AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENTS

I cannot trace my name to any remote period a century and a half is the utmost and in this I have found no great ancestors to boast in the breed — all I can make out is that they were Gardeners Parish Clerks and fiddlers and from these has sprung a large family of the name still increasing were kindred has forgotten its claims and 2^nd and 3^rd cousins are worn out

[A32, 7]

[Holidays]

What ups and downs have I met with since I was a boy     how barren the world looking about me     now years come and go like messengers without errands and are not noticd for the tales which they tell are not worth stopping them to hear     nothing but cares and dissa[point]ments    when I was1 a boy a week scarcly came without a promise of some fresh delight     Hopes were always awake with expectations     the year was crowned with holidays

[B5, 46]

and then the year usd to be crownd with its holidays as thick as the boughs on a harvest home     there was the long wishd for christmass day the celebrated week with two Sundays when we usd to watch the clerk return with his bundle of ever greens and run for our bunch to stick the windows and empty candlesticks hanging in the corner or hasten to the woods to gett ivy branches with its joccolate berrys which our parents usd to color with whitening and the blu[e]bag sticking the branches behind the pictures on the walls

then came valentine     tho young we was not without loves     we had our favourites in the village and we listend the expected noises of creeping feet and the tinkling latch as eagerly as upgrown loves     wether they came or not it made no matter     dissapointments was nothing in those matters then     the pleasures of anticipation was all — then came the first of april     o how we talkd and harpd of it ere it came of how we woud make     april fools of others and take care not to be catchd our selves when as soon as the day came we were the first to be taken in by running unconsiously on errands for Piegons milk glass eyd needles or some such april fool errands     when we were undecievd we blushd for shame and took care not to be taken in till the day returnd again — when the old deceptions were so far forgotten as to decieve us again     then there was the first of may     we were too young to be claimants in the upgrown sports but we joind our little interferances with them and run under the extended hankerchiefs at duck under water with the rest unmolested     then came the feast when the cross was throngd round with stalls of toys and sweets horses on w[h]eels with their flowing manes and lambs with their red necklaces box cuckoos and we lookd on these finerys till the imaganation almost coaxd our itching fingers to steal and seemd to upbraid our fears for not daring to do it     then the sweet meats was unbounded     their was barly sugar candied lemon candied hore[h]ound and candied peppermint with swarms of colord sugar plumbs and tins of lollipop     our mouths waterd at such luxurys     we had our penny but we knew not how to lay it out     there was ginger bread coaches and ginger bread milk maids and to gratifye two propensitys the taste and the fancy together we bought one of these gilded toys and thought we had husbanded our pennys well till they was gone and then we went runing and coaxing our parents for more thinking of making better bargains when we got money agen     then there was eastwell spring2 famous in those days for its spaws and its trough at the fountain were we usd to meet of a sunday and have sugard drink then came the she[e]p-[s]heerings were we was sure of frumity from the old shepherds if we sought the clipping pens and lastly came the harvest home3 and its cross shittles     ah what a paradise begins with the ignorance of life and what a wilderness the knowledge of the world discloses     surely the garden of eden was nothing more then our first parents entrance upon life and the loss of it their knowledge of the world

[B8, R127-R126]

surely our play prolonging moon on spring evenings shed a richer lustre then the mid day sun that surrounds us now in manhood for its poetical sunshine hath left us     it is the same identical sun and we have learned to know that — for when boys every new day brought a new sun     we knew no better and we was happy in our ignorance — there is nothing of that new and refreshing sunshine upon the picture now     it shines from the heavens upon real matter of fact existances and weary occupations

[A46, 106]

The spring of our life — our youth — is the midsumer of our happiness — our pleasures are then real and heart stiring — they are but assosiations afterwards — where we laughed in child hood at the reality of the enjoyment felt we only smile in man hood4 at the reccolections of those enjoyments — they are then but the reflections of past happiness and have no more to do with happiness in the reality then the image of a beautiful girl seen in a looking glass has in comparison with the origional — our minds only retain the resemblance     the glass is a blank after her departure — we only feel the joy we possesed — we see the daisey and love it because it was our first favourite in child hood     we hear the nightingale and are delighted because it was such a favourite in youth and the haunts of its annual visits being the paradise of boyhood — green thickets where the leaves hid him from all but joys

[D10, 7r]

There is nothing but poetry about the existance of childhood real simple soul moving poetry the laughter and joy of poetry and not its philosophy and there is nothing of poetry about manhood but the reflection and the remembrance of what has been     nothing more

[A46, 106]

[Leisure]

I lovd to employ leisure when a boy in wandering about the fields watching the habits of birds to see the wood pecker s[w]eeing away in its ups and downs and the jay bird chattering by the wood side its restless warnings of passing clowns the travels of insects were the black beetle nimbld along and the opening of field flowers     such amusments gave me the greatest of pleasures but I coud not acco[u]nt for the reason why they did so     a lonly nook a rude bridge or woodland style with ivy growing around the posts delighted me and made lasting impressions on my feelings but I knew nothing of poetry then     yet I noticd every thing as anxious as I do now and every thing pleasd me as much     I thought the gipseys camp by the green wood side a picturesque and an adorning object to nature and I lovd the gipseys for the beautys which they added to the landscape     I heard the cuckoos ‘wandering voise’ and the restless song of the Nightingale and was delighted while I pausd and mutterd its sweet jug jug as I passd its black thorn bower     I often pulld my hat over my eyes to watch the rising of the lark or to see the hawk hang in the summer sky and the kite take its circles round the wood     I have often lingerd a minute on the woodland stile to hear the wood pigions clapping their wings among the dark oaks     I hunted curious flowers in raptures and mutterd thoughts in their praise     I lovd the pasture with its rushes and thistles and sheep tracks     I adord the wild marshy fen with its solitary hernshaw sweeing along in its mellan[c]holy sky     I wandered the heath in raptures among the rabbit burrows and golden blossomd furze     I dropt down on a thymy mole hill or mossy eminence to survey the summer landscape as full of raptures as now     I markd the varied colors in flat spreading fields checkerd with closes of different tinted grain like the colors in a map the copper tinted colors of clover in blossom the sun tand green of the ripening hay the lighter hues of wheat and barley intermixd with the sunny glare of the yellow c[h]arlock and the sunset imitation of the scarlet head aches with the blue corn bottles crowding thier splendid colors in large sheets over the lands and ‘troubling the corn fields’ with destroying beauty the different greens of the woodland trees the dark oak the paler ash the mellow Lime the white poplar peeping above the rest like leafy steeples the grey willow shining chilly in the sun as if the morning mist still lingerd in its cool green     I felt the beauty of these with eager delight     the gad flyes noon day hum the fainter murmer of the bee flye ‘spiring in the evening ray’ the dragon flyes in their spangld coats darting like ‘winged arrows down the stream’ the swallow darting through its one arched brig the shepherd hiding from a thunder shower in an hollow dotterel the wild geese scudding along and making all the letters of the Alphabet as they flew the motley clouds the whispering wind that mutterd to the leaves and summer grass as it flutterd among them like things at play     I observd all this with the same raptures as I have done since but I knew nothing of poetry     it was felt and not utterd     most of my Sundays was spent in this manner about the fields with such merry company     I heard the black and the brown beetle sing their evening songs with rapture and lovd to see the black snail steal out upon its dewy baulks     I saw the humble horse bee at noon ‘spiring’ on wanton wing     I lovd to meet the woodman whistling away to his toils and to see the shepherd bending oer his hook on the thistly green chatting love storys to the listening maiden while she milkd her brindld cow     the first primrose in spring was as delightful as it is now     the copper colord clouds of the morning was watchd and the little ups and downs and roly poly child mountains of the broken heath with their brown mossy crowns and little green bottoms were the sheep feed and hide from the sun     the stone quarry with its magnified precipic[e]s     the wind mills sweeing idly to the sum[m]er wind     the steeples peeping among the trees round the orisons circle

I noticd the cracking of the stubbs to the increasing sun while I gleand among them I lovd to see the heavey grassopper in his coat of delicate green bounce from stub to stub     I listend the hedge cricket with raptures

the evening call of the patridge     the misterious spring sound of the land rail that cometh with the green corn

I lovd the meadow lake with its fl[a]gs and long purples crowding the waters edge     I listend with delights to hear the wind whisper among the feather topt reeds and to see the taper bulrush nodding in gentle curves to the rippling water and I watchd with delight on haymaking evenings the setting sun drop behind the brigs and peep again thro the half circle of the arches as if he longs to stay

[A34, R16-R14]

I had plenty of leisure but it was the leisure of solitude for my Sundays was demanded to be spent in the fields at horse or cow tending     my whole summer was one days employment as it were in the fields     I grew so much into the qu[i]et love of nature[s] presence that I was never easy but when I was in the fields passing my sabbaths and leisures with the shepherds and herd boys5 as fancys prompted somtimes playing at marbles on the smooth beaten sheep tracks or leap frog among the thimey molehills somtimes ranging among the corn to get the red and blue flowers for cockades to play at soldiers or runing into the woods to hunt strawberrys or stealing peas in church time when the owners was safe to boil at the gipseys fire who went half shares at our stolen luxury     we heard the bells chime but the fields was our church and we seemd to feel a religious feeling in our haunts on the sabbath while some old shepherd sat on a mole hill reading aloud some favour[i]te chapter from an old fragment of a Bible which he carried in his pocket for the day a family relic which possesd on its covers and title pages in rude scrawls geneoligys of the third and fourth Generations when aunts uncles and grandmothers dyd and when cousins etc were marri[e]d and brothers and sisters born occupying all the blank leaves in the book and the title pages bhorders which leaves were prese [r]ved with a sacred veneration tho half the contents had been sufferd to drop out and be lost

I lovd this solitary disposition from a boy and felt a curosity to wander about the spots were I had never been before     I remember one incident of this feeling when I was very young     it cost my parents some anxiety     it was in summer and I started off in the morning to get rotten sticks from the woods but I had a feeling to wander about the fields and I indulgd it     I had often seen the large heath calld Emmonsales6 stretching its yellow furze from my eye into unknown solitudes when I went with the mere openers and my curosity urgd me to steal an oppertunity to explore it that morning     I had imagind that the worlds end was at the edge of the orison and that a days journey was able to find it     so I went on with my heart full of hopes pleasures and discoverys expecting when I got to the brink of the world that I coud look down like looking into a large pit and see into its secrets the same as I believd I coud see heaven by looking into the water     so I eagerly wanderd on and rambled among the furze the whole day till I got out of my knowledge when the very wild flowers and birds seemd to forget me and I imagind they were the inhabitants of new countrys     the very sun seemd to be a new one and shining in a different quarter of the sky     still I felt no fear     my wonder seeking happiness had no room for it     I was finding new wonders every minute and was walking in a new world7 often wondering to my self that I had not found the end of the old one     the sky still touchd the ground in the distance as usual and my childish wisdoms was puzzld in perplexitys     night crept on before I had time to fancy the morning was bye when the white moth had begun to flutter beneath the bushes the black snail was out upon the grass and the frog was leaping across the rabbit tracks on his evening journeys and the little mice was nimbling about and twittering their little earpiercing song with the hedge cricket whispering the hour of waking spirits was at hand which made me hasten to seek home     I knew not which way to turn but chance put me in the right track and when I got into my own fields I did not know them     every thing seemd so different     the church peeping over the woods coud hardly reconcile me     when I got home I found my parents in the greatest distress and half the vill[a]ge about hunting me     one of the wood men in the woods had been killd by the fall of a tree and it servd to strengthen their terrors that some similar accident had befallen myself as they often leave the oaks half cut down till the bark men can come up to pill them which if a wind happens to rise fall down unexpected

[A34, R8, R6]

I usd to be fondly attachd to spots about the fields and there were 3 or 4 were I used to go to visit on Sundays     one of these was under an old Ivied Oak in Oxey wood were I twisted a sallow stoven into an harbour which grew into the crampd way in which I had made it     two others were under a broad oak in a field calld the Barrows and Langley Bush8 and all my favourite places have met with misfortunes     the old ivied tree was cut down when the wood was cut down and my bower was destroyd    the woodmen fancied it a resort for robbers and some thought the crampd way in which the things grew were witch knotts and that the spot was a haunt were witches met     I never unriddeld the mystery and it is believd so still for I got there often to hide myself and was ashamd to acknowledge it — Lee Close Oak was cut down in the inclosure and Langley bush was broken up by some wanton fellows while kidding furze on the heath — the Carpenter that bought Lee Close oak hearing it was a favourite tree of mine made me two rules and sent me and I prese[r]ved a piece of the old Ivy the thickest I have ever seen

[A33, 7]

What a many such escapes from death doth a boys heedless life meet with     I met with many in mine     once when wading in the meadow pits a lot of cow tending boys we tryd to to[p] each others tasks     we had gone several times and it was my turn to attempt again when I unconscously got beside a gravel ledge into deep water when my heels slipt up and I siled down to the bottom I felt the water choke me and thunder in my ears and I thought all was past but some of the boys coud swim and so I escapd     another time we were swiming on bundles of bull rushes when mine getting to one end suddenly bouncd from under me like a cork and I made shift to struggle to a sallow bush and catching hold of the branches I got out but how I did it I know not for the water was very deep and yet we had dabbld there Sunday after Sunday without the least fear of danger

once when birds nesting in the woods of which I was very fond we found a large tree on which was a buzzards nest     it was a very hard tree to climb     there were no twigs to take hold of and it was two thick to swarm so we consulted for awhile some proposing one thing and some another till it was decided that a hook tyd to the end of a long pole that woud reach to the collar of the tree woud be the best to get up by     in taking hold of it and swarming several attempted to no purpose and at last I tryd tho I was rather loath to try the experiment     I succeeded at getting up to the collar which swelld in such a projection from the tree that I coud not make a landing without hazarding the dangerous attempt of clinging with my hands to the grain and flinging my feet over it     I attempted it and faild so there I hung with my hands and my feet dangling in the air     I expected every moment to drop and be pashd to pieces for I was a great height but some of my companions below while some ran away had the shrewdness to put the pole under me and by that means I got on the grain just in time before I was quite exausted and savd my life     another time when I was grown up I went to the woods to gather acorns and getting on a tree which was very full I sat on a large grain dashing them which broke and I fell to the ground about 14 or 15 foot were I lay for a long time and knew nothing     on coming to my self I crawld up and saw that the large grain just lodgd above me     I was agonized     I coud not catch my breath unless by deep groans and I got over that

[B7, R92-R91]

I thought I was up sooner then usual and before morning was on the stir out of doors but I am pleasantly dissapointed by the whistle of the ploughboy past the window making himself merry and trying to make the dull weather dance to a very pleasant tune which I know well and yet cannot reccollect the song     but there are hundreds of these pleasant tunes familiar to the plough and the splashing steam9 and the little fields of spring that have lain out the brown rest of winter and green into mirth with the sprouting grain the songs of the sky lark and the old songs and ballads that ever accompany field happiness in following the plough — but10 neither heard known or noticed by all the world beside

[B6, 99]

In spring the leafing hedges brings to my memory the times when I anxiously rambld about them at leisure hours hunting the birds nest[s] and pootys and I cannot help peeping among them still tho I feel almost ashamed of my childish propensitys and cannot help blushing if I am observed by a passing neighbour     Thus the same thing of every thing     flowers have happy assosiations of youth     they are its sweetest chronicles     the herds man cannot neglect the wild thyme on the hill that made him seats when a boy or the blue caps in the wheat [with] which he trim[m]ed his cockade to play at soldiers     to the old woman11 the little blue flower aside the brook called in botany water mouse ear brings the lovers reccolections when she was young     she still stoops down and fancys that it smile[s] upward in her eye forget me not

[B3, 60]

At the end of a little common when I was a boy called Tankers Moor there was a little spring of beautiful soft water which was never dry     it used to flow from under an edding at the end of a land out of a little hole about as deep and round as a cuttin[g] — it used then to dribble its way thro the grass in a little ripple of its own making no bigger than a grip or cart rut — and in this little spring head there used to be hundreds of the little fish called a minnow not so big as the struttle and these used to be found in that hole every year but how they came there I could not tell    some years a quantity of struttle was found and often a few gudgeons — when a boy we used to go on a Sunday in harvest and leck it out with a dish and string the fish on rushes — and therebye thinking ourselves great fishers from the number we had caught not heeding the size

[A49, 73]

the Marquis12 was then a boy     I have him in my minds eye in his clean jerkin and trowsers shooting in the park or fishing on the river

[A34, R13]

tho I always felt in company a disbelief of ghost witches etc yet when I was a lone in the night my fancys created thousands and my fears was always on the look out every now and then turning around to see if aught was behind me     I was terribly frighted on seeing a will owisp for the first time and tho my fears grew less by custom for there are crowds about our fenny flats yet I never coud take them on the credit of philos[oph]y as natural phenomenons at night time but always had a suspicion of somthing supernatural belonging to them — I have had a many ‘night fears’ and usd to be terribly anoyd when a boy in takeing the horses away at the evening to heath in spring time when the badgers made a horrible squeeling noise in the woods resembling the screams of a woman and the crooning of the [wood pigeons] but the worst fright I ever met with was on a harvest night when I workd at Bassets of Ashton     we was always late ere we gave over work as harvesters generally are and ere we finishd our suppers it was nigh midnight by the time I started home which was but the distance of a short mile but I had a terror haunting spot to cross calld Baron parks in which was several ruins of roman camps and saxon castles and of course was people[d] with many mysterys of spirits     the tales were numberless of ghosts and goblings that were seen there and I never passd it without my memory keeping a strict eye to look for them and one night rather late I fan[c]yd I saw somthing stand wavering in the path way but my hopes put it off as a shadow till on coming nearer I found that it was somthing but wether of flesh and blood was a question     my astonishd terrors magnified it into a horrible figure     it appeard to have ears of a vas[t] length and the hair seemd to hang about it like [     ]    I trembld and almost wishd the earth woud  open to hide me I woud have spoke but     I coud not and on attempting to pass it I gave it the road and ran off as fast as I coud and on stopping at the stile to look were it was my increasd terror found it close at my heels     I thought it was nothing but infernal now and scarce [know]ing what I did I took to my heels and when I got home I felt nearly fit to dye     I felt assurd that ghosts did exist and I dare not pass the close the next day till quite late in the day when every body was abroad when to my supprise I found it was nothing but a poor cade foal13 that had lost its mother and had been raisd with milk till it was grown up and had been turnd ther[e] to wean it the day before     it followd me again and my disbelief in ghosts was more hardend then ever

[D2, 5-6]

‘Will with a whisp’ ‘Jimmy Whisk’ ‘Jack with a lanthorn     in this november month they are often out in the dark misty nights — on ‘Rotten Moor’ ‘Dead Moor’ Eastwell moor — Banton green end Lolham Briggs Rine dyke furlong and many other places in the lordship14     I have my self seen them on most of these spots — one dark night I was coming accross the new parks when a sudden light wild and pale appeared all round me on my left hand for a hundred yards or more accompan[i]ed by a crackling noise like that of peas straw burning     I stood  looking for a minute or so and felt rather alarmed when darkness came round me again and one of the dancing jack a la[n]thens was whisking away in the distance which caused the odd luminous light around me — crossing the meadow one dark Sunday night I saw when coming over the Nunton bridge a light like a lanthorn standing on the wall of the other bridge     I kept my eyes on it for awhile and hastened to come up to it — but ere I got half over the meadow it suddenly fell and tumbled into the stream — but when I got on the bridge I looked down it and saw the will o whi[s]p vapour like a light in a bladder whisking along close to the water as if swimming along its surface but what supprised me was that it was going contrary to the stream

[A49, 49]

15how many days hath passd since we usd to hunt the stag or hunt the slipper but there usd to be one crook horn etc in those days and duck under water on May eve and tossing the cowslip balls over the garland that hung from chimney to chimney across the street and then there was going to east well on a sunday to drink sugar and water at the spring head but inclosure came and drove these from the village — I usd to be very fond of fishing and of a sunday morning I have been out before the sun delving for worms in some old weed blanketed dunghill and steering off across the wet grain that over hung the narrow path and then I usd to stoop to w[r]ing my wet trowser bottoms now and then and off agen beating the heavy drops off the grain with my pole end till I came to the flood washd meadow stream and then my tackle was eagerly fastend on and my heart woud thrill with hopes of success as I saw a sizable gudgeon twinkle round the glossy pebbles or a fish lap after a flye or a floating somthing on the deeper water     were is the angler that hath not felt these delights in his young days and were is a angler that doth not feel taken with their memory when he is old     I usd also to be very fond of poking about the hedges in spring to hunt pootys and I was no less fond of robing the poor birds nests or searching among the prickly furze on the heath poking a stick into the rabbit holes and carefully observing when I took it out if there was down at the end which was a sign of a nest with young     then in went the arm up to the shoulder and then fear came upon us that a snake might be conseald in the hole and then our bloods ran cold within us and startld us off to other sports and then we usd to chase the squirrels in the woods from grain to grain that woud sit washing their faces on the other side and then peep at us again and then we usd to get boughs from the trees to beat a whasps nest till some of us were stung and then we ran away to other amusments

[B8, R128-R127]

[Northborough]

There is a saying or rather an old superstition connected with this place as well known all round the neighbourhood as some of the sayings of Gotham are — when any one who was awkard at his work and would not be shown his companions would say — ‘Send him to Norborrey (Northborough) hedge corner to hear the wooden cuckoo sing’16 and this spot was one of the curiositys that my imagination when a boy yearnd to see — from the frequency of the above saying it grew a natural curiosity and a sort of classic spot for the travels of my fancys — but I never learnt from where it sprung — I apprehend it was some foolish charter of some feudal occupier of the old castle in the days of chivalry — for in a neighbourhood a little distant an old man told me there was a little spot about as large as a pin fold enclosed with quick which fence the parish was obliged to mend and repair every year on a particular day under the foolish appelation of ‘hedging the cuckoo in’ — in our fields there was a similar enclosure called the ‘Cow pen’ but the custome if customes there were of repairing etc were all lost and forgotten long before I was born — yet the ghost stories conected with its lonely situation was as fresh as a dew fall     they are forgetting the old memories now and the young ones are too [un]caring to heed them — but I do assure you I would not pass such spots now at nightfal if I could help and to pass them at midnight between the twelve and one if wager was offered that [would] make me a gentleman I dare not win it

[A46, 154]

Mr T[aylor] seems to fancy it a gift but I cannot feel any thing to expect or deserve such a distinction from a family who have been kind to me even to an extream     I therefore enter upon it with no other expectation then that of my neighbours and then it will be a home that I have long wished for and never had the luck to come at till now — for to have such men for Landlords is a satisfactory happiness — for so long as the Miltons and the Exeters have been a name in this neighbourhood — there is not one instance that I know of where they have treated success in his willing industry with unkindness in either insulting dependants with oppression or treating poverty with cruelty — not one — and this is a proof to me that nobility is the chief support to industry and that their power is its strongest protection

[Pfz 198, 40]

Chusing Friends      Chapter 6th

     Among all the friendships I have made in life those of school friendship and childish acquaintance are the sweetest to remember     there is no deseption among them     their is nothing of regret in them but the loss     they are the fairest and sunniest pages memory ever doubles down in the checkerd volume of life to refer to     there is no blotches upon them — they are not found like bargains on matters of interest nor broken for selfish ends — I made but few close friendships for I found few with the like tastes inclinations and feelings

one of my first friendships was with Richard the brother of John Turnill     it began with infancy from playing at feasts by the cottage wall with broken pots and gathering the crumpled seeds of the mallow for cheeses making houses and fires of sticks stones and clay to the second stage of hunting birds nests and painted pooty shells among the dewy boughs and busy growing grass in the spring and the partnerships of labours toils and sunday leisures but death came while we were growing up into each others pleasures like twin flowers and took him away before our budding friendships coud blossom — yet it was [an] image of happiness — what numberless hopes of successes did we chatter over as we hunted among the short snubby bushes of the heath or on hedge rows and crept among the black thorn spreys after the nest of the nightingales and what happy discourses of planning pleasures did we talk over as we lay on the soft summer grass gazing on the blue sky shaping the passing clouds to things familiar with our memorys and dreaming of the days to come when we shoud mix with the world and be men little thinking that we shoud chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancys when we met it     but he never did     I have mentiond were he dyd and was buried a while back     his brother Johns acquaintance began with learning me on the winter nights to write and sum he was of a studious musing turn of mind and fond of books always carr[y]ing one of some sort or other in his pocket to read between toils at leisure hours     they were somtimes sixpenny books of storys and at other times the books which he usd at school for he had been [at] boarding school and read in books there that are unknown in a village school     I remember being often delighted with one which he repeated by heart in ryhme a story of a young lady being killd in battle by a shield ball17 while seeking her lover and another tale in prose of the old man and his ass18 which was a favour[i]te and he always contrivd to bring the News paper in his pocket in weeding time which I was always very anxious to read     his father was a farmer and I usd to work for them in the weeding and haymaking seasons     his mind was always anxious after knowledge and too restless to stick to any thing long so he had a superficial knowledge of many things and a solid information with none     one season he woud be learned and occupied with Mathematics working problems of algebra or Geometry     he was also ambitious of shining in the almanack diarys and attempted to unriddle the puzzles for the prizes and to ryhme new charad[e]s reddles and rebuses on a slate which he fitted to his pocket and making dials on a board and fixing them on the top of his weed hook shaft to enquire the hour of the day     then before he had formd half an acquaintance with them he woud be making his telescopes of paste board and studying the stars with the assistance of a book which he had purchasd a cheap penny worth at some second hand book stall      somtimes he woud be after drawing by perspective and he made an instrument from a shilling art of painting which he had purchasd that was to take landscapes almost by itself     it was of a long square shape with a hole at one end to look thro and a number of diferent colord threads crossd into little squares at the other     from each of these squares different portions of the Landscape was to be taken one after the other and put down in a facsimile of these squares done with a pencil on the paper     but his attempts made but poor reflelctions of the objects and when they were finishd in his best colors they were far from being even poor shadows of the origional and the sun with its instantaneous sketches made better figures of the objects in their shadows      once he happend in with Lilys astrology19 at Deeping fair and then his head was forever after Nativitys and fortune telling by the stars      his mother was skilld in huswife phisic and Culpeppers Herbal20 and he usd to be up after gathering herbs at the proper time of the planets that was said to rule them expecting they woud perform Miracles — I remember the last thing which he was busy after were studying a book on bees and a restless desire after glass hives     once he got a book on the mysterys of nature which told him how to turn metals into gold to find jewels in a toads head and gather brake seed on midsummer eve for my[s]ti cal purposes which I have now forgotten     but in the midst of all his inventions and thirst for knowledge a couzin came down from London who had a power of getting him a place in the excise his present occupation so his parents hopes were ripend and he was sent to school and then to the excise and     his hopes anxietys crowds of schemes and happy memorys were left unfinishd behind him to make room for new ones

[A25, R34-R32]

I found another boy acquantance which grew up with a few breaks in it to manhood with Tom Porter who lives in a lone cottage on Ashton green     he had a fondness for flowers and gardening and possesd a few old Books which were old ‘heir longs’ in the family once belonging to his great grand father who had been steward to the Noells at Walcott Hall21     two which I usd to be most pleasd with were Sandys travels and Parkinsons Herbal22 and I usd often to make sunday visits to read them23      his24 fondness for books were those of gardening and he bought and buys still all the second hand one[s] that treat upon that subject which chance lays his hands on     we usd to go out on sundays in the fields to hunt curious wild flowers to plant in the garden such as the orchises     From these friendships I gatherd more acquantance with books which like chances oppertunitys were but sparing

[A25, R32]

I usd to spend many of my winter nights and sabbath leisures when I grew up in the world at a neighbours house of the name of Billings     it was a sort of meeting house for the young fellows of the town were the[y] usd to join for ale and tobacco and sing and drink the night away     the occupiers were two Bachelors and their cottage was calld bachelors hall     it is an old ruinous hut and hath needed repairs ever since I knew it for they neither mend up the walls nor thatch the roof being negligent men but quiet and innofensive neighbours     I still frequent their house     it has more the appearence of a deserted hermitage then an inhabited dwelling     I have sat ta[l]king of witch and ghost storys over our cups on winter nights till I felt fearful of going home     John Billings the elder had a very haunted mind for such things and had scarce been out on a journey with the night without seeing a gost a will o whisp or some such shadowy mysterys and such reccolections of midnight wanderings furnishd him with storys for a whole winters fire side     we usd to go often to the wood to pill oaks25 in the winters evening or in fact any thing chance started and once we went on a sabbath day     there was three of us and James Billings was the gunner for I had no eye to kill any thing even if I was close to it tho my will perhaps was as good as the rest and on rustling about among the bushes we started a hare which hopd on a little way and stood to listen when my companion lifted his old gun to take a aim and a sudden shock tingld in my ears like the momentary sound of broken glasses     we was astounded and lookd on each others faces with vacancy — the gun had bursted and all the barrel was carr[i]ed aw[a]y to the lock and part of the lock likwise     we saw danger in each others faces and dare not make enquirey what was the matter as all of us expected we were wounded but as soon as the fright was over we found none of us was hurt     what became of the gun we coud not tell for we coud not find a fragment but that which he held in his hand — was not this an alarm to tell our conscence that we were doing wrong and wether it was chance or providence that interferd it was a narrow escape     I felt the warning for once and never was caught on the same errand again

[A25, R31-R30]

John Billings was an inofensive man     he believes every thing that he sees in print as true and has a cupboard full of penny books the king and the cobler Seven Sleepers26 acounts of People being buried so many days and then dug up alive Of bells in churches ringing in the middle of the night Of spirits warning men when they was to dye etc each of the relations attested by the overseers churchwardens etc of the parish were the strange relations happend always a century back were none lives to contradict it     such things as these have had personal existances with his memory on as firm footings as the bible history it self he is fond of getting cuckoos blue bells Primroses and any favou[ri]te flowers from the fields and woods to set in his garden and his sundays best lesures is when the weather and seasons permits him to ramble by the river sides a fishing and we have spent many sundays together in that diversion

[A25, R30]

these are universal feelings and the stuff which true poesy is made of is little else     it is the eccho [of] what has been or may be     when the reader peruses real poesy he often whispers to [himself] ‘bless me Ive felt this myself and often had such thoughts in my memory’ tho he was ignorant of poetry     nature is the same every were     the little daisey wears the self same golden eye and silver rim with its delicate blushing stains underneath in our fenny flats as it does on the mountains of switzerland if it grows there — my companion had no knowledge of poesy by books     he had never read Thompson or Cowper or Wordsworth or perhaps heard of their names yet nature gives every one a natural simplicity of heart to read her language tho the grosser interferences of the world adulterate them like the bee by the flower and deaden the heart with ignorance — he usd often to carry a curious old book in his pocket very often a sort of jest book calld the Pleasant art of money catching27 and another of Tales whose title was ‘Laugh and be fat’ and he felt as happy over these while we wild away the impatience of a bad fishing day under a green willow or an odd thorn as I did over Thompson Cowper and Walton which I often took in my pocket to read     my companions books were very old and curious     the one on ‘Money catching’ there was a tale in it of Jougler Percy and the Butchers dog and several rules and reciepts for savings and cheap living and a colection of proverbs and a long poem of 40 or 50 verses the middle of which was gone     I fancyd some of the verses good and I think they are written by a poet perhaps Randolph28 for there was some of his poems in the Vol particulary a satirical one on ‘Importunate duns’     the verses I aluded to above are entitled lessons of Thrift some jests by Tarlton29      I copyd some of them out some years back and I will insert them here30

[A25, 9]

Lord Radstock31 was my best friend     it was owing to him that the first Poems succeeded     he introduced them into all places were he had connections got them noticed in news papers and other [places] and if it did nothing more it made them known — he kindly undertook to settle my affairs with my Publishers which they kindly enough on their parts deffered and its not settled yet — he wrote Taylor a letter wishing him to draw up an agreement in ‘black and white’ as his Lordship expressd it as faiths in men was not to be trusted     Taylor pretended to be insulted at this and wrote his Lordship a genteel saucey one that setteld the affair in the present confusion of no settlings at all     nay they will neither publish my poems or give them up

Lord Radstock at first sight appears to be of a stern and haughty character but the moment he speaks his countenance kindles up into a free blunt good hearted man one whom you expect to hear speak exactly as he thinks     he has no notion of either offending or pleasing by his talk and care[s] as little for the consequences of either     there is a good deal of the bluntness and openheartedness about him and there is nothing of pride or fashion     he is as plain in manner and dress as the old country squire     a stranger woud never guess that he was speaking to a Lord and tho he is one of the noblest familys in England he seems to think nothing [of his position]     I have often observed this in real Titles     while a consieted bastard squire expects Sir at the end of every word a Lord seems to take no notice how he is talkd too — the first is jealous of his gentility and knows that his title is nothing but the breath of words the latter knows that his was born with him and it is a familiar [title] that sits easy on his name — his Lordship is a large man of a commanding figure     the bust by Behnes32 is very like but wants expression as does the engraving     his Lordship has only one fault and that is a faith that takes every man [at his face value]     he and Lord fitzwilliam33 are the two [best patrons I have had]

[B6, R84]

[The Revd Isaiah Holland34 was another friend] and [one] who had given his undisguised opinion of them [i.e. Clare’s poems] when praise was of most value and when nobody else had even ventured an opinion except a doubt of their merits and whom I aught to have mentiond first on my list of friends     he came over as soon as the book was publis[h]ed and before I was aware of its fate but I instantly read my success in his countenance for he opend the door eagerly and laughd as he shook me by the hand saying ‘Well am not I a good prophet’     I told him that I had not heard the fate of the book as yet and he said then I am more happy in being the herald of good News for I can assure you that your utmost hopes has succeeded as I recieved a letter this morning from a literary friend who spoke it as a certainty that your poems woud take and he has given them hearty praise     this enlivend me and we chatterd over the results of the future all the afternoon — when he first came to see me I was copying out the ‘Village funeral’35 to send to Drury and as he leand over my shoulder to read it he said ‘these are the things that will do and if they do not succeed the world deserves a worse opinion then I am inclined to give it but go on and be not cast down by the doubts or surmises of any one’     this was the prophecy to which he aluded when he came to tell me of my success — I dedicated the poem of the Woodman36 to him as a trifling return for his kindness     the chance that led me to his acquantance was his meeting with one of the papers printed by Henson of Deeping and he made further enquireys at a farmers house were he used to visit who was well acquanted with me and my family and as they gave a favourable account of my character as a quiet inoffensive fellow he expressd a desire to see me and sent for me but I did not like to show my head any were at that time so my mother went over in my stead when as he asked her several enquireys and desired her to caution me against Hensons printing the poems as he thought it woud go a great way to ruin the success they might meet with else were and said he woud come over to see me as he accordingly did     he was excessively fond of Kirk White37      such a friendship as this is worth the remembrance     he had no other interest then that of wishing me well and did it heartily     he now lives at St Ives and if the Newspapers tell the truth he is married

[A25, 21-2]

[Books]

My acquantance of books is not so good as later oppertunitys might have made it for I cannot and never coud plod thro every a book in a regular mecanical way     as I meet with [it] I dip in to it here and there and if it does not suit I lay it down and seldom take it up again but in the same manner I read Thompsons Seasons and Miltons Paradise Lost thro when I was a boy and they are the only books of Poetry that I have reguraly read thro yet     as to history I never met with the chance of getting at [it] yet and in novels my taste is very limited     Tom Jones Robinson Crusoe and the Vicar of Wakefield are all that I am acquainted with     they are old acquantan[ces] and I care not to make new ones     tho I have often been offerd the perusal of the Waverly Novels I declind it and [though] the readily remaining in ignorance of them is no trouble yet my taste may be doubted for I hear much in their praise and believe them good — I read the vicar of Wakefield over every Winter and am delighted tho I always feel dissappointed at the end[ing] of it happily with the partings     my mind cannot feel that it ends happily with [the] reader     I usd to be uncommonly fond of looking over catalogues of books and am so still     they [are] some of the earliest readings that oppertunitys alowd me to come at     if ever I bought a penny worth of slate pencils or38 Wafers or a few sheets of Paper at Drakards39 they were sure to be lapt in a catalogue and I considerd them as the most va[l]uable parts of my purchase and greedily lookd over their contents and now in cutting open a new book or Magazine I always naturaly turn to the end first to read the book list and take the rest as a secondary pleasure

Anticipation is the sweetest of earthly pleasures     it is smiling hope standing on tiptoes to look for pleasure — the cutting open a new book the watching the opening of a new planted flower at spring etc

[A34, l]40

The first books I got hold of beside the bible and prayer book was an old book of Essays with no title and then a large one on Farming Robin hoods Garland and the Scotch Rogue41 — The old book of Farming and Essays belongd to an old Mr Gee42 who had been a farmer and who lived in a part of our house which once was his own — he had had a good bringing up and was a desent scholar and he was always pleasd to lend me them even before I coud read them without so much spelling and guesses at words so as to be able to make much of them or understand them

[A31, 216]

I became acquainted with Robinson Crusoe very early in life having borrowd it of a boy at Glinton school of the name of Stimson who only dare lend it me for a few days for fear of his uncles knowing of it to whom it belongd yet I had it a sufficient time to fill my fancys with new Crusoes and adventures

From these friendships I gatherd more acquaintance with books which like chances oppertunitys were but sparing

[A25, R32]

the common people know the name of Chatterton as an unfortunate poet and the name of Shakspear as a great play writer but the ballad monger whose productions supplies hawkers with their ware are poets with them and they imagine one as great as the other     so much for that envied eminence of common fame — on the other hand there is somthing in it to wish for because there are things as old as England that has out lived centurys of popularitys nay left half its historys in darkness and lives on as common on every memory as the seasons and as familiar to childern even as the rain and spring flowers — I alude to the old superstitions fragments of l[e]gends and storys in ryhme that are said to be norman and saxon etc     there is a many desires too to meet this common fame and it is mostly met with in a manner where it is the least expected — while some affectations are striveing for a life time to hit all tastes by writing as they fancy and as they falsely believe all feel and misses the mark by a wide throw — an unconsious poet of little name [f]or fame writes a trifle as he feels without thinking of others [nor] fancying he feels it and becomes a common name unaffected simpley [in] the truth of nature and her every day picture — thus [the] little childerns favourites of Cock robin little red riding hood [and] babes in the wood etc etc have impressions at the core that grow [up] with manhood and are beloved on a poet anxious after common fame as some of the ‘naturals’ seem to be imitate[ing] these things by affected simplicity and become unnatural — these things have found fames were the greatest names are still oblivions     a literary man might enquire after the names of Spencer and Milton etc in vain thro half the villages in england even among what are call[d] its gentry but I believe it woud be hard to find a corner in any county were the others were not known — I[n] my days some of the pieces of the modern poets have gaind this common popularity which must be distinguished [from] fame as it may only live for a season — Wordsworths beautiful simple ballad ‘We are seven’ I have seen hawkd about in penny ballads and Tannahill song of Jessey43 has met with more popularity then all the songs English and Scottish put together

[B3, 79]

If common fame was the highest species of fame — I woud rather chuse to be the Author of cock robin the babes in the wood etc then Paradise lost or the fairey queen for you cannot find a village in england that owns an old woman to be a stranger to cock robin or the babes in the wood     you may find a thousand were even the highest people in it know nothing of Spencer or Milton further then the name and very often not that

[B3, 80]

[Learning]

As to my learning I am not wonderfully deep in s[c]i[e]nce or [     ] nor so wonderfully ignorant as many may have fancied from reading the accounts which my friends gave of me     if I was to brag of it I might like the village schoolmaster boast of knowing a little of every thing a jack of all trades and master of none     I puzzled over every thing in my hours of leisure that came in my way Mathematics Astronomy Botany and other things with a restless curiosity that was ever on the enquirey and never satisfied and when I got set fast with one thing I did not tire but tryed at another tho with the same success in the end     yet it never sickened     me I still pursued Knowledge in a new path and tho I never came off victor I was never conqured44

[B3, 81]

Common sense would never covet the property that belongs to another     I could not feel happy with the wealth that I had no right to and therefore feel a greater happiness in peace and poverty then I should do in the riches of lawless force and unchecked rebellion — I do not know from what cause I inherit this feeling unless the little wisdom I have gotten imbued me with it — but this I do think     if I had not been taught to read and write I should not have indulged in such scruples     tho I might not have joined the violence of mobs I should not have seen the unlawful cupidity of their notions of right and freedom as I do now and therefore I feel happy with the little learning that my parents gave me as the best legacy fortune could ever bestow

[B5, 74]

The neighbours believing my learning to be great thought it a folly in me to continue at hard work when they fancyd I might easily better my self by my learning and as Lord Milton45 was a great friend to my father they persuaded me to go to Milton46 to see what he woud do for me and the parish clerk a man of busy merits who taught the sunday school offerd to go with me as he knew his Lordship better then I did by seeing him at the Sunday school often     I accepted the proposal and started once more upon ambitious and hithertoo fruitless errands     I remember the morning     we saw two crows as soon as we got into the fields and harpd on good luck and success47 and my companion gave me advice with the authority of a patron as well as a frend     as soon as we got there on making the nessesary enquiries we was told that his Lordship woud see us bye and bye and hour passd after hour till night came and told us we was dissapointed and the porter conforted us by saying we shoud call again tomorning but my friend the Clerk had more wits in the way and we met his Lordship the next day at the heath farm near home which he was in the habit of visiting often     as soon as we came up to his Lordship my companion began to descant on my merrits in a way that made me hang my head but I found he had a double errand for before he finishd his tale of my [talents] he pulld an antique box out of his pocket which he had found in leveling some headlands near eastwell spring a spot famous for summer sunday revels     it was in the for[m] of an apple pye and containd several farthings of king charles the firsts or second[s] reign and begd his lordship to do somthing for me and upon hearing to whom I belongd he promisd he woud     his Lordship smild and took it and gave him a good exchange for his curosity which raisd the clerks voice in the conclusion of his story of me and when his Lordship heard to whom I belongd he promisd to do somthing for me but such trifling things are soon shovd out of the memorys of such people who have plenty of other things to think of     I heard no more of it and workd on at my old employments as usual     I had now many schemes and plans in my mind of what I coud or might do     I had improvd by frequent trials in ryhming and often felt that I might gain some notice in times to come     I fancyd too that I was book learnd for I had gotten together by savings a quantity of old books of motly merits all of which Drury got for a little or nothing     I will reccolect some of them     there was the yong mans best companion Dilworths Wingates Hodders Vyses and Cockers Arithmetic     the last was a favourite with me and I kept it     Bonnycastles and Horners Mensuration and Wards Mathematics Leybourns and Morgans Dialling Female Shipwright Robinson Crusoe Pilgrims Progress Martindales Land surveying and Cockers Land surveying Hills Herbal Balls Astrology Culpeppers Herbal Rays History of the Rebellion Hudibras some Numbers of Josephus Parnells Poems Miltons Paradise Lost Thompsons Seasons Sam Westleys Poems Hemmings Algebra Sturms Reflections Harveys Meditations Wallers Poems Westleys Philosophy Thompsons Travels Lestranges Fables of Esop A book on Commets Life of Barnfield more Carew The Art of Gauging Duty of Man Watts Hymns Lees Botany Waltons Angler Kings Tricks of London laid open The Fathers Legacy or seven stages of Life48 Bloomfields Poems     some of these books were great favourites particularly Waltons Angler tho I never caught any more fish then usual by its instructions     I bought it at a book stall kept by a shoe k[n]acker of the name of Adams at Stamford for 2 shillings and I gave it to my friend O. Gilchrist49     the Female Shipwright was a winter evening favourite in my first book days     it b[e]longd to my uncle and was a true story printed by subscription for the woman whose history it related     Bloomfields Poems was great favourites and Hills Herbal gave me a taste for wild flowers which I lovd to hunt after and collect to plant in my garden which my father let me have in one corner of the garden and on happening to meet with Lees Botany second hand I fell to collecting them into familys and tribes but it was a dark system and I abandond it with a dissatisfaction

(A25, 2-4]

I have puzzled wasted hours over Lees Botany to understand a shadow of the system so as to be able to class the wild flowers peculiar to my own neighbourhood for I find it woud require a second Adam to find names for them in my way and a second Solomon to understand them in Lennsis system — moder[n] works are so mystified by systematic symbols that one cannot understand them till the wrong end of ones lifetime and when one turns to the works of Ray Parkinson and Gerrard51 were there is more of nature and less of Art it is like meeting the fresh air and balmy summer of a dewey morning after the troubled dreams of a nightmare

[B3, 73]

to look at nature with a poetic feeling magnifyes the pleasure yet Naturalists and Botanists seem to have little or no taste for this sort of feeling     they merely make a collection of dryd specimens classing52 them after Lienneus into tribes and familys as a sort of curiosity and fame     I have nothing of this curosity about me tho I feel as happy as they can in finding a new spiecies of field flower or butterflye which I have not before seen     yet I have no desire further to dry the plant or torture the Butterflye by sticking it on a cork board with a pin     I have no wish to do this if my feelings woud let me     I only wish them to settle on a flower till I can come up with them to examine the powderd colours on their wings and then they may flutter off from fancyd danger and welcom     I feel gratified

[B5, 46]

I also was fond of gather[ing] fossil stones     tho I never knew these was the subject of books yet I was pleasd to find and collect them which I did many years tho my mother threw them out of doors when they was in her way     a D^r Dupere of Crowland collected such things and my friend John Turnill got some for him     this gave me the taste for fossil hunting     my friend Artis53 had what was left when I became acquainted with him my     habits of Study grew anxious and restless and increasd into a multiplicity of things poetry natural history Mathematics etc but I had little ambition to write down any thing but my ryhmes     these were on local circumstances mostly and on spots and things which I felt a fondness for     two or three of a Satirical nature I will insert here     the ‘Elegy on the Death of a quack’ was written on a quack Docter who came to Deeping and whom the dupd people calld Docter Touch54 as it was rumourd about on his first appear[en]ce there that he curd all diseases by touching the patient with his hand which made the Villages round all anxious to know the truth of it     lame and blind and such felt a vain hope that he might be inspird and sent on purpose for their relief and Deeping was threatend to be as crowded with cripples as the Pool of Bethsheba55     my Father and Will Farrow the shoemaker mentiond awhile back56 went over to Deeping directly on his arival there to assertain the truth and leave their infirmitys behind them if possible but experience put a new face on the story     the fellow did not cure them by touch but by blisters which he laid on in unmercifull sizes at half a guinea a blister and the money was to be paid down before he did his work     this last demand compleatly shook my fathers faith as to his mission for he understood that [the] prophets of old curd for nothing and he expected to see modern miracles performd in the same manner but when he found it was no such thing he and his companion refusd to have any thing to do with the medical prophet who was very importunate and even abusive at their credulity     when they returnd home and told their tale I sat down and wrote the following Epitaph57     the fellow stopt at Deeping a good while for he found plenty of believers to mentain his hoaxing pretensions     in his bills he made a great parade against all knowledge and the faculty and made a boast of his ignorance by starting what he thought a better plea in making his patients believe he was born a docter by being the seventh son of a parent who was himself a seventh son and the seventh son of a seventh son is reckond among the lower orders of people as [a] prodigy in medicine who is born to perform miracles so he readily got into fame amongst them till 2 or 3 of his patients dyd under his hands and then on the turning of the tide he decampd in the night     I wrote another long tale on the Docter and the shoemaker but it is not worth inserting58     the following was written on an old woman with a terrible share of tongue who was actually married to a sixth husband and survivd them59     I only regret the loss of one of my early poems a sort of Pastoral     the title was ‘labour and luxury’     the plan was a labourers going to his work one morning overheard a lean figure [accosted] in a taunting manner by a bloated stranger the phantom of luxury whence the dialogue ensues     labour makes its complaints and the other taunts and jeers him till the lean figure turns away in dispair60

[A25, 2-6]

Beginnings with the World

I never had much relish for the pastimes of youth     instead of going out on the green at the town end on Winter sundays to play foot ball I stuck to my corner stool poreing over a book     in fact I grew so fond of being alone at last that my mother was feign to force me into company for the neighbours had assured her mind into the fact that I was no better then crazy     at length my school days was to be at an end as I was thought learned enough for my intended trade which was to be a shoe maker

[B8, R128]

My scholarship was to extend no farther than to qualify me for the business of a shoemaker or Stone Mason so I learnd cross multiplication for the one and bills of accounts for the other but I was not to be either     at last a man of the Name of Mowbray of Glinton woud have taken me for a trifle and another at home namd Farrow a little deformd fellow was desirious of taking me merely out of kindness to my father but the trifle they wanted coud not be found and I did not much relish the confinment of apprentiship     this Will Farrow was a village wit a very droll fellow a sort of Easop     his shop usd to be a place of amusment for the young ploughmen and labour[er]s on winter evenings     he was famous for a joke and a droll story and had a peculiar knack at making up laughable anecdotes on any circumstance which happend in the village — and a satirical turn for applying nicknames to people who was almost sure to be call[d] by the one given till the day they dyd and remem[b]erd by it afterwards when their own was forgotten     many of his names are now afloat in the village — he has a brother living now who was a sailor 21 years and who kept a Journal of his life which he got me to copy out in part     there was nothing particular in it but a mention of Lord Byron who saild in the same ship and was known among the sailors as a Traveller and not as a poet and I myself was ignorant of him alltogether when I copied out his account of him

I cannot ascertain what time it was when he saild with him but doubtless child Harrold had no existance with the world then

I have since reflected on this interesting circumstance and often tryd to remember it     he describd him as a odd young man lame of one foot on which he wore a cloth shoe who was of a resolute temper fond of bathing in the sea and going ashore to see ruins in a rough sea when it required 6 hands to manage the boat     such additional trouble teazd the sailors and teazd them so much that his name became a bye word in the ship for unessesary trouble     Tom Farrow I believe was then an ableseaman in the Fox Cutter     he now lives at Deeping St James and follows his trade of a Mason and bricklayer

[B8, 103-2]

After I had done with going to school it was proposd that I shoud be bound apprentice to a shoe maker61 but I rather dislikd this bondage     I whimperd and turned a sullen eye upon every persuasion till they gave me my will     A neighbour then offerd to learn me his trade to be a stone mason but I dislikd this too and shoyd off with the excuse of not liking to climb tho I had clumb trees in raptures after the nests of Kites and magpies     my parents not liking to force me to any thing against my inclination their hopes was once more at a stand     I was then sent for to drive plough at woodcroft castle of Oliver Cromwell memory     tho M^rs Bellairs62 the mistress was a kind good woman and tho the place was a very good one for living my mind was set against it from the first and I was uneasily at rest     one of the disagreeable things was getting up so soon in the morning as they are much earlier in some places then in others and another was getting wetshod in my feet every morning and night for in wet weather the moat usd to flow over the causway that led to the porch and as there was but one way to the house we was obligd to wade up to the knees to go in and out excepting when the head man carried the boys over on his back as he somtimes woud     I staid here one month and then on coming home to see my parents they coud not persuade me to return     they now gave up all hopes of doing any good with me and fancied that I shoud make nothing but a soldier but luckily in this dilemma a next door neighbour at the Blue Bell Francis Gregory wanted me to drive plough and as I suited him he made proposals to hire me for a year which as it had my consent my parents readily agreed to     it was a good place     they treated me more like a son then a servant      I believe I may say that this place was the nursery for my ryhmes

[B8, 101]

F Gregory

He was fond of amusment and a singer tho his notes was not more varied then those of the cuckoo as he had but 2 Songs for all companys one called ‘the milking pail’ and the other ‘Jack with his broom’63     his jokes too were like a pack of cards     they were always the same but told in a different turn64

[D2, 2]

I livd at this place a year and left with the restless hope of being somthing better than a plough boy    my little ambitions kept burning about me every now and then65 to make a better figure in the world and I knew not what to be at — A bragging fellow name Manton from Market Deeping usd to frequent the public house when I livd there     he was a stone cutter and sign painter     he usd to pretend to discover somthing in me as deserving encouragment and wanted to take me apprentice to learn the misterys of his art but then he wanted the trifle with me that had dissapointed my former prosperitys     he usd to talk of his abilitys in sculpture and painting over his beer till I was almost mad with anxiety to be a sign painter and stone cutter but it was usless66     such things made my mind restless and on hearing from a friend Tom Porter of Ashton Green that the Kitchen Gardiner at Burghley wanted an apprent[ice]67

[B3, 83]

I was with them without a salary     I thought it was a chance of being somthing so I got my father to go with me to see if I might be excepted

[A34, R7]

[Clare considered various opportunities of employment before he entered the kitchen-garden at Burghley: as a shoemaker’s apprentice with Will Farrow, as a stonemason’s apprentice with George Shelton, as a sign-painter (this possibly with Mowbray of Glinton), and as a clerk to his uncle’s employer at Wisbech. Before the last of these opportunities arose he also worked as a plougboy for Mrs Bellairs at Woodcroft Castle. Upon his rejection at Wisbech he entered the service of Francis Gregory at the Blue Bell. It was from Gregory’s service that he moved to Burghley. It is impossible to preserve the order of these events in Clare’s autobiographical fragments and so we must now retrace our steps a little and hear what Clare has to say about George Shelton, Woodcroft Castle, and Wisbech before once again taking up the narrative at the point where he left Gregory’s and started work at Burghley. Eds.]

George Shelton too a Stone Mason woud have taken me but I got off by urging a dislike to climbing tho my fondness for climbing trees after birds nests went against me and my parents hopes were almost gone as they thought I sham[me]d abraham with a dislike to work and a view to have my liberty and to remain idle but the fact was I felt timid and fearful of undertaking the first trial in every thing     they woud not urge me to any thing against my will so I livd on at home taking Work as it fell     I went weeding wheat in the Spring with old women listening to their songs and storys which shortend the day and in summer I joind the haymakers in the meadow or helpd upon the stacks     when I was out of work I went to the woods gathering rotten sticks or picking up the dryd cow dung on the pasture which we calld cazons for fireing68     thus I livd a season spending the intervals at play along with she[e]ptenders or herd boys in lone spots out of sight for I had grown big enough to feel ashamd of it and I felt a sort of hopless prospect around me of not being able to meet manhood as I coud wish for I had always that feeling of ambition about me that wishes to do somthing to gain notice or to rise above its fellows     my ambition then was to be a good writer and I took great pains in winter nights to learn my Friend John Turnill setting me copies who by the bye was far from a good writer himself     I was fond of books before I began to write poetry     these were such that chance came at — 6py Pamphlets that are in the possession of every door calling hawker and found on every book stall at fairs and markets whose titles are as familiar with every one as his own name     shall I repeat some of them     ‘Little red riding hood’69 ‘Valentine and Orson’ ‘Jack and the Jiant’ ‘Tom Long the carrier’ ‘The king and the cobler’ ‘Sawney Bean’ The seven Sleepers’ ‘Tom Hickathrift’ ‘Johnny Armstrong’ ‘Idle Laurence’ who carried that power spell about him that laid every body to sleep — ‘old mother Bunch’ ‘Robin Hoods garland’ ‘old mother Shipton and old Nixons Prophecys’ ‘History of Gotham’ and many others     shall I go on     no these have memorys as common as Prayer books and Psalters with the peasentry     such were the books that delighted me and I savd all the pence I got to buy them for they were the whole world of literature to me and I knew of no other     I carried them in my pocket and read them at my leisure and they was the never weary food of winter evenings ere milton Shakspear and thompson had an existe[nce] in my memory and I even feel a love for them still     nay I cannot help fancying now that cock robin babes in the wood mother hubbard and her cat etc etc are real poetry in all its native simplicity and as it shoud be     I know I am foolish enough to have fancys different from others and childhood is a strong spell over my feelings but I think so on and cannot help it     after I had been left to my idle leisures while doing jobs as I coud catch them I was sent for to drive plough at Woodcroft Castle of Oliver Cromwell memory70 … it is a curious old place and was made rather famous in the rebellion of Oliver Cromwell — some years back there was a curious old bow found in one of the chimneys and the vulgar notion was that it was the identical bow that belongd to robin hood so readily does that name assosiate it self in the imagination with such things and places     I had a coin of Cromwells brought me last year by a neighbour pickd up in the neighboring field as large as a crown piece which I gave to my friend Artis     I stopt at this first place about a month and then on coming home to see my parents they coud not persuade me to return     they now gave up all hopes of doing any thing with me and fancyd that I shoud make nothing but a soldier     it was but a bad start to be sure and I felt ashamd of myself almost but my mind woud be master and I coud not act other wise     in this dilemma my Uncle who livd as footman with a counselor at Wisbeach came over to see us and said there was a vacancy in his masters office and he woud try and get me the place as he was certain I was scholar good enough for it and tho my father and mother was full as certain of it I doubted my abilitys very strongly but was glad to accept the proposal of going over to try71

[B8, 104-5]

Wisbeach

My uncle morris came over to see us and said he woud ask his master to take me as a writer

My hopes of bettering my station with the world was again revised and I started for Wisbeach with a timid sort of pleasure and when I got to Glinton turnpike I turnd back to look on the old church as if I was going in to another co[u]ntry     Wisbeach was a foreign land to me for I had never been above 8 miles from home in my life and I coud not fancy england much larger then the part I knew     at Peterboro Brig I got into the boat that carrys passengers to wisbeach once a week and returns the third day a distance of 21 miles for eighteenpence     I kept thinking all the way in the boat what answers I shoud make to the questions askd and then I put questions to myself and shapd proper replies as I thought woud succeed and then my heart burnt within me at the hopes of success and thoughts of the figure I shoud make afterwards when I went home to see my friends dressd up as a writer in a law[y]ers office     I coud scarcely contain my self at times and even broke out into a tittering laugh but I was dampd quickly when I thought of the impossibilitys of success for I had no prepossesing appearance to win favours for such a place     my mother had turnd me up as smart as she coud     she had pressd me a white neckcloth and got me a pair of gloves to hide my coarse hands but I had out grown my coat and almost left the sleeves at the elbows and all my other garments betrayd too old an acquantance with me to make me as genteel as coud have been wishd but I had got my fathers and mothers blessings and encouragments and my own hopes in the bargain made me alltogether stout in the dreams of success     at length the end of my journey approachd when the passengers lookd out to see wisbeach brig that stretches over the river in one arch     my heart swoond within me at [the] near approach of my destiny ‘to be or not to be’     I kept working my wits up how to make the best use of my tongue while the boatmen was steering for the shore and when I was landed my thoughts was so busy that I had almost forgot the method of finding out the house by enquiring for Counseler Bellamys     people star[e]d at me and pausd before they pointed down the street as if they thought me mistaken in the name     ‘And are you sure it is Counseller Bellamys you want’ said another — ‘I am sure of it’ I said and they showed me the house in a reluctanty way     when I got up to the house I was puzzld as I often have been in finding but one entrance were a fine garden gate with a ‘ring the bell’ seemd to frown upon me as upon one too mean to be admitted     I pausd and felt fearful to ring

[B3, 78]

I was puzzld what to do and wish[d] my self a thousand times over in my old corner at home     at length my hand trembld and pulld the bell     it wrang and to my great satisfaction my uncle came being the only man servant and bade me welcome — I have told master about your coming said he     you must not hang your head but look up boldly and tell him what you can do — so I went into the kitchen as bold as I coud and sat down to tea but ate nothing     I had filld my stomach with thoughts by the way     at length the counsellor appeard and I held up my head as well as I coud but it was like my hat almost under my arm     ‘Aye aye so this is your Nephew Morris is he’ said the couns[e]llor ‘yes Sir’ said my uncle     ‘Aye aye so this is your Nephew’ repeated the counsellor rubbing his hands as he left the room     ‘well I shall see him agen’ — but he never saw me agen to this day — I felt happily mortified for the trial was over     I was not much dissapointed for I thought all the way that I cut but a poor figure for a law[y]ers clerk     so far it seems I was right     the next morning my uncle said that his mistress had bade him to make me welcome and to keep me till sunday morning when the boat returnd to Peterbro so I spent Saturday a72 looking about the town after amusment     I was fond of peeping into booksellers windows and I found one full of paintings as specimens of a painter who was taking portraits and teaching drawing in the town     they was the early travels after fame of a name well known with the World now — Rippingille73 — I remember one of them was the ‘Village ale house’ another was a pencil sketch of the Letter carrier in the town whose face seemd to be familiar with every one that passd by     the rest I have forgotten — I little thought when I was looking at these things that I shoud be a poet and become a familiar accquantance with that painter who had blinded the windows with his attempts for fame — Poets and painters grow ashamd of their early productions and perhaps my friend Rippengill will not thank me for bringing up this assosiation of his early days     yet I dont see what occasion they have to feel so for all things have a begining and surely it is a pleasure in happiness to review the rough road of anxietys and trouble in gaining it — on Sunday morning my uncle saw me to the boat and I left Wisbeach and my disapointment behind me with an ernest tho melancholy feeling of satisfaction and I made up for my lost ambition by the thoughts of once more seeing home and its snug fireside     my parents welcomd me home with a mellancholy smile that bespoke their feelings of dissapointment as I sat upon my corner stool and related my adventures but good luck was at my elbow with a more humble and more suitable occupation     Francis Gregory our neighbour at the blue bell wanted a servant and hir[e]d me for a year     I was glad and readily agreed     it was a good place and they treated me more like a son then a servant and I believe this place was the nursery for that lonly and solitary musing which ended in rhyme     I usd to be generaly left alone to my toils for the master was a very weak man and always ailing and my labours were not very burthensome being horse or cow tending weeding etc when I made up for the loss of company by talking to myself and enga[gi]ng my thoughts with any subject that came uppermost in my mind     one of my worst labours was a journey to a distant village name Maxey in winter afternoons to fetch flour once and somtimes twice every week     in these journeys I had hanted spots to pass as the often heard tales of ghosts and hobgobblings had made me very fearful to pass such places at night it being often nearly dark ere I got there I usd to employ my mind as well as I was able to put them out of my head so I usd to imagine tales and mutter them over as I went on making my self the hero somtimes making my self a soldier and tracing the valours [of] history onwards thro varius successes till I became a great man     somtimes it was a love story not fraught with many incidents of knight errant[r]y but full of successes as uncommon and out of the way as a romance travelling about in foreign lands and under going a variety of adventures till at length a fine lady was found with a great fortune that made me a gentleman and my mind woud be so bent on the reveries somtimes that I have often got to the town unawares and felt a sort of dissapointment in not being able to finish my story tho I was glad of the escape from the haunted places     I know not what made me write poetry but these journeys and my toiling in the fields by myself gave me such a habit for thinking that I never forgot it and I always mutterd and talkd to myself afterwards and have often felt ashamd at being overheard by people that overtook me     it made my thoughts so active that they become troublesome to me in company and I felt the most happy to be alone     On Sundays I usd to feel a pleasure to hide in the woods instead of going to church to nestle among the leaves and lye upon a mossy bank were the fir like fern its under forest keeps

‘In a strange stillness’

watching for hours the little insects climb up and down the tall stems of the woodgrass and broad leaves

‘Oer the smooth plantain leaf a spacious plain’74

or reading the often thumbd books which I possesd till fancy ‘made them living things’     I lovd the lonly nooks in the fields and woods and many favourite spots had lasting places in my Memory     ‘the boughs that when a school boy screend my head’ before inclosure destroyd them75

[A43, R18-R16]

Gardener Boy at Burghley

It was thought that I shoud never be able for hard work and I chusd the trade of a Gardener when A companion of mine Thomas Porter of Ashton told me that the master of the kitchen gardens at burghley wanted an apprentice so off my father took me    it was a fine sabbath morning and when we arrivd he mistaking every body for gentlemen that wore white stockings pulld off his hat to the gardiner as if it had been the Marquis himself     I often thought after wards how the fellow felt his consequence at the sight for he was an ignorant proud fellow     he took me and I was to stop three years     my work for the time I staid was taking vegetables and fruit down to the hall once or twice a day and go on errand to Stamford as requird …76

[A34, R12]

and I was often sent to Stamford at all hours in the night for one thing or other somtimes for liquors and somtimes to seek him by the mistresses orders and as I was of a timid disposition I [was] very often fearful of going and instead of seeking him I usd to lye down under a tree in the Park and fall a sleep and in the Autumn nights the ryhme usd to fall and cover me on one side like a sheet which affected my side with a numbness and I have felt it ever since at spring and fall and I often times think that the illness which oppresses me now while I write this narative proceeds from the like cause tho I have often made the fields a bed since then when I have been at merry makings and stopt out when all were abed and at other times when I had taken too much of Sir John Barleycorn and coud get no further     after I had been there a few weeks I savd my money to purchase Abercrombies Gardening which became my chief study     the gardens was very large but when I was there77     and I remember finding some curious flowers which I had never seen before growing wild among the vegetables     one was a yellow head ache perrenial and another was a blue one     anual     I never saw none like them before or since

[A34, R4]

I learnt irregular habbits at this place which I had been a stranger too had I kept at home     tho we was far from a town yet confinement sweetens liberty and we stole every oppertunity to get over to Stamford on summer evenings     when I had no money to spend my elder companions woud offer to treat me for the sake of my company there and back agen and to keep me from divulging the secret to my master by making me a partner in their midnight revels     we usd to get out of the window and climb over the high wall of the extensive gardens for we slept in the garden house and was locked in every night to keep us from robbing the fruit I expect — Our place of rendevouse was a public house calld ‘the Hole in the wall’ famous for strong ale and midnight merriment kept by a hearty sort of fellow calld Tant Baker (I suppose the short name for Antony)78     he had formerly been a servant at Burghley and his house in consequence was a favourite place with the burghley servants always     he dyd last year 1822 very rich — I wrote a long poem in praise of his ale in the favourit scotch metre of Ramsay and Burns79     it was not good but there are parts of it worthy as I think of a better fate then being utterly lost     it has long been out of my possesion     My friend Gilchrist told me after I had shown it to him that the house had been long celebrated by drunken Barnaby and that he himself had gaind a nich[e] of [im]mortality for Tant Baker in a new Edition of that work

[A34, R13]

G. Cousins

I workd with a man here of a very singular character who knew more ghost storys and marvelous adventures then I had ever met with before and he was one of the most s[i]mple mind     he even believd any thing that was imposd on him for truth in a serious manner and nothing but a laugh at his credulity woud shake his faith     he was of a good memory and the only books he read was Abercrombies gardening and the Bible and he woud repeat a whole chapter by heart and remember the texts which he heard at church years bye     he believd in witches and often whisperd his suspicions of suspected neighbours in the Village     he had a great taste for looking about churches and church yards and woud go ten miles on a Sunday to visit one which he had not seen before to read the epitaphs and get those he liked best by heart     he had an odd taste for gentlemans coats of arms and collected all the livery buttons he coud meet with     he had workd in the garden 33 years     his name was George Cousins80     he was one of the most singular inofensive men I ever met with

[A34, R11]

… the man [master of the kitchen gardens] was of so harsh a temper that none likd him and the foreman being weary of the place as well as myself he persuaded me to go with him so we got up early one morning in the autumn and started for Grantham81 which we reachd the first night a distance of 21 miles and I thought to be sure I was out of the world     we slept at an alehouse calld the crown and anchor and I wishd my self at home often enough before morning but it was too late then     our enquireys not meeting work there we travelld on to Newark on trent82 and there we got Work at a Nurserymans of the name of Withers and lodgd at a lame mans house of the Name of Brown whose son was a carpenter and celebrated for making fiddles     I felt quite lost while I was here tho it was a very livly town but I had never been from hom[e] before scarc[e]ly farther then out of the sight of the steeple     I became so ignorant in this far land that I coud not tell what quarter the wind blew from and I even was foolish enough to think the suns course was alterd and that it rose in the west and sat in the east     I often puzzld at it to set my self right but I still thought so     I rem[em]ber the fine old castle that stands bye the river and I stood upon the bridge one night to look at it by moonlight and if I remember rightly there is a brick mansion raisd up in its ruins which are inhabited and the light from the windows gleaming thro the ruins gave it an awful appearance at night somthing akin to the old ruined castles inhabited by banditti in roman[c]es     we did not stay here long for the master did not give us wages sufficient paying us one part and promising us the rest if we suited him by a further trial so we83 got up earlier then usual one morning to start and as we was not much burthend with luggage we easily stole away undetected and left our credit with our host ninepence half penny in debt     we got to Stamford the same night but dare not show ourselves in a public house so we went thro and lay under a tree in the park     the ryhme fell thick in the night and we was coverd as white as a sheet when we got up

[A34, R12-R11]

We workd awhile in the nursery at hoeing the weeds up between the young trees and as the ground was baked very hard in the sun it was much too heavy for my strength for I was but a boy     the wages we got was small tho the master promisd us more if we suited him by a further trial but neither the wages or work suited me for my mind was ill at rest     the strength of my companion was stubborn enough for any toil but mine was young and feeble and like my mind strange and unfit with the world84     the Nottinghamshire Milit[i]a was then recruiting at Newark85 and I fled my toils and listed tho I was of a timid disposition but Milit[i]a had not the terror hanting name of a regular soldier     I went to Nottingham to be sworn in but was found too short and felt very glad of the escape afterwards — (the road parts at the foot of Newark bridge into a Y and that towards the left was the road for [Nottingham]     I had often heard of Nott[ing]ham in Robin Hoods Songs and thought it was [incomplete]

[A34, R11-R10]

Chapter 5    My first attempts at Poetry etc etc

I now followd gardening for a while in the Farmers Gardens about the village and workd in the fields when I had no other employment to go too     poetry was a troublsome but pleasant companion anoying and cheering me at my toils     I coud not stop my thoughts and often faild to keep them till night so when I fancyd I had hit upon a good image or natural description I usd to steal into a corner of the garden and clap it down but the appearance of my employers often put my fancys to flight and made me loose the thought and the muse together for I always felt anx[i]ous to consceal my scribbling and woud as leave have confessd to be a robber as a ryhmer     when I workd in the fields I had more oppertunitys to set down my thoughts and for this reason I liked to work in the fields and bye and bye forsook gardening all together till I resumd at Casterton     I usd to drop down behind a hedge bush or dyke and write down my things upon the crown of my hat and when I was more in a hip for thinking then usual I usd to stop later at nights to make up my lost time in the day86     thus I went on writing my thoughts down and correcting them at leisure spending my Sundays in the woods or heaths to be alone for that purpose and I got a bad name among the weekly church goers forsaking the ‘church going bell’ and seeking the religion of the fields tho I did it for no dislike to church for I felt uncomfortable very often but my heart burnt over the pleasures of solitude and the restless revels of ryhme that was eternaly sapping my memorys like the summer sun over the tinkling brook till it one day shoud leave them dry and unconsous of the thrilling joys brin[g]ing anxiety and restless cares which it had created and the praises and censures which I shall leave behind me     I knew nothing of the poets experience then or I shoud have remaind a labourer on and not livd to envy the ignorance of my old companions and fellow clowns     I wish I had never known any other     tho I was not known as a poet my odd habits did not escape notice     they fancied I kept aloof from company for some sort of study     others believd me crazd and some put more criminal interpretations to my rambles and said I was night walking assosiate with the gipseys robbing the woods ot the hares and pheasants because I was often in their company and I must confess I found them far more honest then their callumniators whom I knew to be of that description     Scandal and Fame are cheaply purchasd in a Village     the first is a nimble tongud gossip and the latter a credoulous and ready believer who woud not hesitate but believd any thing     I had got the fame of being a good scholar and in fact I had vanity enough to fancy I was far from a bad one my self while I coud puzzle the village schoolmasters over my quart for I had no tongue to brag with till I was inspird with ale with solving algebrai[c] questions     for I had once struggld hard to get fame in that crabbed wilderness but my brains was not made for it and woud not reach it     tho it was a mystery scarcly half unveild to my capacity yet I made enough of it to astonish their ignorance for a village schoolmaster is one of the most pretending and most ignorant of men — and their fame is often of the sort which that droll genius Peter Pindar87 describes — Whats christend merit often wants a auth[or]

[A25, 1-2]

I kept up gardening and workd with a lime burner name Gordon who came from kings[t]ho[r]p near northampton

[A25, 29]

I now left home and went with a brother of Gordons to burn lime for Wilders of Bridge Casterton were we workd at first from light to dark (and in some emergencys all night) to get some money to appear a little descent in a strange place having arivd pennyless with but a shabby appearence     in the bargain we got lodgings at a house of scant fame a professd lodging house kept by a man and his wife of the name of Cole and we was troubld at night with threble fares in each bed an inconvinence which I had never been usd too     they took in men of all descriptions the more the merrier for their profits and when they all assembled round the evening fire the motly co[u]ntenances of many characters lookd like an assembledge of robbers in the rude hut dimly and my[s]teriously lighted by the domestic savings of a farthing taper and I remember a droll mistake in a stranger on my first coming there which created a deal of merriment among the lodgers tho too serious in the strangers feelings to be laughd at — at an Election some were in Lincolnshire or Yorkshire one of the contending MPs decoyd a great many of his canvassers from London who was brought down at their decoyers expence and left to go home at their own     one of these unfortunates a delicate looking man with manners and habits bordering on genteelity wanderd back with the pass of providence for his only friend somtimes walking and some times riding as chances fell out by the way and he arrived in the evening at the new Inn just soon enough to learn that all the beds were occupied by more successfull travellers and just late enough to make his dissapointment a nessesity to keep it or do worse so he was reccomended to our lodging house and being a thorough bred Londoner his simple wonderings at every thing he saw started the titter among the other lodgers who fanc[i]ed that such simple enquireys bespoke the man a runaway from bedlam     he on the contrary not thinking it possible that his serious enqu[i]reys coud be construed into any thing laughable fancyd as the fears in his co[u]ntenance easily dechypherd that we had mystical designs about us and felt for his safty no doubt enough to wish him self at home     one of his mistakes was a startling one to be sure     on walking in the garden in the evening he pulld up a flower of the white nettle by the wall and admird it as one of the finest flowers he had ever88 seen in a count[r]y garden     there might be some affectation of cockney ignorance mixd up with it but I never forgot it and fancyd that the man had been bro[u]ght up out of the world and the laugh and whisper went round the cottage fire and made him dream of danger so instead of going to bed he begd leave to sit up in his chair till morning when he gladly started and told the people at the Inn that he were in great danger of loosing his life among a gang of robbers over the way and that in the middle of the night he verily believd some one had been murderd in the chamber above his head so he took care to keep awake till morning     the noise he mistook for murder was the groans and noise of a man that was troubled with the nightmare — When we first went we workd hard to save money and tryd to be saving89     in which we succeeded for a time as I got a about 50 shillings in about 6 weeks with which I intended to purchase a new olive green coat a color which I had long aimd at and for which I was measured already ere I left home expecting to be able to pay for it in a short time but a accident happend in the way which prevented me the gipseys etc etc [incomplete]

[B7, 79-80]

It was a pleasant liv[e]ly town co[n]sisting of a row of houses on each side the turnpike about a furlong long     the river gwash ran its crooked course at the back of them on the south side and washd the foot of the gardens till it crossd the turnpike under a modern looking bridge and wound along a sloping meadow northward loosing its name and its waters into strangers streams     there is some beautiful spots on its banks particularly towards the little village of Tikencoat southward were the bank on the field side rises very stunt in some places from the edge of the river and may by a fancy usd to a flat country be easily imagind into mountains     the whole prospect is diversified by gently swelling slopes and easy sunny vallys

at the back of Wilders house is a beautiful encampment or trench very perfect in the shape of a half moon     the common name for it is ‘the dykes’     wether it be roman or Saxon I know not     one corner comes in the yard at the back of a stable and the other curves away to the edge of the river near the bridge     it is the widest in the middle of the curve and the highest the bank is throw up on the south east side which commands the sight of another hill about a short mile distant on which there is said to be a similar encampment

[A32, 12]

the[re] was some literary assosiations too belonging to this spot     it was the place were Tycho Wing90 the celebrated astronomer was born and lived and the hall of his Ancestors is still tracd by a heap of ruins and moats and fish ponds of black melancholy looking water partly in a close and partly in a wood calld ‘wood head’     the moat and fish ponds are open and the water looks black and deep91     the ruins of the hall appear to be large and part of them is overgrown by bushwood among which a great many wild goosbery bushes lingers yet and wears the memorys of its former domestic assosiations     In a large farm house were Tycho Wing once resided it is said that his study is still to be seen in the form he left [it] were the walls are stuck round with the old almanacks he made but I have not seen it and can say no further for its correctness

[A32, 13]

As soon as I got here the Smiths92 gang of gipseys came and encam[p]d near the town and as I began to be a desent scraper we had a desent round of merriment for a fortnight some times going to dance or drink at the camp and at other times at the publick house

[B7, R88]

Once in these midnight revels we escapd a great danger very narrowly     on going for ale at the dancing a quarrel ensued when one party determind on cheating the other by running off with the beer     I was one and we got into an old barn to hide ourselves while we drank it taking a lanthorn from the public house which had been open to the weather for years and had been falling a long time     we saw no danger and hugd ourselves over our bottle till we had finishd it when we started and the next day when I passd the place the gable end we had sat under was down and a heap of rubbish

[B7, 91]

[Gipseys]

at these feasts and merry makings I got acquainted with the gipseys and often assos[i]ated with them at their camps to learn the fiddle of which I was very fond     the first acquaintance I made was with the Boswells Crew93 as they were calld a popular tribe well known about here and famous for fidd[l]ers and fortunetellers     the old Father who was calld king Boswell dyd at a great age be[in]g above a 100 this year and was buried at [Wittering] in singular pomp 30 childern and grandchildern all grown up following him to the grave94     (I had often heard of the mistic language and black arts which the gipseys possesd but on familiar acquantance with them I found that their mystic language was nothing more then things calld by slang names like village provincialisms and that no two tribes spoke the same dilacet exactly     their black arts was nothing more of witchcraft then the knowledge of village gossips and petty deceptions playd off on believing ignorance but every thing that is bad is thrown upon the gipseys      their name has grown into an ill omen and when any of the tribe are guilty of a petty theft the odium is thrown upon the whole tribe

An ignorant iron hearted Justice of the Peace at — Sessions whose name may perish with his cruelty once sitting as judge in the absence of a wise and kinder hearted assosiate mixd up this malicious sentence in his condemnnation of 2 Gipseys for horse-stealing ‘This atrosious tribe of wandering vagabonds ought to be made outlaws in every civilizd kingdom and exterminated from the face of the earth’ and this perescuting unfeeling man was a cler[g]yman)     I usd to spend my Sundays and summer evenings among them learning to play the fiddle in their manner by the ear and joining in their pastimes of jumping dancing and other amusments     I became so initiated in their ways and habits that I was often tempted to join them95     They are very ignorant in the ways of the world and very loose in their morals     they seem by their actions to be ignorant of any forms of faith in religion and if they are questiond by a confident for they will reveal nothing to strangers they will admit the existance of a god and say that a belief that there is a god is sufficient without any more trouble to get to heaven     they keep the sabbath like catholics by indulging in all manner of sports and pastimes but they show a knowledge how it ought to be kept by desisting from them when a stranger or suspic[i]ous person dressd in the color of a parson passes bye     I never met with a scholer amongst them nor with one who had a reflecting mind     they are susceptible of insult and even fall into sudden passions without a seeming cause     their friendships are warm and their passions of short duration but their closest friendships are not to be relied on     they are deceitful genneraly and have a strong propensity to lying yet they are not such dangerous characters as some in civilizd life for one hardly ever hears of a Gipsey committing murder     their common thefts are trifling depredations taking any thing that huswifes forget to secure at night hunting game in the woods with their dogs at night of which all are fish that come [to the] net except foxes     but some of them are honest     they eat the flesh of Badgers and hedge hogs which are far from bad food for I have eaten of it in my evening merry makings with them     they never eat dead meat but in times of scarcity which they cut into thin slices and throw on a brisk fire till it is scorchd black when it looses its putrid smell and does very well for a make shift providence     when they can afford it they wash the meat in vinegar which takes the smell out of it and makes it eat as well as fresh meat     they are more fond of vegetables then meat and seldom miss having tea in an affternoon when they can afford it    they are fond of smoking to excess both men and women there common talk is of horses lasses dogs and sports     I have often noticd the oddness of their names such as Wisdom Do[u]ghty Manners Lotty Let[t]ice Rover Ishma[e]l     these are not half the odd names but they have come easy to the common talk reccolection — and are the names of a well known tribe whose surnames are Smith     many of their names are Jewish but few Christian ones are Israel [Viney, Liskey, Major     ]96     they seem to be names that have decended from generation to generation as the young ones bear similar names to their parents not generally but almost universaly     In my first acquantance with them I had often noticd that the men had a crooked finger on one hand nor woud they satisfy my enquireys till confidence made them more familiar and then I found the secret was that their parents disabled the finger of every male child in war time when infants to keep them from being drawn for Militia or being sent for soldiers for any petty theft they might commit which woud invariably be the case if they had been able men when taken before a magistrate as they lay under the lash of the law with the curse of a bad name     They had pretentions to a knowledge of medicine but their reciepts turnd more on mystic charms and spells     yet they had a knowledge of Plants — which they gave names too themselves     as I had a knowledge of wild plants I usd to be amusd with the names they calld them by     a little plant with a hard stem that grows in villages and waste places one sort bearing minute yellow flowers and another purple ones     these they calld burvine and reckond famous for the scurvey

Wasp weed is the water betony growing by brook sides which gaind their name by the wasps being invariably attachd to its blossoms getting therfrom a gluttinous matter for the cement of their combs     this is a celebrated plant with the gipseys for the cure and relief of deafness     Buckbane is the bogbean     husk head is the self heal a cure for wounds and furze b[ou]nd is the tormentill a cure for fevers adder bites etc97

In fortune telling they pertended to great skill both by cards and plants and by the lines in the hand and moles and interpretations of dreams but like a familiar Ep[i]stle among the common people that invariably begins with ‘This comes with our kind love to you all hoping you are all well as it leaves us at present     thank god for it’     the preface to every bodys fortune was the same that they had false frends and envious neighbours but better luck woud come and with the young that two was in love with them at the same time one living near and one at a distance     one was a dark girl and one a fair girl and he lovd the fair girl the best etc etc

The credulous readily belevd them and they extorted money by another method of mutterd over their power of revenge which fright[ened] the honest huswife into charity     I have h[e]ard them laugh over their evening fire at the dupes they had made in believing their knowledge in foretelling future events and trying each others wits to see who coud make a tale that might suceed best the next day     as I said before they have no scholars amon[g]st them but I have known people write letters for them to be read as I suppose by the same assistance     the men are very hot in their tempers and loose in their discourse delighting to run over smutty ribaldry but the women have not lost the modesty that belongs them so far as to sit and hear it without blushing     the young girls are reservd and silent in the company of men and their love affections are seeming cold and earless of return     they somtimes marry with the villagers but its very rarely and if they do they often take to their wandering courses again     village clowns are oftener known to go away with the gipsey girls which happens verry frequently     I had a great desire myself of joining the Smiths Crew and a young fellow that I workd with at a lime kiln did join with them and married one of the gipseys his name was James Mobbs and hes with them still     I usd to dislike their cooking which was done in a slovenly manner and the dread of winters cold was much against my inclinations     their descriptions of summer revellings their tales of their yearly journeys to Kent and their rendevouses at Norwood were they got swarms of money by fiddling or fortune telling and them that coud do neither got a rich harvest by hop pulling which work they describd as being so easy were tickling temptations to my fancy

[A25, 11-14]

The gipseys in matters of religion are not so unfeeling as may be imagind     instruction seems to be all they     want a friend of mine told me last night that a methodist preacher preachd to a great company of them on Ketton heath a few miles distant when some few paid a disregard to his exortations but the rest listend with attention and some even shed tears

There is not so many of them with us as there usd to be     the inclosure has left nothing but narrow lanes were they are ill provided with a lodging     Langley Bush is the only place were they frequent commonly     they are very troublesome to those who are acquainted with them always calling to see them and never leaving the house without begging98 something

[A25, 14-15]

Memorys of Love Chapter 6

As I grew up a man I mixd more in company and frequented dancings for the sake of meeting with the lasses for I was a lover very early in life my first attachment being a school boy affection but Mary—99 who cost me more ballads then sighs was belovd with a romantic or platonic sort of feeling     if I coud but gaze on her face or fancy a smile on her co[u]ntenance it was sufficient     I went away satisfied     we playd with each other but named nothing of love     yet I fancyd her eyes told me her affections we walkd togethere as school companions in leisure hours but our talk was of play and our actions the wanton innosence of childern     yet young as my heart was it woud turn chill when I touchd her hand and trembled and I fancyd her feelings were the same for as I gazd earnestly in her face a tear woud hang in her smiling eye and she woud turn to whipe it away     her heart was as tender as a birds but when she grew up to woman hood she felt her station above mine     at least I felt that she thought so for her parents were farmers and Farmers had great pretentions to somthing then so my passion coold with my reason and contented itself with another tho I felt a hopful tenderness one that I might one day renew the acqua[in]tance and disclose the smotherd passion     she was a beautiful girl and as the dream never awoke into reality her beauty was always fresh in my memory     she is still unmarried

[A25, 7]

That number three seems to have brought many things to a conclusion with me in love     I met th[r]ee full stops or three professions of sincerity — my first was a school affection — Mary J[oyce]     I am ashamed to go on with the name     I felt the disparagement in our situations and fearing to meet a denial I carried it on in my own fancies to every extreme writing songs in her praise and making her mine with every indulgence of the fancy     I cannot forget her little playful fairey form and witching smile even now

I remember an accident that roused my best intentions and hurt my affection unto the rude feelings of imaginary cruelty when playing one day in the church yard I threw a green walnut that hit her on the eye     she wept and I hid my sorrow and my affection together under the shame of not showing regret lest others might laugh it into love — my second was a riper one     Elizabeth N[ewbon]100 who laid open her own fancys or affections by writing too an unfinished sentence with chalk on a table at a lone cottage where young people used to meet on Sundays — I guessed the rest in my own favour and met the confession of her esteem by her not caring to deny it — this went on for years with petty jealousies on both sides     at length giving ear to the world she charged me with sins of changing affections and rambling fancys — I felt the accusations as insults and my temper mastered my affections — a short time after I met with Patty by accident fell in love by accident married her by accident and esteemed her by choice     and sure enough had I not met her I should have at this day been a lonely solitary — feeling nothing but the worlds sorrows and troubles and sharing none of its happiness — as it is in the midst of trouble I am happy in having a companion whom I feel deserves my best esteem

[A53, 3r, 13r-v, 3v]

After mixing into the merrymakings of Wakes Weddings House warmings and Holliday [celebrations] I lost that lonely feeling and grew dissapated     not that I was over fond of drink but I drank for the sake of company and to stifle unpleasant feelings which my follys often brought on me     perhaps the word house warmings needs an explanation to be understood     it is a custom common in villages and is this     when a person shifts from an old habitation to a new one the gossips then old neighbours meet to have a tea drinking with any others that chuse to go and the men join them at night to drink ale and the young one[s] make up a dance and then they warm the new house as they call it by drinking and singing and other merriment     I spoke of follys     they were love follys that often made the heart ach a pain well known to lovers causd by rejected addresses to some one whom I felt a sudden affection for and who on my disclosing it woud affect to sneer and despise me     my first love reallity was with a girl of Ashton whose name was Elizabeth Newbon     she was no beauty but I fancyd she was every thing and our courtship was a long one     I usd to meet her on sundays at a lodge house on Ashton Green at first and then went to her home     her father was a Weelwright and an old man who professd to be learned in the bible and was always trying my wisdom were such and such passages might be found     my silence generaly spoke my lack of religion and he shook his head at my ignorance     he thought that religion consisted of learning such scraps as a sort of curiosity by heart     he knew one book in the bible in which God was not once mentiond     it was Ezra101     and he knew the name of the Mountain were noahs ark rested and other bible curositys and he read it to search for these things to be able to talk about them and thought him self a religious man tho he never went church and he was so for he was happy and harmless     he possesd a Large bible with notes which he took in Numbers when a young man     it was Wrights Bible and he often spoke of the pleasure he felt in reading the first number one sunday night in a terrible thunder storm     he had another book on which he set a great value     it was Lord Napiers Key to the revelations102     he believd the explanations there given as the essence of truth and every newspaper occurence that happend in war and political governments he fancyd he coud find there and Boneyparte [     ] and the comet     he believd in Moors almanack103 too with great reverence and unlockd its mystical herigliphic with his revelation key yearly tho it was not so suitable a key as Moors who waited the events of the year and explaind it afterwards

[A25, 7-8]

My fondness for study began to decline and on mixing more into company [of] young chaps of loose habits that began by force and growing into a custom it was continued by choice till [I] became wild and irregular and poetry was for a season thrown bye     these habits were gotten when the fields were inclosed mixing among a motly set of labourers that always follow after the News of such employments     I usd to work at setting down fencing and planting quick lines with partners whose whole study was continual cont[r]ivances to get beer and the bottle was the general theme from weeks end to weeks end and such as had got drunk the oftenest fancied themselves the best fellows and made a boast of it as a fame but I was not such a drinker as to make a boast of it and tho I joind my sixpence towards the bottle as often as the rest I often missd the tott that was handed round for my constitution woud not have bore it — Saturday nights usd to be what they calld randy nights which was all meeting together at the public house to drink and sing and every new beginner had to spend a larger portion then the rest which they calld colting a thing common in all sorts of labour

[B7, 91]

We usd to go on Sundays to the Flower pot a little public house at Tikencoat a neighboring village and in one of these excursio[n]s I first saw patty going across the fields towards her home     I was in love at first sight and not knowing who she was or were she came from I felt very ill at rest and clumb on the top of a dotterel to see which way she went till she got out of sight — but chance quickly threw104 her again in my way a few weeks after one evening when I was going to fiddle at Stamford     I then venturd to speak to her and succeeded so far as [to] have the liberty to go home with her to her cottage about 4 Miles off and it became the introduction to some of the happiest and unhappiest days my life has met with     after I left her to return home I had taken

such a heedless obsever[an]ce of the way that lead over a cowpasture with its thousand paths and dallied so long over pleasant shapings of the future after I left her that twilight with its doubtful guidance overtook my musings and led me down a wrong track in crossing the common and as I coud not correct my self I got over a hedge and sat down on a baulk between a wheat field were my rhy[m]ing feelings again returnd and I composd while sitting there the ballad inserted in the village minstrel and the song of all the days etc105     when the moon got up I started agen and on trying to get over the same hedge again as I thought to cross the common I saw somthing shine very bright on the other side     I fancyd it to be bare ground beaten by the cows and sheep in hot weather but doubting I stoopd down to feel and to my terrord supprise I found it was water and while in that stooping posture I saw by the lengthy silver line that stretchd from me that it was the river     if I had taken a step with out this caution my love [would have met a sudden end]

I was frighted and sat under the hedge till daylight     what a many times to a mans follys meet with those dangers and death scapes in his heedless pleasure haunted youth     my reccolection can turn many in mine from boyhood

[B7, 81]

I usd to go on evenings in the week and every Sunday to the lodge106 not at all times on love errands merely but to get out of the way for the lodging house was generaly cumberd with inmates and the Inn was continualy troubling me with new jobs     the solitudes around the Lodge was plentiful and there were places were the foot of man had not printed for years perhaps     the scenery all round were beautiful     heaths and woods swelled their wild and free vari[e]tys to the edges of the orison     I usd to wander about them with my artless and interesting companio[n] in more then happiness     a large wood in summer usd to be coverd with Lilys of the valley of which she usd to gather handfulls for her flower pots and I helpd her to gather them     in these woods were larg[e] caverns calld swallow pits by the woodmen of an imense depth so that if a stone was thrown in one might count [a] while befor one heard it echo

[B7, 83]

Casterton cowpasture which I usd to pass thro on my visits to patty very frequently was a very favourite spot and I pland and wrote some of the best of my poems in the first volume among its solitudes107

[A34,3]

After I had burnt lime at the kiln awhile M^rs Wilder of the New Inn hearing that I had been at Burghley gardens got me to work in the garden were I had a good time of it but the place led me into all sorts of company     I workd here till the autumn and then went with my old companion to Pickworth

Pickworth is a place of other days     it appears to be the ruins of a large town or city     the place were we dug the kiln was full of foundations and human bones     we was about a stones throw from the spot were the church had been which was entirely swept away excepting a curious pointed arch perhaps the entrance to the porch that still remains a stout defiance to the besiegings of time and weather     it now forms a gateway to a stackyard     A new church has been built on the cite of the old one since I was there at the sole expence as I have heard of the Rev^d M^r Lucas of Casterton108

[A32, 13]

March to Oundle in the Local Militia

When the country was chin deep in the fears of invasion and every mouth was filld with the terrors which Bouneparte had spread in other co[u]ntrys a national scheme was set on foot to raise a raw army of volunteers and to make the matter plausible a letter was circulated said to be written by the prince regent     I forget how many was demanded from our parish but I remember the panic which it created was very great — no great name rises in the world without creating a crowd of little mimics that glitter in borrowd rays and no great lye was ever yet put in circulation with[out] a herd of little lyes multipl[y]ing by instinct as it were and crow[d]ing under its wings     the papers that were circulated assurd the people of england that the French were on the eve of invading it and that it was deemd nessesary by the regent that an army from 18 to 45 shoud be raisd immediatly     this was the great lye and then the little lyes was soon at its heels which assurd the people of Helpstone that the french had invaded and got to London and some of these little lyes had the impudence to swear that the french had even reachd northampton — the people got at their doors in the evening to talk over the rebellion of 45 when the rebels reachd Derby and even listend at intervals to fancy they heard the french rebels at Northampton knocking it down with their cannon     I never gave much credit to popular storys of any sort so I felt no consern at these storys tho I coud not say much for my valour if the tale had provd true     We had a cross graind sort of choise left us which was to be forcd to be drawn and go for nothing or take on as Volunteers for the bounty of 2 guineas     I accepted the latter and went with a neighbours son W. Clark to Peterbro to be swore on and prepard to join the regiment at Oundle     the morning we left home our mothers parted with us as if     we was going to Botaney Bay and people got at their doors to bid us farewell and greet us with a sort of Jobs comfort that they doubted we shoud see helpstone no more — I confess I wishd my self out of the matter     by times when we got to Oundle the place of quarters [we] was drawn out into the fields and a more motly multitude of lawless fellows was never seen in oundle before and hardly out of it     there was 1300 of us     we was drawn up into a line and sorted out into a company     I was one of the shortest and therefore my station is evident     I was in that mixd multitude calld the batallion which they nick namd ‘bum tools’ for what reason I cannot tell     the light Company was calld ‘light bobs’ and the granadeirs ‘bacon bolters’     these were names given to each other who felt as great an enmity against each other as ever they all felt for the french     some took lodgings but lodgings were very expensive    the people took advantage of the tide and chargd high so I was obligd to be content with the quarters alloted me which was at the Rose and Crown Inn kept by a widow woman and her 2 daughters which happend to be a good place     the girls were modestly good naturd and the mother a kind hearted woman behaving well to all that returnd it     our company was the 5^th and the Captain was a good sort of feelow using his authority in the language of a friend advising our ignorance when wrong of what we ought to do to be right and not in the severity of a petty tyrant who is fond of abusing those beneath him merely for the sake of showing authority     I was never wonderful clean in my dress at least not clean enough for a soldier for I thought I took more then nessesary pains to be so     I was not very apt at learing my exercise for I then was a ryhmer and my thoughts were often absent when the word of comand was given and for this fault I was terribly teazd by a little louse looking coporal who took a delight in finding fault with me and loading me with bad jests on my awkardness as a sold[i]er as if he had been a soldier all his life     I felt very vext at the scurroulus coxcomb and retorted which only added more authority in his language     he fou[n]d fault with me when it belongd to others merely to vex me and if I venturd to tamper with his mistake he woud threaten me with the awkard squad for speaking     I grew so mad at last with this fool that I realy think I shoud have felt satisfaction in shooting him and I was almost fit to desert home and then agen I though[t] my companions woud laugh at me so I screwd up my resolution to the point at last and determind if he accusd me wrongfully for the time to come I woud certanly fall out of the ranks and adress him be the consequence what it woud     I had no great heart for boxing but I saw little fear in him for he was much less in strength then I was and the dread of the dark hole or awkard squad was but little in comparison to the teazing insults which this fellow daily inflicted so I was determind to act up to my vengance be the consequenc[e] what it might and I soon found an oppertunity for he was present[l]y at his pert jests and sneering meddling again     madness flus[h]t my cheek in a moment and when he saw it he rapt me over my knees in a sneering sort of way and said that he woud learn me how such fellows as I was dealt with by soldiers     I coud stand it no longer but threw my109 gun aside and seizing him by the throat I twisted him down110 and kickd him when he was down which got the fellow fame for those that had been against him before lifted him up and calld him a good fellow and calld me a coward while they led me to the black hole but the captain enqu[i]rd into the frey and the black hole was dispensd with in serving an addition on guard in its stead     the fellow th[r]ew a mortified eye on me ever after and never found his tounge to tell me of a fault even when I was in one

[B7, R98-R96]

I was threatend with the b[l]ack hole by one and even the tying up to the halbert by others who said the drummers were exce[rcis]ing them selves and being able to use the whip with punishment     I thought I possest common sense in a superior degree as not to feel fear at threatend sirmises of any sort for I always look’d on such things as mere tampering for childern but I confess my common sense was overcome and I felt fearful that somthing was in the wind till it blew over and got too late to [require me a flogging]

[B7, R96]

I once got into the awkard squad not for my own fault but that of others which shows that bad company is not very commendable     one morning an old pieman came up and taking as he fancyd an advantage of our hunger like a crafty politician he askd an increasd price for them thinking our nessesitys woud urge us to buy111

[B7, 94]

The officers were often talking about Bounaparte in the field and p[r]aising each other in a very redicilous manner very often     I will repeat one anecdote     having found out that the common men were more expert in making nightly plunders in orchards then learing their exercise by day and as they coud not come at the offenders being those who slept in out houses that coud go in and out as they chusd they determind on a plan to harass them as they calld it by taking them out in the field two additionel hours in the morning from 6 to 8 but they was not aware that 6 was a late hour with ploughmen who was usd to get up before the sun all the year round so instead of harrising the men they quickly harassd themselves and the scheme dropt     in one of these early exercises one of the Officers ladys whose fears for her husbands safty seemd very great even in little things sent the servant maid after him with his breakfast and as she came simpering along making her timid enquireys the captains of Companys declard that they thought M^r xxx had been too much of a soldier to stand this and others swore upon their honours that he woud not stand it     at length the enquiring maid found out her noble master who sneeringly disdaind to112 take it just as his brother officers expected the maids only reason for bringing it being that her mistress was afraid he woud take cold by being out of doors in such unusual hours which to be sure was a mortifying disclosure to the pin featherd soldier     ‘Go home and teach your mistress to know better girl’ was the gallant replye and his brother officers who were on the look out to watch the event when they saw the maiden depart hastend up to congratulate his valour and shake hands with him as a brother worthy the name of a soldier     the very clowns coud not help seeing this as rediculous and burst into a hearty laugh as the farce ended     the others got into a bye word and I itchd to do somthing with it and wrote a ballad which I venturd to offer one evening at Bells the printers for publication when a young man behind the co[u]nter read it and laughd heartily saying he had heard of the circumstance but it was too personal to print and returnd it     I felt fearful of being found out so I quickly destroyd it tearing it into very small pecies as I went along and threw them away but I heard nothing more of the matter     I can[n]ot remember much of it now but I thought little of it when I wrote and more after it was destroyd

[B7, R95-R94]

On the last time we was calld up there was a fresh bounty set on foot of a further 2 guineas to those who woud enlist for extended service as they calld it to be sent so many miles out of the county to guard barracks castles or any other urgengys that might happen five shillings of which was to be paid down and the rest to be given when they were wanted     I did not much matter an extent of service but I felt purposes enew for the 5 shillings and when it was offerd me I took it without further enquirey and never heard further about it113     [incomplete]

[B7, R94]