Chapter 2

As we have traced the poet's history down to his sixteenth year, the next incident of importance may be anticipated: of course he fell in love, and the object of his first and purest affection was Mary Joyce, daughter of a farmer at Glinton. Little is known of this episode excepting that the maiden was very beautiful, that after a few months of blissful intercourse their frequent meetings came to the knowledge of Mary's father, who sternly forbad their continuance, and that although "Patty," Clare's future wife, was the theme of some pretty verses, Mary Joyce was always Clare's ideal of love and beauty, and when thirty years afterwards, he lost his reason, among the first indications of the approaching calamity was his declaration that Mary, who had then long been in her grave, had passed his window. While under the influence of this delusion he wrote the poem entitled "First Love's Recollections," of which the following are the first two stanzas:--

First love will with the heart remain When all its hopes are bye, As frail rose-blossoms still retain Their fragrance when they die; And joy's first dreams will haunt the mind With shades from whence they sprung, As summer leaves the stems behind On which spring's blossoms hung.

Mary! I dare not call thee dear, I've lost that right so long; Yet once again I vex thine ear With memory's idle song. Had time and change not blotted out The love of former days, Thou wert the last that I should doubt Of pleasing with my praise.

Clare's engagement at the Blue Bell having terminated, a stone mason of Market Deeping offered to teach him his craft on payment of a premium which, though a very moderate sum, was far beyond the means of Parker Clare. A shoemaker in the village next offered to take him as an apprentice, on condition that Clare found his own tools, but the youth's aversion to the trade was too great to be overcome. After that his father applied to the head gardener at Burghley Park, who engaged Clare on the terms of a three years' apprenticeship, with eight shillings per week for the first year and an advance of one shilling per week in each succeeding year. The engagement was considered by Clare's father and mother to be a very fortunate and promising one, but it proved to be in a high degree prejudicial to his welfare. He was thrown into the society of a set of coarse- minded, intemperate fellows who insisted on his accompanying them in their frequent and forbidden visits to public houses in the neighbourhood. Mr. Martin informs us that it was the custom at Burghley to lock up at night all the workmen and apprentices employed under the head gardener, to prevent them from robbing the orchards, and that they regularly made their escape through a window. On several occasions Clare was overcome by drink and slept in the open air, with consequences to his delicate frame which may easily be imagined. It would appear that the head gardener set the example of habitual drunkenness to his subordinates, and that he was, moreover, of brutal disposition, which will account for the circumstance of the flight of Clare from Burghley Park, after he had been there nearly a year. Accompanied by a fellow-apprentice he walked to Grantham, a distance of twenty-two miles, and thence to Newark, where the youths obtained employment under a nurseryman. But Clare very shortly became homesick, and he returned to his parents in a state of complete destitution.

The most lamentable consequence of the roystering life which Clare led with the gardeners at Burghley was, that he acquired a fondness for strong drink with which he had to struggle, not always successfully, for years. That he did struggle manfully is evident from his correspondence, and at length, acting upon the advice of Dr. Darling, a London physician, who for a long time generously prescribed for him without fee or reward beyond the poet's grateful thanks, he abstained altogether. It will be seen hereafter that in all probability Dr. Darling's advice was given upon the supposition that Clare was able to procure a sufficient supply of nourishing food, when unhappily he was almost literally starving himself, in order that his family might not go hungry.

On returning from Nottinghamshire Clare took again to the work of a farm labourer, and the poetic fervour which had abated in the uncongenial society of Burghley once more manifested itself. After taking infinite pains to that end, he had the satisfaction of convincing his father and mother that his poetry was of somewhat greater merit than the half-penny ballads sold at the village feast; but his neighbours could not bring themselves to approve John's course of life, and they adopted various disagreeable modes of showing that they thought he was a mightily presumptuous fellow. His shy manners and his habit of talking to himself as he walked led some to set him down as a lunatic; others ridiculed his enthusiasm, or darkly whispered suspicions of unhallowed intercourse with evil spirits. This treatment, operating upon a sensitive mind and a body debilitated both by labour and scanty and unwholesome food, had the natural effect of robbing him of hope and buoyancy of spirits. In a fit of desperation he enlisted in the militia, and with other Helpstone youths was marched off to Oundle, a small town lying between Peterborough and Northampton. He remained at Oundle for a few weeks, at the end of which time the regiment was disbanded and Clare returned to Helpstone, carrying with him "Paradise Lost" and "The Tempest," which he had bought at a broker's shop in Oundle. This brings us down to 1812, when Clare was nineteen years old.

Little is known of Clare's manner of life for the next four or five years, excepting that he continued to work as a farm labourer whenever work could be found, that he tried camp life with some gipsies, and speedily had his romantic ideas of its attractiveness rudely dispelled, that he had a love passage or two with girls of the village and that he accumulated a large number of poems of varying degrees of excellence.

In 1817 he obtained employment as a lime burner at Bridge Casterton, in the neighbouring county of Rutland, where he earned about ten shillings per week. The labour was very severe, but Clare was contented, and during his stay at Bridge Casterton several of the best among his earlier poems were produced. It was probably this period of his life which he had in his mind when he said:--

I found the poems in the fields, And only wrote them down.

In the course of this year 1817 Clare fell in love with Martha Turner, the daughter of a cottage farmer living at a place called Walkherd Lodge, and this is the maiden who after the lapse of three or four years became his wife. "She was a fair girl of eighteen, slender, with regular features, and pretty blue eyes." Clare entered into this new engagement with passionate ardour, but the courtship ultimately took a more prosaic turn, and having once done so, there was little in the worthy but illiterate and matter-of-fact "Patty" to elevate the connection into the region of poetry. In his correspondence Clare more than once hints at want of sympathy on the part of those of his own household, and at one time domestic differences, for which there is reason to think he was mainly responsible, and which occurred when he was mentally in a very morbid condition, caused him to contemplate suicide. It is due, however, to the memory of "Patty" to say that Clare's latest volume of poems ("The Rural Muse," 1835) contains an address "To P * *" which is honourable to the constancy of both parties. It is as follows:--

Fair was thy bloom when first I met Thy summer's maiden-blossom; And thou art fair and lovely yet, And dearer to my bosom. O thou wert once a wilding flower, All garden flowers excelling, And still I bless the happy hour That led me to thy dwelling.

Though nursed by field, and brook, and wood, And wild in every feature, Spring ne'er unsealed a fairer bud, Nor found a blossom sweeter. Of all the flowers the spring hath met, And it has met with many, Thou art to me the fairest yet, And loveliest of any.

Though ripening summers round thee bring Buds to thy swelling bosom, That wait the cheering smiles of spring To ripen into blossom. These buds shall added blessings be, To make our loves sincerer, For as their flowers resemble thee They'll make thy memory dearer.

And though thy bloom shall pass away, By winter overtaken, Thoughts of the past will charms display, And many joys awaken. When time shall every sweet remove, And blight thee on my bosom, Let beauty fade!--to me, my love, Thou'lt ne'er be out of blossom!

THE POET TO THE PUBLIC

Although Clare's engagement to Martha Turner added to his perplexities, it was really the immediate moving cause of his determination to be up and doing. He resolved at length to publish a collection of his poems, and consulted Mr. Henson, a printer, of Market Deeping, on the subject. Mr. Henson offered to print three hundred copies of a prospectus for a sovereign, but he firmly declined the invitation of the poet to draw up that document. Clare resolutely set to work to save the money for the printer, and soon succeeded; but then there was the difficulty with regard to the composition of the address to the public. He could write poetry; that he knew; he had done so already, and he felt plenty more within; but prose he had never yet attempted, and the task was a really grievous one. This is his own account of his trouble, given in the introduction to the "Village Minstrel:"--

"I have often dropped down five or six times, to plan an address. In one of these musings my poor thoughts lost themselves in rhyme. Taking a view, as I sat beneath the shelter of a woodland hedge, of my parents' distresses at home, of my labouring so hard and so vainly to get out of debt, and of my still added perplexities of ill-timed love, striving to remedy all to no purpose, I burst out into an exclamation of distress, 'What is life?' and instantly recollecting that such a subject would be a good one for a poem, I hastily scratted down the two first verses of it, as it stands, and continued my journey to work." When he got to the limekiln he could not work for thinking of the address which he had to write, "so I sat me down on a lime scuttle," he says, "and out with my pencil, and when I had finished I started off for Stamford with it." There he posted the address to Mr. Henson. It ran as follows:--

"Proposals for publishing by subscription a Collection of Original Trifles on Miscellaneous Subjects, Religious and Moral, in verse, by John Clare, of Helpstone. The public are requested to observe that the Trifles humbly offered for their candid perusal can lay no claim to eloquence of composition: whoever thinks so will be deceived, the greater part of them being juvenile productions, and those of later date offsprings of those leisure intervals which the short remittance from hard and manual labour sparingly afforded to compose them. It is to be hoped that the humble situation which distinguishes their author will be some excuse in their favour, and serve to make an atonement for the many inaccuracies and imperfections that will be found in them. The least touch from the iron hand of Criticism is able to crush them to nothing, and sink them at once to utter oblivion. May they be allowed to live their little day and give satisfaction to those who may choose to honour them with a perusal, they will gain the end for which they were designed and the author's wishes will be gratified. Meeting with this encouragement it will induce him to publish a similar collection of which this is offered as a specimen."

The specimen was the "Sonnet to the Setting Sun," in which a comparison is drawn between sunset and the death of a Christian. The address was too artless, too honest, and the people of the Fens, taking Clare at his word, subscribed for exactly seven copies! The state of excitement, caused by mingled hopes and fears, in which Clare was at this time may be seen from the following extract from a letter to Mr. Henson:--"Good God! How great are my expectations! What hopes do I cherish! As great as the unfortunate Chatterton's were, on his first entrance into London, which is now pictured in my mind. And, undoubtedly, like him I may be building castles in the air, but time will prove it. Please to do all in your power to procure subscribers, as your address will be looked upon better than that of a clown. When two are got you may print it, if you please; so do your best."

A FRIEND IN NEED

But now fresh troubles came upon Clare in rapid succession. He quarrelled with Patty and was forbidden the house by her parents. He was discharged by his master on the probably well-grounded plea that he was writing poetry and distributing his address when he ought to be at work, and he was soon without a penny in the world. He returned to Helpstone and tried to get employment as a day labourer, but failed; the farmers, who had heard of the publishing project, considering that "he did not know his place." In this extremity he was compelled to apply for and accept relief from the parish. This was in the autumn of 1818, and Clare was twenty-five years old. Henson declined to begin the printing of the book unless Clare advanced the sum of L15, and this being impossible the negotiation fell through. Clare shortly afterwards, with the two-fold object of finding employment and obtaining relief from mental distraction by change of scene, was on the point of setting out for Yorkshire, when a copy of his prospectus fell under the notice of Mr. Edward Drury, a bookseller, of Stamford. Mr. Drury called upon Clare at his own home, and with difficulty induced him to show him a few of his manuscript poems. Having read, among others, "My love, thou art a nosegay sweet," he was unable to conceal his gratification, and told Clare, to the poor poet's intense delight, that if he would procure the return of the poems in the possession of Mr. Henson he would publish a volume and give Clare the profits after deducting expenses.

On this footing the poet became intimate with Mr. Drury, who frequently entertained him at his house. His letters to Clare are cordial, and disclose an honest desire to be of service to him, on which account it is the more to be regretted that, owing to a dispute which afterwards took place between Mr. Drury and Mr. Taylor, Clare's London publisher, Clare rather ungraciously separated himself from his early friend. He was clearly indebted to Mr. Drury in the first instance for the opportunity of emerging from obscurity into public notice, and also for introductions to Mr. Taylor and Mr. Octavius Gilchrist, both men of influence in literary circles, and both of whom took an active and genuine interest in the young poet. Mr. Taylor, as has been already stated, became his editor and publisher, and remained his faithful friend until after Clare had been lost to public view within the walls of a lunatic asylum.

Towards the end of 1819 Clare met Mr. Taylor at the house of Mr. Gilchrist, in Stamford, and the latter gentleman gave the following account of the interview in a patronizing and not very judicious article which appeared in the "London Magazine" for January, 1820:--

"Mr. Taylor had seen Clare, for the first time, in the morning; and he doubted much if our invitation would be accepted by the rustic poet, who had now just returned from his daily labour, shy, and reserved, and disarrayed as he was. In a few minutes, however, Clare announced his arrival by a hesitating knock at the door--'between a single and a double rap'--and immediately upon his introduction he dropped into a chair. Nothing could exceed the meekness, simplicity, and diffidence with which he answered the various enquiries concerning his life and habits, which we mingled with subjects calculated or designed to put him much at his ease. Of music he expressed himself passionately fond, and had learnt to play a little on the violin, in the humble hope of obtaining a trifle at the annual feasts in the neighbourhood, and at Christmas. The tear stole silently down the cheek of the rustic poet as one of our little party sang 'Auld Robin Gray.'"

Mr. Martin gives a somewhat different account of this interview. He states that the poet took decidedly too much wine, and that while under its influence he wrote some doggerel verses which Mr. Gilchrist had the cruelty to print in the article intended formally to introduce Clare to the notice of the English public. Mr. Gilchrist was an accomplished and warm-hearted man, and it was by his desire that Hilton, the Royal Academical, painted Clare's portrait for exhibition in London, but he presumed too much upon his social superiority, and his judgment was at fault in supposing that the poet was all meekness and diffidence. On one occasion he took him sharply to task for associating with a Nonconformist minister, and Clare warmly resented this interference and for a time absented himself from Mr. Gilchrist's house. A conciliation, however, soon took place, and the poet and the learned grocer of Stamford were fast friends until the death of the latter in 1823.

"HEARKEN UNTO A VERSER"

Clare's first volume was brought out by Taylor and Hessey in January, 1820. It was entitled "Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery," and contained an introduction from the pen of Mr. Taylor. In this preface the peculiarities of Clare's genius were described with force and propriety, his perseverance in the face of great discouragements was commended, and the sympathy and support of the public were invited in the following passage:--

"No poet of our country has shown greater ability under circumstances so hostile to its development. And all this is found here without any of those distressing and revolting alloys which too often debase the native worth of genius, and make him who was gifted with powers to command admiration live to be the object of contempt or pity. The lower the condition of its possessor the more unfavourable, generally, has been the effect of genius on his life. That this has not been the case with Clare may, perhaps, be imputed to the absolute depression of his fortune. When we hear the consciousness of possessing talent, and the natural irritability of the poetic temperament, pleaded in extenuation of the follies and vices of men in high life, let it be accounted no mean praise to such a man as Clare that with all the excitements of their sensibility to his station he has preserved a fair character amid dangers which presumption did not create and difficulties which discretion could not avoid. In the real troubles of life, when they are not brought on by the misconduct of the individual, a strong mind acquires the power of righting itself after each attack, and this philosophy, not to call it by a better name, Clare possesses. If the expectations of a 'better life,' which he cannot help indulging, should all be disappointed by the coldness with which this volume may be received, he can 'put up with distress, and be content.' In one of his letters he says, 'If my hopes don't succeed the hazard is not of much consequence: if I fall, I am advanced at no great distance from my low condition: if I sink for want of friends my old friend Necessity is ready to help me as before. It was never my fortune as yet to meet advancement from friendship: my fate has ever been hard labour among the most vulgar and lowest conditions of men, and very small is the pittance hard labour allows me, though I always toiled even beyond my strength to obtain it.' To see a man of talent struggling under great adversity with such a spirit must surely excite in every generous heart the wish to befriend him. But if it be otherwise, and he should be doomed to remediless misery,

Why, let the stricken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play, For some must watch, while some sleep,-- Thus runs the world away."

Towards the end of January 1820, the Rev Mr. Holland of Northborough, the minister already referred to, called upon Clare with the joyful news that his poems had been published, and that the volume was a great success. Next day a messenger arrived from Stamford with an invitation to the poet to meet Mr. Drury and Mr. Gilchrist. They confirmed the favourable report made by Mr. Holland, and at length Clare had an opportunity of seeing the book which had caused him so many anxious days and sleepless nights. He made no attempt to conceal the honest pride he felt on receiving the congratulations of his friends, and acknowledged his obligation to Mr. Taylor for the editorial pains he had taken to prepare his manuscripts for the press, but he was deeply mortified at the tone of the "Introduction" in which Mr. Taylor dwelt, perhaps unconsciously, on Clare's poverty as constituting his chief claim to public notice.

The success of the "Poems" could scarcely be overstated. The eager curiosity of the public led to the first edition being exhausted in a few days, and a second was promptly announced. "The Gentleman's Magazine," the "New Monthly Magazine," the "Eclectic Review," the "Anti-Jacobin Review," the "London Magazine," and many other periodicals, welcomed the new poet with generous laudation. Following these came the "Quarterly Review," then under the editorship of the trenchant Gifford. To the astonishment of the reading public, the "Quarterly," which about this time "killed poor Keats," admitted a genial article on the rustic bard, and gave him the following excellent advice:--

"We counsel, we entreat him 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 (scenes so congenial to his taste) 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. Of his again encountering the difficulties and privations he lately experienced there is no danger. Report speaks of honourable and noble friends already secured: with the aid of these, the cultivation of his own excellent talents, and a meek but firm reliance on that good Power by whom these were bestowed, he may, without presumption, anticipate a rich reward in the future for the evils endured in the morning of his life."

The estimate formed by the writer of the liberality of Clare's patrons was exaggerated, and instead of there being no danger of his ever again having to encounter difficulties and privations he was scarcely ever free from them until the crowning privation had placed him beyond their influence.

EXAMPLES

The "Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery" were about seventy in number, including twenty-one sonnets. The volume opened with an apostrophe to Helpstone, in the manner of Goldsmith, and among the longer pieces were "The Fate of Amy," "Address to Plenty in Winter," "Summer Morning," "Summer Evening," and "Crazy Nell." The minor pieces included the sonnet "To the Primrose," already quoted, "My love, thou art a Nosegay sweet," and "What is Life?", a reflective poem produced under circumstances with which the reader has been made acquainted. The compositions last named are inserted here as examples of Clare's style at this early period of his career:--

MY LOVE, THOU ART A NOSEGAY SWEET.

My love, thou art a nosegay sweet, My sweetest flower I'll prove thee, And pleased I pin thee to my breast, And dearly do I love thee.