The Life of John Clare

'The principal token of his mental eccentricity was the introduction of prize-fighting, in which he seemed to imagine he was to engage; but the allusion to it was made in the wa...

There was not much progress made in the bookselling business during the next six months. Clare tried all possible means to secure a sale of his works, walking not unfrequently t...

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...

After seeing his sweet companion disappear behind the garden-gate; after hearing the door of the house open and shut, and watching the movement of the lights within the house fo...

I saw thee smile, and took the praise to me. In beauties, past all beauty, thou wert drest: I thought the very clouds around thee knelt, I saw the sun did linger in the West Pay...

There were more lions at a 'London Magazine' dinner which Mr. Taylor gave at the end of another week. It was a kind of state reception, and Clare was put for the occasion in pum...

It did not seem to strike the publishers, to whom this poem, with many similar ones, was submitted, that there was anything beautiful in it; and after having travelled up and do...

It was not long before Clare's old love of nature came back with such renewed ardour that he could not be made to stop a single day at home. Whenever the weather was moderately...

One of Clare's first visits in London was to Allan Cunningham He was received as a brother by the warm-hearted Scotchman, and encouraged to unburthen his whole heart. Allan now...

For two winters and part of a wet summer, John Clare went to Mr. Merrishaw's school at Glinton, during short intervals of hard labour in the fields. At the end of this period a...

Some forty years ago, the literary world rapturously hailed the appearance of a new poet, brought forward as 'the Northamptonshire Peasant' and 'the English Burns.' There was no...

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 t...

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 an...

Before Mr. Taylor left Helpston, he gave his client an invitation to come up to London, and spend a few weeks at his house. Perhaps the offer was meant only as a polite phrase,...

After some lengthened correspondence between Clare and his publishers, it was arranged that the new work should be brought out in two volumes in the summer of 1821. This made it...

Once more a farm-labourer at Helpston, John Clare was all his own again. Thomson's 'Seasons' never left his pocket; he read the book when going to the fields in the morning, and...

Mr. Taylor replied in a bland, dignified manner. The 'friends,' he reported to be well; but said nothing about what the poet was most desirous of knowing, the fate of his new vo...

In the summer of 1825, Clare's pecuniary embarrassments grew to a climax. He could not refuse anything to his family; and though living personally worse than a beggar, eating li...

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 bef...

The Helpston group of warriors having been joined by other clusters from various parts of the county of Northampton, the whole regiment of raw recruits was marched along, one fi...

The return journey to Stamford which Clare and Octavius Gilchrist had arranged to make together, was made impossible, on the part of the latter, by his continued illness. In ord...

Just before quitting the 'Blue Bell,' at the end of his twelve months' service, another important event took place in the life of John Clare. One morning, while tending his mast...

There was little intercommunication at this time between Stamford, Helpston, and London. Mr. Gilchrist's literary friends scarcely knew of the serious turn his illness had taken...

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 thoug...

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;...

The poet's glorious intellect was gone; he sat there bereft of reason; body and soul alike shattered and broken to pieces. Yet on the wreck and ruins of all this mass of marvell...