DESCRIPTIVE OF
RURAL LIFE AND
SCENERY.
………………………………………………….…………………………………….
_______________
T. Miller, Printer, Noble Street,
Cheapside, London.
.
……………………………………………..…………………………………………
DESCRIPTIVE OF
RURAL LIFE AND
SCENERY.
BY JOHN CLARE,
A NORTHAMPTONSHIRE PEASANT.
“The Summer’s Flower is to the Summer sweet,
“Though to itself it only live and die.”
Shakspeare.
SECOND EDITION.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY, FLEET STREET;
AND E. DRURY, STAMFORD.
____
1820.
………………..……..…………………………………………………………………
………………..……..…………………………………………………………………
CONTENTS.
________
POEMS.
Page
INTRODUCTION……………………………..…………… i
HELPSTONE…………………………………………….…. 1
Address to a Lark, singing in Winter……………………… 12
The Fate of Amy.—A Tale………………………………... 16
Evening……………………………………………………. 30
What is Life?……………………………………………..... 35
On a lost Greyhound lying on the Snow………………...
… 37
A Reflection in Autumn………………………………..….. 41
The Robin………………………………………………….. 42
Epigram……………………………………………………. 44
Address to Plenty, in Winter………………………………. 45
The Fountain………………………………………..……... 59
To an insignificant Flower, obscurely blooming in a
lonely
Wild…………………………………………..….. 62
Elegy on the Ruins of Pickworth, Rutlandshire.
Hastily
composed, and written with a
Pencil on the Spot... 65
Noon……………………………………………………..…. 69
The Village Funeral…………………………………….…… 73
Early Rising…………………………………………………. 79
To a Rose-bud in humble
Life………………….…………… 82
vi………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
Page
The Universal Epitaph………………………………………. 85
Familiar Epistle, to a Friend………………………………… 86
The Harvest Morning……………………………………….. 92
On Beauty…………………………………………………… 97
On an Infant’s Grave………………………………………... 98
On Cruelty………………………………………………….. 99
On the Death of a beautiful young
Lady…………………… 102
Falling Leaves……………………………………………… 104
The Contrast of Beauty and Virtue………………………… 106
To an April Daisy……………..…………………………… 108
To Hope……………………………………………………. 110
An Effusion to Poesy, on receiving a Damp from a
genteel
Opinionist in Poetry, of some
sway, as I am told, in
the literary
World……………………………….. 111
The Poet’s Wish………………………………………….… 113
Summer Evening……………………………………….…... 118
Summer Morning……………………………………….….. 127
Dawnings of Genius…………………………………….….. 135
To a cold Beauty, insensible of Love…………………….… 138
Patty………………………………………………………... 140
On Youth……………………………………………...…… 142
The Adieu………………………………………………….. 143
Crazy Nell.—A true Story…………………………………. 145
Dolly’s Mistake; or, the Ways of the
Wake………….……...153
My Mary…………………………………………………… 159
_________
SONGS AND
BALLADS.
Upon the Plain.—A Ballad…………………………………. 167
vi Friend Lubin…………………………………………………171
vii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
Page
Patty of the Vale……………………………………………. 172
Sad was the Day……………………………………………. 174
To-day the Fox must Die.—A Hunting Song………………..176
My last Shilling………………………………………………179
Her I Love……………………………………………………182
My Love, thou art a Nosegay sweet…………………………184
My Love’s like a Lily………………………………………..185
True Love…………………………………………………… 187
The First of May.—A Ballad……………………………….. 188
__________
SONNETS.
The Setting Sun……………………………………………... 193
The Primrose…………………………………………………194
Christian Faith………………………………………………. 195
The Moon…………………………………………………….196
The Gipsy’s Evening Blaze…………………………………..197
A Scene……………………………………………………….198
To the Glow-worm………………………………………….. 199
The Ant………………………………………………………200
To Hope……………………………………………………... 201
A Winter Scene……………………………………………… 202
Evening……………………………………………………… 203
To the Winds…………………………………………………204
Native Scenes………………………………………………...205
To a favourite Tree……………………………………..….. 206
Approach of Spring……………………………………..….. 207
Summer………………………………………………….... 208
vii The River Gwash…………………………………………... 209
viii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
Page
To Religion…………………………………………………. 210
Anxiety……………………………………………………... 211
Expectation……………………………………………….… 212
To my Oaten Reed………………………………………….. 213
Glossary………………………………………………….…. 215
viii
………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
INTRODUCTION.
________
THE following Poems will probably attract some
notice by their intrinsic merit; but they are also
entitled to attention from the circumstances under
which they were written. They are the genuine
productions of a young Peasant, a day-labourer in
husbandry, who has had no advantages of education
beyond others of his class; and though Poets in
this country have seldom been fortunate men,
yet he is, perhaps, the least favoured by circum-
stances, and the most destitute of friends, of any 10
that ever existed.
JOHN CLARE, the author of this Volume, was
born at Helpstone, near Peterborough, Northamp-
tonshire, on the 13th of July, 1793. He is the only
son of Parker and Ann Clare, who are also natives
ii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
of the same village, where they have always resided
in extreme poverty; nor are they aware that any of
their ancestors have been in better circumstances.
Parker Clare is a farmer’s labourer, and latterly
he was employed in threshing; but violent colds 20
brought on the rheumatism to such a degree that he
was at length unable to work, or even to move
without assistance. By the kind liberality of Lord
Milton he was then sent to the Sea-bathing In-
firmary at Scarborough, where he found great relief;
but returning home part of the way on foot, from a
desire to save expenses, his exertions and exposure
to the weather brought on the pain again, and re-
duced him to a more deplorable state than ever.
He is now a helpless cripple, and a pauper, receiv- 30
ing an allowance of five shillings a week from the
parish.
JOHN CLARE has always lived with his parents
at Helpstone, except for those short periods when
the distance to which he was obliged to go for work
prevented his return every evening. At his own
home, therefore, he saw Poverty in all its most
affecting shapes, and when he speaks of it, as in
the Address to Plenty, p.48,
“Oh, sad
sons of Poverty! 40
ii Victims
doom’d to misery;
iii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
Who can paint what pain prevails
O’er that heart which want assails?
Modest Shame the pain conceals:
No one knows, but he who feels”——
And again:
“Toiling
in the naked fields,
Where
no bush a shelter yields,
Needy
Labour dithering stands,
Beats
and blows his numbing hands; 50
And
upon the crumping snows
Stamps,
in vain, to warm his toes”——
he utters “no idly-feign’d poetic pains:” it is a
picture of what he has constantly witnessed and
felt. One of our poets has gained great credit by
his exterior delineations of what the poor man suf-
fers; but in the reality of wretchedness, when “the
iron enters into the soul,” there is a tone which can-
not be imitated. CLARE has here an unhappy ad-
vantage over other poets. The most miserable of 60
them were not always wretched. Penury and
disease were not constantly at their heels, nor was
pauperism their only prospect. But he has no
other, for the lot which has befallen his father, may,
with too much reason, be looked forward to as the
portion of his own old age. In the “annals of the
poor” want occupies a part of every page, except
iii the last, where the scene changes to the workhouse;
iv………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
but then the burthen which is taken from the body
is laid upon the spirit: at least it would be so with 70
CLARE; for though the contemplation of parochial
relief may administer to some minds a thankless,
hopeless sort of consolation, under the pressure of
extreme distress, yet to the writer of the following
lines it must be the highest aggravation of afflic-
tion:—
“Oh,
may I die, before I’m doom’d to seek
That last resource of hope, but ill
supplied;
To
claim the humble pittance once a week,
Which justice forces from disdainful
pride!” (p.78.) 80
While such was the destitute condition of his
parents, it may seem extraordinary that CLARE
should have found the means to acquire any learn-
ing whatever; but by extra work as a ploughboy,
and by helping his father morning and evening at
threshing, he earned the money which paid for his
education. From the labour of eight weeks he
generally acquired as many pence as would pay for
a month’s schooling; and thus in the course of
three years he received, at different times, so much 90
instruction that he could read very well in the
Bible. He considers himself to have derived much
benefit from the judicious encouragement of his
schoolmaster, Mr. Seaton, of Glinton, an adjoining
iv parish, from whom he sometimes obtained three-
v………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
pence a week in rewards, and who once gave him
sixpence for repeating, from memory, the third
chapter of Job. With these little sums he bought
a few books.
When he had learned to read tolerably well, he 100
borrowed from one of his companions that universal
favourite, Robinson Crusoe, and in the perusal of
this he greatly increased his stock of knowledge
and his desire for reading. He was thirteen years
of age when another boy shewed him Thomson’s
Seasons. They were out in the fields together, and
during the day CLARE had a good opportunity of
looking at the book. It called forth all the passion
of his soul for poetry. He was determined to pos-
sess the work himself; and as soon as he had saved 110
a shilling to buy it with, he set off for Stamford at
so early an hour, that none of the shops were open
when he got there. It was a fine Spring morning;
and after he had made his purchase, he was re-
turning through the beautiful scenery of Burghley
Park, when he composed his first piece of poetry,
which he called “The Morning Walk.” This was
soon followed by the “Evening Walk,” and some
other little pieces.
v But the first expression of his fondness for Poetry 120
vi………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
was before he had learnt to read. He was tired
one day with looking at the pictures in a volume of
poems, which he thinks were Pomfret’s, when his
father read him one piece in the book to amuse him.
The delight he felt, at hearing this read, still warms
him when he thinks of the circumstance; but though
he distinctly recollects the vivid pleasure which
thrilled through him then, he has lost all trace
of the incidents as well as of the language, nor can
he find any poem of Pomfret’s at all answering the 130
faint conception he retains of it. It is possible
that his chief gratification was in the harmony of the
numbers, and that he had thoughts of his own float-
ing onward with the verse very different from those
which the same words would now suggest. The
various melody of the earliest of his own composi-
tions is some argument in favour of this opinion.
His love of Poetry, however, would soon have
spent itself in compositions as little to be remem-
bered as that which has just been mentioned, had it 140
not been for the kindness of Mr. John Turnill, late
of Helpstone, now in the Excise, who was indeed
a benefactor to him. From his instruction CLARE,
though he knew a little of the rudiments before,
learnt Writing and Arithmetic; and to this friend
vi he must, therefore, consider himself indebted for
vii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
whatever good may accrue to him from the exercise
of those powers of mind with which he is naturally
endowed. For it is very probable, that, without
the means of recording his productions on paper, 150
CLARE would not only have lost the advantage he
may derive from the publication of his works, but
that also in himself he would not have been the
Poet he is; that, without writing down his thoughts,
he could not have evolved them from his mind;
and that his vocabulary would have been too scanty
to express even what his imagination had strength
enough to conceive. Besides, if he did succeed in
partial instances, the aggregate amount of them
could not have been collected and estimated. A 160
few detached songs or short passages might be,
perhaps, treasured in the memory of his companions
for a short period, but they would soon perish,
leaving his name and fame without a record.
In the “Dawnings of Genius,” CLARE describes
the condition of a man, whose education has been
too contracted to allow him to utter the thoughts
of which he is conscious:—
“Thus
pausing wild on all he saunters by,
He
feels enraptur’d though he knows not why; 170
And
hums and mutters o’er his joys in vain,
vii And dwells on something which he can’t explain.
viii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
The
bursts of thought, with which his soul’s perplex’d,
Are
bred one moment, and are gone the next;
Yet
still the heart will kindling sparks retain,
And
thoughts will rise, and Fancy strive again.”
There is, perhaps, no feeling so distressing to the
individual, as that of Genius thus struggling in vain
for sounds to convey an idea of its almost intoler-
able sensations, 180
“Till
by successless sallies wearied quite,
The
Memory fails, and Fancy takes her flight;
The
wick confin’d within the socket dies,
Borne
down and smother’d in a thousand sighs.”
that this would have been CLARE’s fate, unless
he had been taught to write, cannot be doubted;
and a perusal of his Poems will convince any one,
that something of this kind he still feels, from his
inability to find those words which can fully declare
his meaning. From the want of a due supply of 190
these, and from his ignorance of grammar, he seems
to labour under great disadvantages. On the other
hand, his want forces him to an extraordinary exertion
of his native powers, in order to supply the deficiency.
He employs the language under his command with
great effect, in those unusual and unprecedented
combinations of words which must be made, even
viii by the learned, when they attempt to describe per-
ix………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
fectly something which they have never seen or
heard expressed before. And in this respect 200
CLARE’s deficiencies are the cause of many beau-
ties,—for though he must, of course, innovate, that
he may succeed in his purpose, yet he does it ac-
cording to that rational mode of procedure, by
which all languages have been formed and per-
fected. Thus he frequently makes verbs of sub-
stantives, as in the lines,
“Dark
and darker glooms the sky”——
“To
pint it just at my desire”——
Or verbs of adjectives, as in the following, 210
“Spring’s pencil pinks thee in thy flushy
stain.”
But in this he has done no more than the man who
first employed crimson as a verb: and as we had no
word that would in such brief compass supply so
clearly the sense of this, he was justified no doubt
in taking it. Some future writers may, perhaps,
feel thankful for the precedent. But there is no
innovation in such cases as these. Inseparably
connected with the use of speech is the privilege to
abbreviate; and those new ideas, which in one age 220
are obliged to be communicated paraphrastically,
have generally in the next some definite term as-
ix signed them: so legitimate, however, is the process
x………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
of this, by reason of certain laws of analogy which
are inherent in the mind of man, and universally
attended to in the formation of new words, that no
confusion can arise; for the word thus introduced
into a language always contains its meaning in its
derivation and composition, except it be such mere
cant as is not meant to live beyond the day; and 230
further, the correspondent word to it may always
be found in other more perfect languages, if the
people who spoke that language were alike conver-
sant with the idea, and equally under the tempta-
tion of employing some word to signify it.
But a very great number of those words which
are generally called new, are, in fact, some of the
oldest in our language: many of them are extant in
the works of our earliest authors; and a still greater
number float on the popular voice, preserved only 240
by tradition, till the same things to which they were
originally applied again attract notice, and some
writer, in want of the word, either ignorantly or
wisely, but in either case happily, restores it to its
proper place. Many of the provincial expressions,
to which CLARE has been forced to have recourse,
are of this description, forming part of a large num-
ber which may be called the unwritten language of
x England. They were once, perhaps, as current
xi………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
throughout the land, and are still many of them as 250
well-sounding and significant, as any that are sanc-
tioned by the press. In the midland counties they
are readily understood without a glossary; but, for
the use of those who are unaccustomed to them, all
such as are not to be found in Johnson’s Dictionary
will be printed at the end, with explanations.
Another peculiarity in CLARE’s writing, which
may be the occasion of some misunderstanding in
those who are critically nice in the construction of
a sentence, is the indifference with which he regards 260
words as governing each other; but this defect,
which arises from his evident ignorance of grammar,
is never so great as to give any real embarrassment
to the reader*. An example occurs at p. 41:—
“Just so ’twill fare with me in Autumn’s Life,”
instead of “the Autumn of Life;” but who can
doubt the sense? And it may be worth while to
mention here another line, which for the same rea-
son may be objected to by some persons:—
“But still Hope’s smiles unpoint the thorns of Care”—— 270
* The
irregularity here mentioned was, from the same cause,
practised
by Shakspeare.—See Ritson’s note, Shaks. vol. xi. p. 106.
xi Edit. 21 vols.
1813.
xii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
as if he had intended to say “Hope smiling;” yet
as the passage now stands it has also great pro-
priety, and the Poet’s conception of the effect of
those smiles may have been, that they could blunt
the thorns of care. But CLARE, as well as many
other poets, does not regard language in the same
way that a logician does. He considers it collec-
tively rather than in detail, and paints up to his mind’s
original by mingling words, as a painter mixes his
colours. And without this method, it would be im- 280
possible to convey to the understanding of the
reader an adequate notion of some things, and
especially of the effects of nature, seen under cer-
tain influences of time, circumstance, and colour.
In Prose these things are never attempted, unless
with great circumlocution; but Poetry is always
straining after them concisely, as they increase her
power of giving pleasure; and much allowance ought
to be made if her efforts in this way are not always
successful. Instances of the free grouping of words 290
occur in the Sonnet to the Glow-worm:—
“Tasteful
Illumination of the night!
Bright,
scatter’d, twinkling star of spangled earth,” &c.
And in the following lines:—
“Aside
the green hill’s steepy brow,
Where
shades the oak its darksome bough.”
xii (p.
81.)
xiii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
“So
have I mark’d the dying embers light,——
With
glimmering glow oft redden up again,
And
sparks crack’d brightening into life, in vain.” 300
(p. 137.)
“Brisk
winds the lighten’d branches shake,
By pattering, plashing drops
confess’d;
And,
where oaks dripping shade the lake,
Print crimpling dimples on its breast.”
(p. 134.)
Examples of the use of Colour may be seen in
the Sonnets—To the Primrose, p. 176, The Gipsy’s
Evening Blaze, p. 179, A Scene, p. 180, and in the
following verse:— 310
“First sunbeam, calling night away,
To see how sweet thy summons seems,
Split
by the willow’s wavy grey,
And sweetly dancing on the streams.”
(p.130.)
The whole of the Sonnet to the river Gwash is an
instance of it, down to the line
“And moss and ivy speckling on my eye.”
A dry critic would call the former passages re-
dundant in epithets; and the word speckling would 320
excite, perhaps, his spleen in the latter: but ask
the question, and you will probably find that this
critic himself has no eye for colour,—that the light,
xiii and shade, and mezzotint of a landscape, have no
xiv………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
charms for him,—that “his eye indeed is open,
but its sense is shut;” and then, what dependance
can be placed upon his judgment in these matters?
CLARE, it is evident, is susceptible of extreme
pleasure from the varied hues, forms, and combin-
ations in nature, and what he most enjoys, he en- 330
deavours to pourtray for the gratification of others.
He is most thoroughly the Poet as well as the Child
of Nature; and, according to his opportunities, no
poet has more completely devoted himself to her
service, studied her more closely, or exhibited so
many sketches of her under new and interesting
appearances. There is some merit in all this, for
Wordsworth asserts, “that, excepting a passage or
two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, and some de-
lightful pictures in the Poems of Lady Winchelsea, 340
the Poetry of the period intervening between the
publication of the Paradise Lost, and the Seasons
[60 years], does not contain a single new image
of external nature.” But CLARE has no idea
of excelling others in doing this. He loves the
fields, the flowers, “the common air, the sun, the
skies;” and, therefore, he writes about them. He
is happier in the presence of Nature than else-
where. He looks as anxiously on her face as
xiv if she were a living friend, whom he might lose; 350
xv………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
and hence he has learnt to notice every change in
her countenance, and to delineate all the delicate
varieties of her character. Most of his poems were
composed under the immediate impression of this
feeling, in the fields, or on the road-sides. He
could not trust his memory, and therefore he
wrote them down with a pencil on the spot, his
hat serving him for a desk; and if it happened
that he had no opportunity soon after of transcrib-
ing these imperfect memorials, he could seldom 360
decypher them, or recover his first thoughts.
From this cause several of his poems are quite
lost, and others exist only in fragments. Of those
which he had committed to writing, especially his
earlier pieces, many were destroyed from another
circumstance, which shews how little he expected
to please others with them : from a hole in the wall
of his room, where he stuffed his manuscripts, a
piece of paper was often taken to hold the kettle
with, or light the fire. 370
It is now thirteen years since CLARE composed
his first poem: in all that time he has gone on
secretly cultivating, his taste and talent for poetry,
without one word of encouragement, or the most
distant prospect of reward. That passion must
xv have been originally very strong and pure, which
xvi………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
could sustain itself, for so many years, through
want, and toil, and hopeless misery. His labour
in the fields through all seasons, it might be thought,
would have disgusted him with those objects which 380
he so much admired at first; and his taste might
have altered with his age: but the foundation of
his regard was too deeply laid in truth to be shaken.
On the contrary, he found delight in scenes which
no other poet has thought of celebrating. “The
swampy falls of pasture ground, and rushy spread-
ing greens,” “plashy streams,” and “weed-beds
wild and rank,” give him as much real transport
as common minds feel at what are called the most
romantic prospects. And if there were any question 390
as to the intensity or sincerity of his feeling for
Poetry and Nature, the commendation of these
simple, unthought of, and generally despised objects
would decide it.
Of the poems which form the present collection
some few were among CLARE’s earliest efforts.
The Fate of Amy was begun when he was fourteen;
Helpstone, The Gipsy’s Evening Blaze, Reflection
in Autumn, The Robin, Noon, The Universal
Epitaph, and some others, were written before he 400
was seventeen. The rest bear various dates, but
xvi the greater number are of recent origin. The
xvii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
Village Funeral was written in 1815; The Address
to Plenty, in December 1817; The Elegy on the
Ruins of Pickworth, in 1818. To describe the oc-
cupations of CLARE, we must not say that Labour
and the Muse went hand in hand: they rather kept
alternate watch, and when Labour was exhausted
with fatigue, she “cheer’d his needy toilings with
a song.” In a note on this poem, CLARE says, 410
“The Elegy on the Ruins of Pickworth was
written one Sunday morning, after I had been help-
ing to dig the hole for a lime-kiln, where the many
fragments of mortality and perished ruins inspired
me with thoughts of other times, and warmed me
into song.”
In the last two years he has written, What is
Life? The Fountain, My Mary, To a Rosebud,
Effusion to Poesy, The Summer Evening, Sum-
mer Morning, First of May, The Dawnings of 420
Genius, The Contrast, Dolly’s Mistake, Harvest
Morning, The Poet’s Wish, Crazy Nell, and
several other pieces, with almost all the Sonnets.
One of the last productions of CLARE’s fancy is the
following Song, which, as it came too late to be in-
serted in its proper place in this volume, may as
well appear here, where it fitly closes the chronicle
xvii of his Poems.
xviii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
THE MEETING.
HERE we meet, too soon to part, 430
Here to leave will raise a smart,
Here I’ll press thee to my heart,
Where none have place above thee:
Here I vow to love thee well,
And could words unseal the spell,
Had but language strength to tell,
I’d say how much I love thee.
Here, the rose that decks thy door,
Here, the thorn that spreads thy bow’r,
Here, the willow on the moor, 440
The birds at rest above thee,
Had they light of life to see,
Sense of soul like thee and me,
Soon might each a witness be
xviii How doatingly I love thee.
xix………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
By the night-sky’s purple ether,
And by even’s sweetest weather,
That oft has blest us both together,—
The moon that shines above thee,
And shews thy beauteous cheek so blooming, 450
And by pale age’s winter coming,
The charms, and casualties of woman,
I will for ever love thee.
This song is written nearly in the metre of one by
Burns, “O were I on Parnassus’ Hill,” and the
subject is the same, but in the execution they are
quite different. CLARE has a great delight in try-
ing to run races with other men, and unluckily this
cannot always be attempted without subjecting him
to the charge of imitating; but he will be found free 460
from this imputation in all the best parts of his
poetry, and in the present instance it may be worth
while comparing him with his prototype, to see how
little he stands in need of such assistance. The
propensity to emulate another is a youthful emotion,
and in his friendless state it afforded him an obvi-
ous, and, perhaps, the only mode of endeavouring
to ascertain what kind and degree of ability he pos-
xix sessed as a Poet.
xx………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
This song, “The Meeting,” was written at 470
Helpstone, where CLARE is again residing with his
parents, working for any one who will employ him,
but without any regular occupation. He had an
engagement during the greater part of the year with
Mr. Wilders, of Bridge-Casterton, two miles north
of Stamford; where the river Gwash, which crosses
the road, gave him a subject for one of his Sonnets.
(p. 191.) His wages were nine shillings a week,
and his food; out of which he had to pay one
shilling and sixpence a week for a bed, it being im- 480
possible that he could return every night to Help-
stone, a distance of nine miles: but at the beginning
of November, his employer proposed to allow him
only seven shillings a week; on which, he quitted
his service and returned home.
It was an accident which led to the publication
of these Poems. In December 1818, Mr. Edward
Drury, Bookseller, of Stamford, met by chance
with the Sonnet to the Setting Sun, written on a
piece of paper in which a letter had been wrapped 490
up, and signed J.C. Having ascertained the name
and residence of the writer, he went to Helpstone,
where he saw some other poems with which he was
much pleased. At his request, CLARE made a
xx collection of the pieces he had written, and added
xxi………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
some others to them. They were then sent to
London, for the opinion of the publishers, and they
selected those which form the present volume.
They have been printed with the usual corrections
only of orthography and grammar, in such instances 500
as allowed of its being done without changing the
words: the proofs were then revised by CLARE, and
a few alterations were made at his desire. The
original MSS. may be seen at Messrs. Taylor and
Hessey’s.
The Author and his Poems are now before the
public; and its decision will speedily fix the fate of
the one, and, ultimately, that of the other: but
whatever be the result to either, this will at least
be granted, that no Poet of our country has shewn 510
greater ability, under circumstances so hostile to its
developement. 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 abso- 520
xxi lute depression of his fortune. It is certain that he
xxii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
has not had the opportunity hitherto of being injured
by prosperity; and that he may escape in future, it
is hoped that those persons who intend to shew
him kindness, will not do it suddenly or partially,
but so as it will yield him permanent benefit. Yet
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 530
praise to such a man as CLARE, that, with all the
excitements of their sensibility in his station, he has
preserved a fair character, amid dangers which pre-
sumption did not create, and difficulties which dis-
cretion could not avoid. In the real troubles of
life, when they are not brought on by the miscon-
duct 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 “better life,” 540
which he cannot help indulging, should all be dis-
appointed, by the coldness with which this volume
may be received, he can
“——put up with distress, and be content.”
(p. 4)
In one of his letters he says, “If my hopes don’t
xxii succeed, the hazard is not of much consequence:
xxiii………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….
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 550
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 gene-
rous heart the wish to befriend him. But if it be
otherwise, and he should be doomed to remediless 560
misery,
“Why let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep,—
xxiii Thus runs the world away.”
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