unmixed and unadulterated impression of the loveliness of nature,’ contrasting it with ‘the riches, rules, and prejudices of literature;’ the latter being in allusion to a quarrel which the learned editor had just had with some learned fellow-editors. Next followed the ‘New Monthly Magazine,’ the reviewer of which informed a discerning public that ‘Clare is strictly a descriptive poet, and his daily occupation in the fields has given him manifest advantages.’ This profound remark made great impression, and was quoted by Messrs. Taylor and Hessey in all their prospectuses; not even the deepest thinkers disputing the thesis that if Clare had been born and lived all his life in a cellar in the Seven Dials, his rural poetry might be less truthful. The ‘London Magazine,’ belonging to the publishers of Clare’s poems, came modestly behind in critical praise, contenting itself, in a review of five pages, with giving plentiful extracts from the book, putting forward, at the same time, a somewhat undignified appeal to public charity. The demand for the pence and shillings of the charitable was, as stated in the review, ‘made by one who has counselled and superintended this interesting publication,’ and the same authority piteously invoked the aid of the nobility and gentry for ‘this poor young man.’ When Clare came to see this article, some months after its publication, he burst into a fit of indignation, and wrote an angry letter to Mr. Drury; but with the sole result of hearing, on his next visit to the Stamford Public Library, that he was not only a very poor, but a very ungrateful young man.
The ‘Eclectic Review,’ reviewed Clare in a very flattering article; and the ‘Antijacobin Review,’ ‘Baldwin’s London Magazine,’ and a host of other periodicals, followed suit, all dwelling upon the luminous aspect of the poems, with pauperism as dark background. Last in the list, but greatest, came the ‘Quarterly,’ with William Gifford at the helm. The ‘Quarterly Review’ of May, 1820, actually devoted nine pages to a description and praise of Clare’s poems, speaking of them as the most interesting literary production of the day. The review was supposed to be written by Mr. Gilchrist; but it was generally understood that the editor of the ‘Quarterly’ himself corrected and altered the article, strengthening its praise, and putting in some hearty, honest words about Clare as a man, as well as a poet. Perhaps of all living authors, William Gifford best understood John Clare, and felt thorough, and entire sympathy with the attempt of this noble soul to struggle into light, through all the haze of printers, publishers, and reviewers. Very likely he might have loved Clare as a brother–had the poet not been an author. William Gifford, as Southey truly remarks, ‘had a heart full of kindness for all living creatures, except authors; _them_ he regarded as a fishmonger regards eels, or as Izaak Walton did slugs, worms, and frogs.’ Nevertheless, the ‘Quarterly Review’ praised Clare in a way which quite astonished the book-makers of the day. After comparing him with Burns and Bloomfield, and dwelling upon the fact that his social position was far lower than that of either these two poets, the writer in the ‘Quarterly’–here Mr. Gifford himself–gave some sound advice to Clare. ‘We entreat him,’ the article ran, ‘to continue something of his present occupations; to attach himself to a few in the sincerity of whose friendship he can confide, and to suffer no temptations of the idle and the dissolute to seduce him from the quiet scenes of his youth to the hollow and heartless society of cities; to the haunts of men who would court and flatter him while his name was new, and who, when they had contributed to distract his attention and impair his health, would cast him off unceremoniously to seek some other novelty.’ These words of true advice proved almost prophetic in the life of the poet.
The article in the ‘Quarterly Review’ had the immediate effect of making John Clare the lion of the day. Rossini set one of his songs to music; Madame Vestris recited others before crowded audiences at Covent Garden, and the chief talk of London for the season was about the verses of the ‘Northamptonshire peasant.’ His fame descended to Northamptonshire itself, and far into the misty realm of the fen-bound regions. The Right Honourable Charles William, Viscount Milton, was somewhat startled on the waves of this fame reaching Milton Park. The idea that for one five-pound note he might have secured part of this high renown to himself, figuring in the ‘Quarterly Review’ as a noble patron of literature, and protector of heaven-horn genius slumbering in obscurity, made him feel intensely vexed with himself. Reflecting upon the subject, it struck his lordship that it would be best to take Clare still under his protection, in view of new editions open to dedication. Full of this idea, a messenger was despatched at once to Helpston, with a gracious order that the poet should present himself on the following morning before the noble Viscount. John Clare, remembering but too keenly the past, was unwilling to obey his lordship’s command; but the tears of his father and mother made him change his resolution. Consequently, on the morning appointed, a Sunday, he went to Milton Park, and having had the honour of lunching with the footmen in the kitchen, was ushered into the presence of his lordship. Viscount Milton was exceedingly affable, took Clare by the hand, sat him down on a stool, and at once explained to him why his letter respecting the dedication of the poems had not been answered. His lordship had been excessively busy at the time, making preparations for a journey, and in the hurry of these labours had unfortunately forgotten to send a reply. Now her ladyship entered the room, in turn addressing the poet. After questioning him on all points, birth, parentage, weekly income, religion, moral feelings, and state of health, Clare was finally asked whether he had found already a patron. His vacant look expressed that he did not know even the meaning of the word patron. To the plainer question, whether some nobleman or gentleman of the neighbourhood had promised him anything, Clare truthfully replied in the negative. There was nobody who had made offers of assistance, except Mr. Edward Drury, bookseller, of Stamford; and his promises, John was sorry to say, were rather vague. Thereupon the noble viscount warned Clare to be on his guard against all publishers and booksellers; not explaining, however, how to protect himself, or how to do without them. Meanwhile the Earl Fitzwilliam had entered the room, and added his voice to that of his son in a warning against booksellers. After a little more conversation, Lord Milton put his hand in his pocket, and withdrawing a quantity of gold, threw it into Clare’s lap. John was humbled and confused beyond measure. His first impulse was to return the money instantaneously; but a moment’s thought convinced him that this would be excessively rude, and he contented himself, therefore, with a feeble protest against his lordship’s kindness. He now left, making an awkward bow, his pockets heavy under the weight of gold, and his brain heavier under a feeling of deep humiliation, akin to shame. However, this feeling was dispelled in the fresh outer air. He thought of his poor father and mother at home, and the comfort all his gold would bring them; and getting almost joyful at the thought, sat down at the roadside to count his golden sovereigns. There were seventeen pieces, all bright and new, fresh from the Mint. Clare had not had so much money in his possession in all his life, and he got frightened almost in looking at the glittering treasure before him. To secure it well, he took off his neck-tie, wrapped the sovereigns in it, and ran home as fast as his legs would carry him. There were happy faces that night in the little cottage at Helpston.
John Clare’s invitation to Milton Park created much astonishment in the village; but the wonder increased when, a few days after, another liveried messenger inquired his way to Clare’s dwelling. The new envoy was of far more gorgeous aspect than the former one, being the representative of the greatest lord in the county, the most noble the Marquis of Exeter. His lordship had seen the ‘Quarterly Review,’ as well as Viscount Milton; and his lordship had learnt, moreover, that Clare had been called to Milton Park, for purposes easily imagined. The chief of the elder line of the Cecils thereupon determined not to be outdone by his petty Whig rivals, the Fitzwilliams, with which object in view he summoned the poet in his turn. The gorgeous scarlet messenger who arrived at Helpston, to the wonderment of the whole village, brought a letter from the Hon. Mr. Pierrepont, brother-in-law of the marquis, desiring Clare to make his appearance on the following morning, precisely at eleven o’clock, at Burghley Hall. To this summons there was no opposition on the part of Clare, for to resist the will of the Marquis of Exeter, within twenty miles of Stamford, was deemed nothing less than treason by any inhabitant of the district. John was ready to go to Burghley Hall the next morning; but it rained heavily, and the cobbler had not returned the shoes entrusted to him for mending. Could John present himself without shoes on a rainy morning, before the most noble the Marquis of Exeter? That was the question gravely debated between Parker Clare, his wife, and his son. It was decided that John could not go without shoes; and the village cobbler refusing to return his trust, because engaged in threshing, the important visit to Burghley Hall had to be postponed till the day after. John went quite early, trembling inwardly to show himself before the great lord, whose very valet was looked upon in the country as a man of high estate. His fears increased a thousandfold when arrived at the gate of the palatial residence, and being told, on giving his name to the porter, that he ought to have come the day before. On Clare making his excuse on account of the state of the weather, the high functionary got very angry. ‘The weather?’ he exclaimed, excitedly; ‘you mean to say that you have not obeyed his lordship’s commands simply because it was a wet day! I tell you, you ought to have come if it rained knives and forks.’ This frightened Clare beyond measure; he turned round upon his heels and was about running away, when he was stopped by a footman. The arrival of Clare had just been announced to the marquis, and there was an order to admit him instantaneously to the presence of his lordship. So the tall footman, without further ceremony, took Clare by the arm, and hurried him up a marble staircase, through innumerable passages, and a maze of halls and corridors which quite bewildered the poor poet. The sound of his heavy hob-nailed shoes on the polished floor made him tremble, no less than the sight of his mud-bespattered garments among all the splendid upholstery, through which the gorgeous lackey was guiding his steps. At last, after a transit through painted halls which seemed endless, Clare stood before the noble marquis. His lordship received the humble visitor in a quiet, unaffected manner; and the mind of the poet was relieved of an immense burthen when he found the great lord to be a decidedly amiable and cheerful young man of his own age, with manners pleasantly contrasting with those of the aristocratic porter at the gate, and the splendid footman who had shown him the way. The marquis, with great tact, questioned Clare as to his antecedents; asked to see some of his manuscript verses–which the Hon. Mr. Pierrepont, in his summons, had ordered him to bring–and, having inspected these, informed the astonished poet that he would grant him an annuity of fifteen guineas for life. John Clare scarcely believed his own ears; the announcement of this liberality came so unexpected, and appeared to him so extraordinary, that he did not know what to say, or how to express his thanks. Quitting his lordship in utter confusion, he felt almost giddy on finding himself in the hall outside. There were immense passages stretching away to right and left, leading into unknown realms of magnificence, into which the poor poet was trembling to venture. The marquis, who, with great politeness, had accompanied his visitor to the door, on seeing his embarrassment undertook the part of guide, leading Clare to the outskirts of the palatial labyrinth, and here handing him over to a valet, with instructions to let his guest partake of the common dinner in the servants’ hall. It was the third dinner in the hall of noble patrons to which Clare was ushered–clearly showing that, however much differing on other subjects, the admirers of high literature in Northamptonshire held that the true place of a rural poet was among the footmen and kitchen-maids.
NEW SIGHTS AND NEW FRIENDS.
The great liberality of the Marquis of Exeter enabled Clare to carry out, without further delay, the wish of his heart, and to make ‘Patty’ his wife. Her parents, under the circumstances, had given up all their old opposition, and were not only willing, but most anxious, that Clare should cement his unhappy connexion with their daughter by the sacred ties of marriage. The due preparations were made accordingly, and on the 16th of March, 1820, John Clare and Martha Turner became man and wife. The event stands registered as follows in the records of Great Casterton Church:–
‘John Clare of the Parish of Helpston Bachelor and Martha Turner of this Parish Spinster were married in this Church by banns this 16th day of March in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty by me Richard Lucas.’
And underneath:–
‘This marriage was solemnized between us,
JOHN CLARE
her
MARTHA+TURNER
mark.’
Little more than a month after the wedding, a child was born to Clare; a little girl, baptized Anna Maria. Mrs. Clare for a while remained at her father’s house; but as soon as she was able to move, went to live with her husband, at the humble dwelling of his parents at Helpston, which, though scarcely large enough to contain the aged couple, had now to accommodate two families. Yet Clare felt happy in this narrow cottage, for, humble as it was, it presented to him a thousand cherished associations, and now became dearer than ever to his heart, as sheltering not only his beloved parents, but his dear wife and child. All his life long the Helpston cottage was to Clare his ‘home of homes.’
Before removing with his young wife to his native village, the poet had to go through some exciting adventures in a journey to London. When one day at the house of Mr. Gilchrist, at Stamford, there arrived a letter from Mr. John Taylor, speaking in high terms of the success of the ‘Poems of Rural Life,’ which brought about the question, addressed to Clare: ‘Should you like to go with me on a short visit to London?’ John Clare was delighted at the idea, and eagerly expressed his wish to go; whereupon it was arranged that he and Mr. Gilchrist should set out on the journey at the end of a week. Patty cried when the news was brought to her; and old Parker Clare and his wife cried still more. In a few hours, the report spread like wildfire through Helpston that John Clare was going to London. There was but one man in the village who had ever been to the big town far away, and his account of it had filled the hearts of all the Helpston people with terror. This man, an old farm-labourer called James Burridge, as soon as he heard of Clare’s intention to undertake the dreaded journey, hurried up to entreat him to abandon the plan. To enforce his advice, he gave a vivid description of the horrors awaiting the unwary traveller in the great metropolis, and the fearful dangers that beset his path on every side. One half the houses of London, he said, were inhabited by swindlers, thieves, and murderers, and a good part of the other half by their helpers and confederates, all on the look-out for the good people from the country. To catch their victims with the greater certainty, there were trap-doors in the pavement of the most frequented streets, which, when touched, let the wayfarer down into a deep cellar, and into a kettle of boiling water, surrounded by cut-throats who made all escape from the kettle impossible. The assassins, having killed the unhappy victim, and taken all his property, to the very shirt on his back, finally–culmination of horrors!–sold the body to the doctors. Such was the account which James Burridge gave of London, with the effect of striking terror into the hearts of his hearers. Parker Clare and his wife, with bitter tears, entreated their son not to leave them; and John himself, though slightly incredulous about some of the items in the tales of his friend Burridge, began to be seriously alarmed. But he was ashamed to confess his fears to Mr. Gilchrist; the more so, as a mere casual mentioning of the street-traps and the kettles of boiling water produced immoderate laughter. He therefore made his mind up to start on his dangerous journey like a hero. After bidding solemn farewell to wife and parents, and dressing, by the advice of James Burridge, in his worst clothes, to be the less a mark for thieves and cut-throats, John Clare very early one morning in April, 1820, started for Stamford, and having met Mr. Gilchrist took his seat precisely at seven o’clock in the ‘Regent,’ a famous four-horse coach, warranted to take passengers in thirteen hours to London. There was little talk on the road; John Clare had enough to do to look out of the window, marvelling at all the new sights open to his eyes. Thus the travellers passed through Stilton, Huntingdon, St. Neot’s, Temsford, and Biggleswade, until at last, soon after dusk, the fiery glow of the horizon announced the neighbourhood of the big city. On being told that they were about to enter London, Clare became much excited; but there was time for the excitement to cool, for more than two hours elapsed before the heavy coach rumbled from the soft high road up to the hard-paved streets. At last, at nine o’clock in the evening, the ‘Regent’ stopped in front of the ‘George and Blue Boar,’ in Holborn, and John Clare alighted, utterly bewildered with all that he had seen during the day in the greatest journey he had ever made in his life.
Mr. Gilchrist took his friend to the house of his brother-in-law, a German named Burkhardt, proprietor of a jeweller’s and watchmaker’s shop in the Strand. Herr Burkhardt, a well-to-do tradesman, with a rubicund face and an inexhaustible stock of good humour, was excessively fond of showing strangers the sights of London; and his guests had no sooner arrived, than he wanted to take them to Covent Garden theatre. John Clare was very anxious to go, on hearing that Madam Vestris was reciting one of his poems at this place of entertainment; but finding that Octavius Gilchrist was disinclined to rise from his comfortable armchair, and with secret apprehension of the trap-doors and vessels of boiling water, he declared himself likewise in favour of the arm-chair, with hot whiskey and water. Worthy Herr Burkhardt had his full share of satisfaction the next day, when he had the pleasure of taking his brother-in-law and friend to Westminster Abbey, the Tower, Smithfield market, Newgate, and Vauxhall Gardens. John Clare was not so much astonished as disappointed with all that his eyes beheld in the great metropolis. Standing upon Westminster Bridge, he compared the River Thames with Whittlesea Mere, and found it wanting; the sight of the Tower, of Newgate, and of Smithfield, engendered not the least admiration; and as for the Poet’s Corner in the Abbey, he loudly declared that he could see no poetry whatever about it. But what hurt the feelings of Herr Burkhardt most of all, was the utter contempt Clare showed for the delights of Vauxhall. The tinsel and the oil-lamps, the wooden bowers and paper flowers, struck Clare as perfectly absurd, and he expressed his astonishment that people should go and stare at such childish things, with a world of wonder and of beauty lying all around it in the green fields. The worthy jeweller of the Strand was amazed, and privately confided to his brother-in-law that he thought his companion, ‘a very stupid man from the country.’
John Clare stayed a week in London, and during the whole of this time felt painfully uncomfortable in his threadbare suit of labourer’s clothes, patched top and bottom, with leather baffles and gaiters to match. He fancied, when walking along the streets, that everybody was staring and laughing at his smock frock; and the sound of his heavy hob-nailed shoes startled him whenever he entered a house. What made things worse was, that Mr. Gilchrist wanted to draw him into many fine places and among high and wealthy people, for whose company Clare felt an instinctive dislike. He knew that they could not look upon him otherwise than in the light of a rustic curiosity, and being unwilling to play the part of a newly-discovered monkey or hippopotamus, he absolutely refused to go to parties and meetings to which he had been invited. However, a few of the visits were indispensable, such as presentation to Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, and their friends. Mr. John Taylor, on meeting Clare, perceived at once that one reason of his excessive reluctance to show himself was his scant stock of clothing, and mentioning the matter with great frankness, he offered him a suitable dress. But Clare refused to take anything, except an ancient overcoat somewhat too large for him, but useful as hiding his whole figure from the top of the head down to the heels. In this brigand-like mantle he henceforth made all his visits, unwilling to take it off even at dinner, and in rooms hot to suffocation.
It made a deep impression upon Clare that, with all his awkwardness, homely speech, and ragged clothes, he was, for the first time in his life, treated as an equal by Mr. Taylor’s friends, and other gentlemen whom he visited at London. The example of his patrons in the country, who, after praising his talents in the drawing-room, sent him down to the kitchen for his dinner, had already pauperized him to such an extent that he was quite startled when Mr. Taylor, on his second visit to the shop in Fleet Street, asked him to meet several men of rank and talent, among them Lord Radstock, at dinner the same evening. He would gladly have declined, but was not allowed to do so, being told that it would be a thorough breach of good manners to refuse to see his friends, the admirers of his poems. Clare went, with much fear and trembling; but came to be at ease before long. He sat next to Lord Radstock, and this gentleman, with an extreme tact and knowledge of character, at once succeeded in gaining his whole confidence. It proved the beginning of a friendship which lasted for years, and spread its influence over Clare’s whole life. William Waldegrave, Baron Radstock, Admiral of the Red, was a gentleman much known at this period in the literary and artistic circles of London. A younger son of the third Earl of Waldegrave, born in 1758, he was bred to the naval profession, became a captain at the age of eighteen, and commander of a fine frigate soon after, so that the way to fame and distinction was marked out for him clearly and forcibly. But not content to be lifted in the world solely by reason of birth, he, from an early age, devoted himself to independent pursuits, and became a scholar and a poet even before he was a captain in the Royal Navy. The scientific and literary tastes of the young nobleman were greatly fostered by his marriage, in 1785, with the second daughter of David Van Lennep, chief of the Dutch factory at Smyrna, a lady of most genial disposition and an education very superior to her age. William Waldegrave was appointed admiral in 1794; distinguishing himself at the naval fight off Cape Lagos, in 1797; and having been advanced, three years after, to the dignity of Baron Radstock, of Castletown, Queen’s County, quietly settled with his family in London, to give himself entirely up to his favourite studies and pursuits. On the appearance of Clare’s poems, he at once felt greatly interested in the author, and being acquainted with Mr. John Taylor, heard of his arrival in London, and arranged to meet him at dinner. So it came that John Clare, in his smock frock, leather gaiters, and brigand mantle, found himself sitting at the right hand of the Right Honourable Lord Radstock, son of an earl, and admiral in the Royal Navy.
Lord Radstock’s simple, sailor-like speech, distant alike from condescension and studious politeness, had the effect of at once opening the pent-up affections of John Clare. For the first time since his arrival in London, he found somebody to whom he could speak in full confidence, and he did so to his heart’s desire, prattling like a child about trees and flowers, fields and meadows, birds and sunshine, and not at all disguising his dislike to the big town in which he now found himself. As the dinner went on, Clare became still more communicative, tenderly encouraged by the sympathising friend at his side. He spoke of his struggles, his aims, and aspirations; his burning desire to soar upward on the wings of poetry, and his constant battling for the barest necessities of life, the mere daily bread. Lord Radstock was deeply touched; he had seen many authors, writers of prose and of verse, in the course of his life, but never such a poet as this. Clare did not in the least complain of his existence; he merely described it, in simple, graphic utterance, the truth of which was stamped on every word and look. The admiral, before meeting John Clare, had admired him as a poet; he now began to feel far deeper admiration for him as a man. He told him in a few kind and affectionate words, speaking as a father would to his son, that he intended to be his friend, and Clare warmly shook the hand offered to him. It was late at night when the party broke up at Mr. Taylor’s, and Lord Radstock and John Clare were the last to leave the house together.
During the few days that Clare remained in London, he was almost constantly in Lord Radstock’s company. The latter, anxious to introduce his young friend to persons who he thought might be useful to him in life, led him to a great number of places, one more uncomfortable than the other. Clare suffered much, but had not the courage to confess it to his noble patron, whose good intentions he fully understood. So he kept on trotting from one drawing-room to the other, with his heavy mud-bespattered shoes, his immense coat, a world too large for his thin, short body, and his long unkempt hair, hanging down in wild confusion over the shoulders. His friends soon got accustomed to the sight, and thought no more of it, and strangers willingly excused the garb as born of the ‘eccentricity of genius;’ but Clare himself, with his extreme sensibility, felt daily mortification on contrasting his own appearance with that of the people he met, and suffered tortures in thinking himself an object of general ridicule. The feeling was aggravated by the fact that he met but few persons he liked, and in whose conversation he took an interest. Among these few was Mrs. Emmerson, an authoress of some talent, and contributor to the ‘London Magazine,’ to whom he was introduced by Lord Radstock. John Clare at the first interview was not at all favourably impressed by this lady; for she assumed what he fancied to be a theatrical air; burst out in bitter laments about what she termed the ‘desolate appearance’ of her visitor, and wept that ‘so much genius and so much poverty’ should go together. All this was very unpleasant to Clare; particularly the ‘desolate appearance,’ which he took to be an unmerited allusion to his great coat. In return, the poet, stung to the quick, replied in a few cold and sarcastic words, which irritated Lord Radstock so much that, on leaving the place, he reproached his companion for his apparent want of feeling. Subsequent interviews greatly modified Clare’s first impression, for he found Mrs. Emmerson not only a most amiable, kind-hearted lady, but a true and faithful friend, whose advice and assistance often proved of the greatest service to him.
Having stayed a week in London, in a continual round of visits to dinner parties, soirees, and theatrical entertainments–which latter did not impress him very much–John Clare again went, in the company of Mr. Gilchrist, to the ‘George and Blue Boar,’ Holborn, and took seat for the return journey to Stamford. He was heartily glad to get away from the big town, yearning for his old haunts, the quiet woods, streams, and meadows, and the little cottage among the fields with his wife and darling baby. It seemed to him an immense time since he had left these everyday scenes of his existence; it was as if his whole life had changed in the interval. He felt like one in a dream when the coach went rolling northward along the high road, through fields in which labourers were busy with plough and spade. It was not so very long ago that he had been just such a labourer: how strange that he should now loll upon soft cushions, in a coach drawn by four horses, while others like him kept on digging and ploughing in the sweat of their brow. And would he be ever content to dig and plough again, after having tasted the sweets of a more genial existence, treading upon carpeted floors and dining with lords? Such were the thoughts and questions that arose tumultuously in his mind, in the long ride from London to Stamford. He had not the courage to face them and think them out, feeling his brain begin to ache, and his heart to throb in wild excitement. Then there flickered before his eye the vision of wife and babe in the little cottage at home, and the tumult of his soul changed into bliss. He determined to be happy, as of yore, in the green fields among his former friends, and to dismiss all thoughts of changing his old course of life. It was late at night when the coach rattled into Stamford; but John Clare would not hear of stopping at his friend’s house, even for a few minutes. The clouds were dark overhead, and no lights visible anywhere; yet through night and darkness he groped his way home, and bursting into his little hut, clasped wife and babe in his arms.
FIRST TROUBLES OF FAME.
The news that a poet had arisen on the borders of the Fens soon spread far and wide, even into Northamptonshire. The ‘Quarterly Review’ and ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ carried the report into mansions, villas, and vicarages, and the ‘Stamford Mercury’ and other local papers spread it among the inmates of farmhouses and humbler dwellings. Much incredulity was manifested at first; but the news being confirmed on all hands, there arose a great and universal desire to behold the new poet. The reign of fame commenced soon after Clare’s return from London, when, true to his resolution, he had taken to his old labours in the fields. About the second or third morning after resuming work, there came a message from his father, requesting him to return home in all haste, in order to see some gentlemen waiting for him. Clare ran as fast as he could, and found two elderly men in spectacles, who said they were schoolmasters, had come from Peterborough, and wished to make his acquaintance. After questioning him closely for two hours, upon all matters, and at the end subjecting him to a rigid cross-examination, they went away, promising to call again. Clare had lost part of a day’s work; however, he did not mind it much, for he was somewhat flattered by the visit. The day passed, and the next morning; but on the following afternoon, he was again called away from his labours. This time, there were three aged ladies from Market Deeping, who said that they had bought a copy of his poems between them, and could not rest till they had seen him face to face. One of the ladies was somewhat deaf, and Clare had to answer all questions twice; first by speaking to two of his visitors in the ordinary key, and then shouting it into the ear of the third old dame. After detaining him for an hour, the elderly individuals said they did not know their way back, and nothing remained but to show them the road for a couple of miles. It was getting late, and Clare, therefore, instead of going to his work again; went into the public-house. Fame threatened to be dangerous.
The tide set in with full force before another week was over. Not a day passed without Clare being called away from his work in the fields, to speak to people he had never seen in his life; people of all ranks and conditions, farmers, clergymen, horsedealers, dissenting ministers, butchers, schoolmasters, commercial travellers, and half-pay officers. One morning, the inmates of a whole boarding-school, located at Stamford, visited the unhappy poet, and, a shower coming on, the fluttering damsels with their grave monitors crowded every room in the little hut, preventing the baby from sleeping, and Mrs. Clare from doing her weekly washing. Most of the visitors were polite; some, however, were sarcastic, and a few rude. After having inspected Clare, his person, house, wife and child, father and mother, they wanted further information concerning his daily habits, mode of eating and drinking, quantity of food consumed, and other particulars, and not getting the wished-for replies to all their questions, they told him to his face that he was an ill-bred clown. But there was another class of visitors still more dangerous to the peace of Clare and his little household. Young and middle-aged men came over from Stamford, from Peterborough, and sometimes as far as from London, inviting the poet to conversation and ‘a glass’ at the tavern, and keeping him at their carousals for hours and whole days. Already too much inclined by nature and early bad example to habits of intemperance, the good resolutions of Clare fairly gave way under this new temptation. The persons who invited him to the alehouse were among the most intelligent of his visitors; they talked freely and pleasantly about subjects interesting to the poet, and often made their conversation still more attractive by music and song. To resist the incitement of flying the dull labours of the fields in favour of such company, required more moral strength than Clare possessed, or was able to command. Early training he had none; and even now there was not a soul near to teach and warn him of the danger. So the unhappy poet kept gliding down the fatal abyss.
Clare’s visits to Stamford were not quite so frequent after his return from London as before, although he made it a point to call upon Mr. Gilchrist and Mr. Drury at least once a week. On one of these occasions he made the acquaintance of a very eccentric elderly gentleman, who, cold at first and almost offensive in speech, subsequently proved himself a warm friend. This was Dr. Bell, a retired army surgeon, who had long resided near Stamford, and was on good terms with many of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. While serving in His Majesty’s forces abroad, Dr. Bell became the intimate friend of a versatile colleague, Dr. Wolcot, subsequently known as Peter Pindar, who inspired him with a taste for literature, to which he devoted himself with a real passion after his retirement from the army. Though not a writer himself, he brought out several books, among them a very droll one, made up of quotations of the most curious kind, and entitled, ‘The Canister of the Blue Devils, by Democritus, junior.’ Dr. Bell possessed a very large library, and spent a good part of his time in extracting, both from his books and the newspapers and periodicals of the day, all available paragraphs containing quaint sayings and doings, which he stuck upon large pieces of pasteboard, for the inspection of his friends, and subsequent publication in some ‘canister’ shape. John Clare met Peter Pindar’s friend at the house of Mr. Gilchrist; they did not seem to like each other at first sight, but got on better terms at the second meeting, and after a while became attached friends. Dr. Bell had an instinctive dislike to poets, whom he held to be ‘moonstruck.’ He was not long, however, in discovering that John Clare was a great deal more than a mere maker of verses and apostrophiser of love-sick boys and girls. The high and manly spirit of the poor labourer of Helpston; his yearning after truth, and his constant endeavour to discover, beneath all the forms and symbols of outward appearances, the godlike soul of the universe, struck him with something like wonderment. He first began to look upon Clare as a sort of phenomenon; but found that the more he studied him, the more incomprehensible, yet also the more admirable, appeared this great and lofty spirit, wrapped in the coarse garb of a ploughman and lime-burner. The odd, tender-hearted doctor soon conceived a passionate affection for Clare, and set him up as a hero at the shrine of his devotion. He thought of nothing else but advancing his young friend’s welfare, and worked with great zeal to this effect; to such an extent that his endeavours frequently overstepped the bounds of prudence. The first thing he did was to write letters to all the wealthy inhabitants of the neighbouring district, begging, nay, entreating them to set their name to a subscription list for a fund, destined to make the poet independent for the rest of his days. However, the appeal was but faintly responded to, and most of the persons addressed either declined, or contented themselves by forwarding small sums. But Dr. Bell was by no means discouraged at this result. With consummate worldly experience, he resolved upon attacking his ‘patients’ from the weakest side, and extract from their vanity what he could not get from their munificence. He put himself in communication with Mr. John Taylor, and, by dint of extreme pressure, succeeded in enlisting him in his project. It was to make an appeal in favour of John Clare on the part of the conductors of the ‘London Magazine;’ with delicate hint that any act of liberality would not be condemned to blush unseen. But this scheme, too, did not realize the expectations of Dr. Bell, chiefly because Mr. John Taylor, out of feelings easily comprehended, did not join him in his endeavours with the heartiness he expected. To make the appeal appear as much in favour of poetry as of a single poet, Mr. Taylor, in his letters, asked assistance for Keats as well as for Clare, wording his request in terms more dignified than persuasive. There was only one response to this petition, which came from Earl Fitzwilliam, who forwarded L100 to Clare and L50 to Keats. The liberality of the kind nobleman was scarcely appreciated as it deserved. One of the friends of Keats, in a loud article in the ‘London Magazine,’ of December, 1820, disclaimed his intention to be beholden to any lord. ‘We really do not see,’ ran the article, ‘what noblemen have to do with the support of poets, more than other people, while the poor rates are in existence. In the present state of society, poetry, as well as agricultural produce, should be left to find its own level.’ All this was very fine; though it looked somewhat inconsequential that the conductors of the very periodical in which this was printed, should go a-begging for poets, and that the poets themselves–Keats not excepted–made no scruple in taking the money. As for poor Clare, he got the news of Earl Fitzwilliam’s noble gift together with the ‘London Magazine’ of December, 1820, and felt utterly ashamed to accept the money with the accompanying reminder of the poor rates being in existence.
John Clare for some time was unaware of all the exertions made by his friends to secure him an independence, and when he heard the whole of it, so far from being pleased, reproached them for what they had done. He told them they were wrong in bringing him forward in the character of a beggar without his consent, and with some energy declined to live upon alms as long as he was able to subsist by the work of his hands. Mr. Taylor was somewhat offended when he got this protest, which seemed to him like ingratitude; but Dr. Bell remained undisturbed, and secretly made up his mind to continue his efforts with more energy than ever for his friend. ‘A noble soul, yet altogether unfit for this ignoble world,’ he said to Mr. Gilchrist, issuing his circulars for another philanthropic campaign. When Clare learnt that new appeals to assist him had been put forward, he determined to interfere in the matter. Accordingly, he wrote long letters–very pathetic, though ill-spelt–to Earl Fitzwilliam, Earl Spencer, General Birch Reynardson, and other gentlemen, telling them that he had nothing to do with these appeals in his favour, and that he required no assistance whatever. Clare’s innate nobility of character was strikingly shown in these epistles; nevertheless, they were very injudicious, and had an effect decidedly contrary to that imagined by the author. The gentlemen to whom the letters were addressed naturally came to the conclusion that Clare, scarcely risen from obscurity, was already quarrelling with those who had helped him to rise, and showed himself ungrateful as well as ill-bred. Besides, the wording of the letters was of a kind not to inspire any admiration of the poet. Though verse flowed as naturally from his pen as music from the throat of the nightingale, Clare, all his life long, was unable to express his thoughts in prose composition. There was not wanting in his letters a certain ruggedness and picturesqueness of style, but it was marred nearly always by ill-expressed and frequently incoherent eruptions, and disquisitions on extraneous matters, marking the absence of a regular chain of thought. It was here that Clare’s want of education was most strongly visible. High-soaring like the lark in his poetical flights, yet unable to trot along, step by step, on the grammatical turnpike road of life, Clare’s mode of expressing his thoughts, orally or in writing, was not of the ordinary kind, and required some sort of study to be duly appreciated. But it could scarcely be expected that gentlemen like Earl Spencer, and the other exalted personages to whom the poet addressed his pathetic notes, should enter upon such a study. They saw before them nothing but large sheets of paper, of coarse texture, full of ill-spelt and ill-connected sentences, made more obscure by an utter absence of punctuation; and the not unnatural judgment thereupon was that the man who wrote such letters was a thoroughly vulgar and uneducated person. There came doubts into the minds of many, who read these prose compositions, as to whether the author was really the genius exalted by the periodicals of the day. Was it not possible that the ‘Quarterly Review’ which unduly depreciated poor Keats, had, equally unjustly, raised John Clare upon an unmerited pedestal of fame? This was the question asked by some of the former patrons of Clare, notably Earl Spencer and General Birch Reynardson. The latter spoke to Dr. Bell about it; but was astonished at the burst of indignation which broke from the lips of Peter Pindar’s friend. ‘What! Clare not a poet?’ exclaimed the irate doctor; ‘well, if he is not a poet, there never was one in the world.’ General Reynardson, having a great respect, somewhat mingled with fear, for the author of the ‘Canister,’ humbly acquiesced in the decision, promising to put his name down on the Stamford subscription list. But Dr. Bell was ill at ease nevertheless, and rode over the same day to Helpston. ‘If you ever again write letters to our friends without showing them to me first, I shall be very angry with you–I shall put you among the Blue Devils.’ So spoke the doctor; and John Clare, having heard the whole story of the effect of his epistles, promised obedience. He knew but too well, by this time, that the speech which God had given him was poetry, not prose.
The stream of visitors which set in at Helpston during the spring of 1820, did not cease till late in the summer of the same year. After the flood of schoolmasters, of farmers’ wives, and of boarding-school misses, there came a rush of rarer birds of travel, authors and authoresses, writers of unpublished books, and unappreciated geniuses in general. The first of the tribe was an individual of the name of Preston, a native of Cambridge, and author of an immense quantity of poetic, artistic, and scientific works–none of them printed, owing to ignorance of public and publishers. He sent Clare formal notice that he would come on a certain day, and, previous to coming, forwarded a large box full of manuscripts. There was a full description of his life, with sketch of his rare talents and accomplishments; also the greater part of his poetical writings, comprising five epics, three hundred ballads, and countless acrostics, madrigals, and sonnets. John Clare felt greatly flattered when he got the large box, and the same evening, after coming home from his work in the fields, sat down to inspect the manuscripts sent for his perusal. However, he did not get far, but fell asleep over the first dozen pages of the first epic. He honestly tried again the second evening, but with the same result as before; and on the third day relinquished the attempt in despair, accusing himself for his want of intelligence. Soon after, Mr. Preston made his appearance. He was a tall, thin man, with red whiskers and a red nose; dressed in a threadbare black coat, buttoned up to the chin. Introducing himself with some dignity, he at once fell into a familiar strain: ‘How do you do, John?’ and ‘Hope you are glad to see a brother poet.’ John was glad, of course; very glad. The tall, thin man then gave a glance at his large box, and John trembled. To allay the coming storm, Clare confessed at once that he had not had time to read through the manuscripts, having been hard at work in the fields. The great man frowned; yet after a while relaxed his features, telling Clare that he would give him two days more to read through his poems. At the end of this term, he intended to ask for a kind of certificate containing the brother poet’s appreciation of his works, together with letters of introduction to his patrons and publishers. It seemed cruel to refuse the request of such a dear and determined brother. John Clare, weighing in his mind how poor and friendless he had been himself but a short while ago, felt stirred by compassion, and though he knew he could not read the epics, indited a warm letter of praise and admiration for Mr. Preston. The latter thereupon took his farewell, and went away, accompanied by his large box. Some days after, Dr. Bell came down to Helpston, in greater excitement than ever. ‘What do you mean by sending me such a d—- fellow?’ he broke forth in a burst of indignation. Poor Clare! he meant nothing, thought of nothing, and knew nothing; and all that he could do was in a few simple words to explain the whole story. The doctor quietly listened to the account of Mr. Preston and his box, and when Clare had finished, delivered another lecture upon practical wisdom, threatening his friend, as penalty for disobedience, with the ‘Canister of the Blue Devils.’
PATRONAGE UNDER VARIOUS ASPECTS.
Honours and good news came in fast upon Clare in the autumn of 1820. The poet, at his humble home, was visited, first by Lady Fane, eldest daughter of the Earl of Westmoreland; secondly, by Viscount Milton, coming high on horseback, in the midst of red-coated huntsmen; and, finally, greatest of honours, by the Marquis of Exeter. The villagers were awe-struck when the mighty lord, in his emblazoned coach, with a crowd of glittering lackeys around, came up to the cottage of Parker Clare, the pauper. Mrs. Clare was utterly terrified, for she was standing at the washing-tub, and the baby was crying. Her greatest pride consisted in keeping the little cottage neat and tidy; but, as ill-luck would have it, she was always washing whenever visitors dropped in. The marquis, with aristocratic tact, saved poor Patty from a fresh humiliation. Hearing the loud voice of the baby from afar, his lordship despatched one of his footmen to inquire whether Clare was at home. The man in plush carefully advanced to the cottage door, and holding a silk handkerchief before his fine Roman nose, summoned John before him. Old Parker Clare thereupon hobbled forward, trembling all over, and, in a faint voice, told the great man that his son was mowing corn, in a field close to Helpston Heath. Thither the glittering cavalcade proceeded, and John was soon discovered, in the midst of the other labourers, busy with his sickle. Though somewhat startled on being addressed by his lordship, he was secretly pleased that the interview was taking place in the field instead of in his narrow little hut. It seemed to him that here, among the sheaves of corn, he himself was somewhat taller and the noble marquis somewhat smaller than within the four walls of any cottage or palace; and this feeling encouraged him to speak with less embarrassment to his illustrious visitor. His lordship said he had heard rumours that a new volume of poetry was forthcoming, and wanted to know whether it was true. Clare replied that he was busy writing verses in his spare hours, and that he intended writing still more after the harvest, and during the next winter, which would, probably, result in another book with his name on the title-page. The marquis expressed his satisfaction in hearing this news, and, after a few kind words, and a hint that he would be glad to see some specimens, in manuscript, of the new publication, took his farewell. John Clare was not courtier enough to understand the hint about the manuscripts in all its bearings. For a moment, the thought flashed through his mind of asking his lordship to allow the new volume to be dedicated to him; but the idea was as instantaneously crushed by a remembrance of the fatal article in the ‘London Magazine,’ in which it was said, ‘We really do not see what noblemen have to do with the support of poets more than other people.’ The remark had left a deep impression upon his mind, and he felt its truth more than ever while standing face to face with a great lord, sickle in hand, among the yellow corn. He therefore said nothing about the dedication, and the visit of his lordship remained without result–which was not his lordship’s fault.
A few days after this interview with the Marquis of Exeter, Clare went to Stamford to see Mr. Drury and Mr. Gilchrist. The latter had important news. He told his friend that he had just received a letter from Mr. John Taylor, stating that the fund collected for his benefit through the exertions of Lord Radstock, Dr. Bell, and others, had now reached the sum of L420 12_s_. and that this capital had been invested, for his benefit, under trustees, in the ‘Navy five per cents.’ Mr. Gilchrist, on communicating this information, expected an outburst of gratitude; but was surprised to see that Clare received it with a coldness which he could not understand. Being pressed for an explanation, Clare frankly stated that he was not pleased with the whole affair, both as being personally unwilling to receive alms, and, still more, unwilling to receive them in the aggravated form of helplessness, from ‘under trustees.’ Clare’s remark quite startled Mr. Gilchrist. He had hitherto looked upon the poet as a man who, gifted with considerable talent, was yet little removed from the ordinary hind of the fields; willing not only, but anxious to live upon charity, and kneeling, in all humility of heart, before rank and wealth. The high manliness of Clare now struck him for the first time, and he deeply admired it, though giving no words to his feelings. He even remonstrated about his friend’s coldness in receiving gifts offered by real lovers and admirers of his genius. The chord thus struck reverberated freely, and Clare, after warmly shaking Mr. Gilchrist by the hand, returned home to his wife and parents, joyfully communicating the great news that he was now the owner of not less than four hundred and twenty pounds. They fancied it an inexhaustible store of wealth, and great, accordingly, was the joy within the little cottage.
The four hundred and twenty pounds invested for the benefit of Clare, were the gift of twenty donors. Nearly one-half the sum was contributed by two benefactors, namely, the Earl Fitzwilliam, who gave L100, and Clare’s publishers, who bestowed the like amount upon him. The remaining two hundred and twenty pounds–accurately, L220 12_s_.–were made up of sums of five, ten, and twenty pounds, the principal contributors being the Dukes of Bedford and of Devonshire, who gave twenty pounds each; Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg–subsequently King Leopold of Belgium–the Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of Cardigan, Lord John Russell, Sir Thomas Baring, and six other noblemen, who subscribed ten pounds; and a few others who gave five pounds each. The sum thus collected was certainly insignificant, taking into account the extraordinary efforts made by Lord Radstock and other friends of Clare to procure him a provision for life. After all the high praise bestowed upon the new poet by the ‘Quarterly Review,’ and other critical journals, and the loud appeals for aid and assistance, it was found that there were only two patrons of literature in all England who thought him worth a hundred pounds, and of these two, one was a bookselling firm in Fleet Street. It really seemed as if the world at large engrossed the dictum of the ‘London Magazine,’ of the wealthy having no business to assist poets while the poor rates are in existence. The two hundred and twenty pounds collected for Clare from eighteen patrons of literature, together with the two hundred from Earl Fitzwilliam and Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, served, in the aggregate, to relieve the poet from absolute starvation. Invested in the funds, the capital gave him nearly twenty pounds a year, and, with the annuity already granted by the Marquis of Exeter, about thirty-five. Dr. Bell, by dint of restless exertions, managed to add another ten pounds to this yearly income. He wrote to Earl Spencer, temporarily residing at Naples, and obtained the promise of his lordship to grant Clare ten pounds per annum for life. So that altogether the poet now was endowed with a regular income of forty-five pounds a year, or rather more than seventeen shillings a week. It was far above the average