My first feelings and attempts at Po[etry] Chapter 4

I cannot say what led me to dabble in Ryh[me or] at what age I began to write it but my first r[ude attempts took the form of] imitations of my fathers Songs for he knew and sung a great many and I made a many things before I venturd to comit them to writing for I felt ashamd to expose them on paper and after I venturd to write them down my second thoughts blushd over them and [I] burnt them for a long while but as my feelings grew into song I felt a desire to preserve some and usd to correct them over and over till the last copy had lost all kindred to the first even in the title     I went on some years in this way wearing it in my memory as a secret to all     tho my parents usd to know that my leisure was occupyd in writing yet they had no knowledge of what I coud be doing for they never dreamd of me writing poetry     at length I venturd to divulge the secret a little by reading imatations of some popular song floating among the vulgar at the markets and fairs till they were common to all but these imatations they only laughd at and told me I need never hope to make songs like them     this mortified me often and almost made me desist for I knew that the excelling such doggerel woud be but a poor fame if I coud do nothing better but I hit upon an harmless deception by repeating my poems over a book as tho I was reading it     this had the desird effect     they often praisd them and said if I coud write as good I shoud do     I hugd my self over this deception and often repeated it and those which they praisd as superior to others I tryd to preserve in a hole in the wall but my mother found out the hurd and unconscously took them for kettle holders and fire lighters when ever she wanted paper not knowing that they were any thing farther then attempts at learning to write for they were writing upon shop paper of all colors and between the lines of old copy books and any paper I coud get at for I was often wanting tho I saved almost every penny I had given me on Sundays or holidays to buy it instead of sweet meats and fruit and I usd to feel a little mortified after I discoverd it but I dare not reveal the secret by owning to it and wishing her to desist for I feard if I did she woud have shown them to some one to judge of ther value which woud have put me to shame so I kept the secret dissapointment to myself and wrote on suffering her to destroy them as she pleasd but when I wrote any thing which I imagind better then others I preservd it in my pocket till the paper was chafd thro and destroyd by a diff[er]ent and full as vain presevation

[A34, R10]

My mother brought me a picturd pocket hankerchief from Deeping may fair as a fairing on which was a picture of Chatterton and his Verses on Resignation114     chance had the choice of it     she was mentioning the singular circumstance to me yesterday by asking me wether I rememberd it and saying that she little thought I shoud be a poet then as she shoud have felt fearful if she had for Chattertons name was clouded in mellancholly memorys which115 his extrodinary Genius was scarcly know[n]     the common people knew he was a poet and that was all     they know the name of Shakespear as one but the ballad monger who produces [and] supplys hawkers with their ware are poets with them and they imagine one as great as the other     so much for that envied emenence of common fame     I was fond of imatating every thing I met with and therefore it was impossible to resist the oppertunity which this beautiful poem gave me     I am not certain that this was the name of the poem     my memory was freshend some few years ago to believe so in reading the life of Chatterton by (I think) someone of the name of Davy116 as I have the poem by me I will insert it117

[A34, 9]

I always wrote my poems in the fields and when I was out of work I usd to go out of the village to particular spots which I was fond of from the beauty or secre[c]y of the scenes or some assosiation and I often went half a days journey from home on these excursions     in one of these rambles I was in a narrow escape of being taken up as a poacher     it was a fine day and I went to wander on wittering heath with the double intention of ryhming and seeking wild plants — I found a beautiful spot on the side of a rivulet that ran crooking and neglected among the yellow furze and misty green sallows that met on both sides     I sat down nearly conseald in the furze and tall downy grass and began to ryhme till I insensibly fell asleep and was awakend by muttering voices on the other side of the thicket     I lookd thro and saw they were keepers by their guns     one of the dogs came up and peepd at me and the men made a stop as if they suspected somthing was in it     I felt very fearful but it was soon over for they passd on     I was far away from any road and my account of myself woud have seemd but an idle one     it woud have only raisd their suspicions and I shoud have been taken up as a poacher undoubtedly so as soon as they were safe off I made the best of my way out of danger for the part I was in was enclosd with a wall and belongd to the Marquis

[A32, 6]

Among these trifles are many keepsakes of my early days when I used to drop down under a bush and scribble the fresh thoughts on the crown of my hat — since the world has found me I feel it a presumption to hide my self and fancy I feel as I felt then — I have more knowledge — as I found nature then so I made her — if an old pond with its pendant sallows fringing its mossy sides happened to be in the pleasant nook where I sat concealed among the black thorns drawing its picture — I called it a pond and if it was a flood wash in the meadows I called it a lake or imagined it one or if I sat under the ragged sides of a stone pit I fancied my self under the shadows of a rock and so my feelings were stirred into praise and my promises were muttered in prose or ryhme as the mood might suit at the moment and then these moods often repeated grew unperceived into quantity on paper and then I indulged my vanity in thinking how they would look in print and then I selected what I thought best and hid the others out of shames way as laughing stocks for the crowd who think it a childs occupations to indulge in such feelings and inexcusable folly in a man but on flitting from my native place I hunted over my bundles of paper intending to save the trouble of carriage by destroying those I set least store bye and the bundle[s] from whence these were taken were among the first of my intentions but I read them and paused thinking of old days and old feelings and excuse my vanity gentle reader — if I did not think them worthy of your praise     I felt I could not burn them

[Pfz 198, 42]

I always wrote my poems in great haste and generaly finishd them at once wether long or short for if I did not they generaly were left unfinishd     what corrections I made I always made them while writing the poem and never coud do any thing with them after wards

[A25, 10]

There was an Elegy also on an old Cart Horse118 an early poem which I alterd and made a tollerable thing of     the old Horse was in great fame in the Village for his gentleness and strength and readiness at all sorts of jobs     Another was a Tale of the Lodge house119

[B6, R81]

The Lodge house was a story of my mothers [I] put into ryhme     it was a current one in the village and the place were it was said to have happend was a lone house calld120 the ‘heath house’ about 2 miles from the Village     it stood in a lone hollow in the ground northward below the present new one called Milton Farm     it was disinhabited and in ruins when I was a boy     it had been a farm house and one of the barns was kept up were my father used to thresh in winter for several years — there were sever[a]l dismal storys afloat of midnight murders done in this place in the days of its prosperity and of course a great many accounts of shrieking women and groaning men heard and seen near the spot by passing shepherds and feast goers in the night     I remember with what fearful steps I usd to go up the old tottering stairs when I was a boy in the dinner hours at harvest with other companions to examine the haunted ruins     the walls were riddeld all over with names and dates of shepherds and herdsmen in their idle hours when the[y] crept under its shelter from showers in summer and storms in winter and there were mysterious stainings on the old rotting floors which were said to be the blood of the murderd inhabitants — it also was the haunt of Gipseys and others who pulld up every thing of wood to burn till they left nothing but the walls — the wild cat usd to hide and raise its kittens in the old roof an animal that used to be common in our woods tho rather scarce iatly — and the owls usd to get from the sun in its chimney and at the fall of evening usd to make a horrid hissing noise that was often taken for the waking noise of the hanting spirits that made it a spot shund desolat and degected

[A34, 2]

so I determined on some plan or other to preserve what I wrote and I went to Deeping to purchase a blank book of Henson the printer and book[s]eller there     I believe it was at the fair     he was rather inquisitive to know what I wanted it for and on getting flushd with ale I dropt some loose hints about dabbling in ryhmes and he expressd a desire to see some     I told him he shoud somtime and it passd on     I gave eight shilling for the blank book and inserted such of the poems I had bye me that I thought better of then the rest and the others I left as they were     Edward Drury has this Book     he got it out of me by impertinent invasions of my secrets and kept it as all my other MSS are kept — for some purpose unknown to me — there are several fragments in it which I intended to have made use of as there are in all that are scatterd about which prevents me [incomplete]

[A25, 10]

I had often thought of colecting my best poems in a book and I went to Hensons to enquire the price of one     he told me 8 shillings and on being alowd to pay for it as I woud I had one (this book is now in the possesion of Ned Drury)     he seemd puzzled to imagine what use I was going to make of it     he had know[n] me before by binding books for me taken in No^s and by seeing me often at the chappel at Helpstone for I was then fond of hearing the Independants and was much happier then perhaps then I have been since — but his knowledge of me only served to darken the riddle of my purchase for my ignorant appearance and vulgar habits had nothing of literary [manners] about them     he urgd many side wind enquireys to pump and wide guesses but I had kept the secret too long to be so easily perswaded as to let it go — but it was the fair day and getting a little bold with ale on my going for the book before I started home I lost my sho[y]ness and dropt a few hints as to the use I inte[n]ded it and it wakend his guesses into the suppose that I dabbled in ryhme     I acknowledged it and he wishd to see them     I told him he shoud but it passd on with out further conversation about the matter till now

[B3, 80; A31, 214]

He [J.B. Henson] was a bookseller and printer in a small way at Market Deeping one of the lowest market towns in england and as full of ignorance of books as a village — he came to Deeping as a school master     he then tur[n]d to a bookbinder and bought and sold a few second hand books and finally he set up printing Auction Bills and songs and pamphlets for travellers and at last he ventured to print books     his first trial was the ‘history of Joseph’121 which was badly done     the next was Bunyans Pilgrims Progress Heavenly footman etc which he sold in sixpenny Numbers     these was done much better nay tolearably well so as to procure him employment from the London Booksellers and he printed several religious books for one Baine a London Puplisher and the last things I know of which he printed on his own account was The Golden Treasury — a small book of Arithmetic by a — Pousnell a schoolmaster of Deeping and a political pamplet of wooden ingenuity by a Northamptonshire Farmer — he then broke and contented himself with his smaller beginnings of printing Ballads and Auction bills till last year when he left the place on the experimental adventuring of finding a better — when he first came to deeping he was a religious man belonging to the congregational dissenters or Independants and then did some dirty doings with sathan or at least the doings were exposd by accident for they are worldly doings and tho preachd and reprobated every sunday by religious of all persuasions they are common to her every family — tho the poluted stream flows by a secret passage — like the muddy one that emptys its self in the Thames — proffession in all religious opinions is a very meek pretending good lady clamourous against the world and its ways and always busy to abuse it — but in pra[c]tice of good she is a dead letter — he was turnd off from his profession of clerk to the Independants

The current coin that carrys a man at self interest thro the world is fair pretentions hollow friendships and false promises which are all of one value and but the reverse and tran[s]vers of a counterfit

[A31,216-17]

I wrote several of my poems while I was here and formd a resolution of publishing them for I was head over ears in embarassments and knew not which way to get out     I had shown some to my first acquaint[a]n[c]e in the matter J.B. Henson of Market Deeping Among which was the Sonnet to the Setting Sun and the one to the Primrose two of the earliest I ever wrote and these two he approvd of very much and also a poem on the death of Chatterton which he wanted to print in a penny book to sell to hawkers but I was doubtful of its merits and not covetous of such fame so I declind it     he seemd very anxious to publish my poems     he said he woud write to his London booksellers to hear if they woud assist us or take a share in the matter     I forget their names     and we proposd to do it by subscription and as soon as an hundred subscribers was gotten he was to begin to print it and on our starting he was to print 300 prospectuses for one Pound and I wishd him to write the thing but he declind and urgd me to it     I was very loath and had a worse opinion of my prose abilitys then my poetry for I had never written a letter excepting the silly love epistles aluded [to] but I tryd what I coud do     we lodgd at a public house still if a mellancholy sign swinging in the wind by a solitary clump of some five or six houses coud give it a licence to be calld so that stood as if no passenger coud ever be supposd to find it and as tho the road had forgotten the few fragments of the town that mea[s]urd it     it seemd to stand out of the worlds eye yet there was occasional droppers in that made it any thing but a place fit for study so I usd to think over it in my morning and night journeys too and from work     in one of the mellancholy mornings I wrote the two first verses of what is life122     having another lime kiln at royal123 about two miles off and at this place I sat down one day on a coal skuttle and wrote my address to the Public on a piece of paper which I kept for the purpose     it gave me a deal of trouble and I was ill satisfied with what I had written but I wanted to do somthing to get out of debt so I wrote it and Directed it with a pencil and in the want of sealing wax seald it with pitch and took it to Stamford but my heart was in a thousand minds ere I got there     somtimes I thought I woud give up all though[t]s of poetry and again my hopes returnd and I resolvd to try the experiment thinking that if I got laughd at and reapd scorn instead of profit in the publication of my poems it woud only be a cure to all foolish fancys and scribbling follys for the future so I sat down upon a stone heap before I got into Stamford and lookd over it again to correct it and I felt as I went on as if every body knew my errand and my face reddend at the gaze of a passer bye     the post office was shut up when I got there and they wanted a penny with the letter but I had not got one so they took [it] with a loath kind of [attitude] an[d] bye and bye a letter returnd from Henson stating that he woud meet me at Stamford with 100 of the prospectuses and arrange for further matters     I accordingly went and for the first time saw a sonnet of mine in print and I scarcly knew it in its new dress and felt a prouder confidence then I had hither too done thinking it got merit by its dress     his mind was rather changd when I got there     he did not seem so urgent to print them and instead of a pound he had got 5 or 6 shillings more one for his journey etc etc     I was not aware that promises was a current coin among booksellers of all sizes from Henson the sale bill printer to the city professor     I met him at the Dolphin Inn     I found that he did not come on purpose on my er[r]and     but he had two old books to dispose of one a bible and we went down to Adams the second hand bookseller to dispose of them and left some prospectuse[s]     he wanted to go into Thompsons shop but I declind as I owd him a small debt which I coud not discharge and while we was drinking together a dull looking fellow in a genteelish dress came in to whom Henson gave one of the papers offering at the same time as a sort of apology a little account [of] my profesion etc but the fellow just threw his eyes over it then lookd at me and walkd out of the room without saying a word     the next person that came in was of a milder disposition tho his profession is not a common assosiate at such places yet in spite of foibles he was a good fellow     Henson124 begd him to peruse one     he did and made enquiries to me which I answerd in a shoy [manner] but he wishd me success and gave the sonnet some praise askd me to drink with him and bade Henson set his name down as a subscriber wishing at the same time that he was able to give me further assistence     this gave me heart and did me more good then all I ever met with before or after     I felt it deeply and never forgot the name of the Rev^d M^r Mo[u]nsey125     a short [while] after I left pickworth and returnd home wher Henson proposd to print the work as soon [as] he shoud have 100 Subscribers     the[n] after I had got a good many things ready for him to begin with he said he coud not do it unless I coud borrow £15 of any friend in the village but there was not a frend in the village friendly enough to lend me fifteen shillings and I told him so     then he proposd £10 and in this shuffling from one proposal to another I got very uneasy and my confidence in his promises shrunk to nothing     I wishd then that I had never engagd in the matter and felt ashamd as I went down the street scarcly daring to look any one in the face for the prospectuses had filld every bodys mouth with my name and prospects most of which was Jobs comforters and the cry was against me (see etc etc)

[A32, 14-17]

at the situation I found myself in after I had printed and distributed all my papers — I found not one subscriber and my hopes seemd lost — I knew not what course to take     I had got no work to go too and I hardly dare show my face to seek for any — every body seemd to jeer me at my foolish pretentions and seemd shony at my fallen hopes — enquirey stood on tiptoe with question go were I woud and I hated to hear them and evaded them as well as I coud     I felt uncommonly uneasy and knew not what to do     I sometime thought of running away and leaving home were I might be at peace among strangers (for my dissapointment was fast growing into a bye word) — and I went to Stamford twice to enlist in the attillery which was recruiting there but my variety of minds prevented me besides my love matters etc was a strong tether that I coud not easily break — I went so far at one time as to take the money from a recruit but the sergant was a better man then such usually are and said he took no advantage of a man in liquor for I was fresh at the time and let me off with paying the expences of the drink — but I was wanting in height which might be a better plea then the sergants honesty

[A32, 5]

in the midst of this dilemma a bookseller name Thompson sent in a bill for 15 shillings which he desired I woud pay him as he was going to leave the place     I was very willing to pay him but I was not able so I wrote a few lines to tell him the situation I was in sending at the same time a few prospectuses and wishing he woud do somthing to assist me while I promisd to pay the debt as soon as ever I was able which I hopd to be ere long     I got my companion T Porter of Ashton to take the letter but he treated all with contempt and abusd him     the debt was ran for some numbers of the boston enquirer which I never finishd — Ned Drury had enterd on the shop then and on seeing one of the prospectuse[s] he took it for a matter of profit and paid the 15 shillings for me before he enquird further     this matter he has translated into a lye in the Introduction which has another lye in it not of his insertion as he says and that is of my selling the poems for 26 Pounds     I never sold them at all is the fact of the matter     I once signd an agreement of Drurys which alowd me a quarters profit     I was fresh at the time but it got wind and others heard of it that knew better then I did who calld it a villanous trick so he sent it up to London to be destroyd as they say     I know nothing     this I know that I have never signd an agreement of any kind since and never will     when my friend Porter told me of his success I was in a tetherd perplexity and knew not what to do but Ned Drury with his friend R Newcomb publisher of the Stamford Mercury they calld at a farmers of the name of Clerk to dine and enquire into my character and merits as a poet     the former was open to every meddler but the latter was a secret so they came to enquire more about it with me     I was at a neighbours house at Billings the bachelors hall when they came and my sister ran for me and on telling me two gentlemen wanted to see me I felt hopful and timidly went home when I found them talking to my parents     Drury said little or nothing but Newcomb askd some questions as to how my writings was disposd of and when I told him that I had made proposal for henson126 to print them he said they did not wish to take them out of his hands but that instead of desiring money to print them they woud let me have money for my nessesitys so I thought the difference of advantage a good one and readily engagd to get my MSS from Hensons     M^r Newcomb invited me to dine with him on the monday as he prepard to start but cautiously opend the door again to remind me that unless I brought the MSS I need not come     I felt insulted with his kindness and never accepted the invitation tho I took them

[A32, 16-18]

tho I took some of them the next day when Drury lookd over them and gave me a guinea as a sort of earnest I suspect and promisd to pay my debts     I remaind with him the whole day and he gave me a poem in my hands to read of Lord Byrons     I think it was the G[i]a[o]ur and the first time I had ever seen any of them     I promisd to take him more of my poems when I got them from Hensons (he making it a matter of speculation and trying to be sure of his bargain before he enterd too far in it     so far he was right) so I wrote to him and sent it by my mother to deliver up my poems as [he] had broken the engagments by wishing me to borrow £15     I told him that this was an impossib[ili]ty all along and mentiond my better prospects in the new engagment I had made with Drury     he gave them up with some reluctance and I took them to Drury127     [he] showd them to the Revd M^r Towpenny128 of Little Casterton who sent them back with a cold note stating that he had no objection to assist in raising the poor man a small subscription tho the poems appeard to him to posses no merit to be worthy of publication     Drury read this presious thing to me and as I fancyd all men in a station superior to me as learned and wise especialy parsons I felt my fortune as lost and my hopes gone and tho he tryd to cheer me I felt degected a long time and almost carried it too far     after prosperity shone out upon me I rememberd it keenly and wrote the following lines on his name and a letter which I never sent

Towpenny his wisdom is and towpenny his fame is

Towpenny his merit is and towpenny his name is

And as twopence is a trifle I well may do without him

Ill sing in spite of twopenny and not care towpence about him

soon after Twopenny sent his note Drury showd them again to Sir English Dobbin129 who expressd a different opinion and left his name as a subscriber     this heartend me again and I ryhmd on and became pacified in     this winter I finis[h]d all the fragments that I thought worth it for most of what I had done hitherto was unfinishd     the earliest of such were Helpstone which I had intended for a long poem in the manner of Goldsmith and the fate of amy Address to a Lark130     the address to a Lark was made one cold winters morning on returning home from raking stubble as the ground was so froze that I coud not work     I frit the lark up while raking and it began to sing which suggested the poem that was written in a mellancholy feeling — the Lost Greyhound was made while going and returning from Ashton one Winters day     the fate of Amy was begun when I was a boy     I usd to be very fond of hearing my friend J Turn [ill] read the Ballad of Edwin and Emma131 in weeding time and as Ameys story was popular in the village I thought it might make a poem so tryd it and imitated the other as far as the ideas of it floated on my memory     Evening was alterd from a very early one of a great length made one evening after I had been cowtending on the common… Noon which I wrote very early and composd on a hot day in summer while I went to fill my fathers bottle with water at round oak spring and Evening etc and the sonnets to the Setting Sun the Primrose the Gipseys evening blaze and a Scene etc     these were begun when I was 14 or 15 and finishd and in some cases alterd throughout I began to write Sonnets at first from seeing two very pretty ones in an old news paper I think they were by charlotte Smith132     the rest in the first vol was written the next summer and winter while the book was going thro the press one at the latter end

Crazy Nell was taken from a narative in the Stamford Mercury nearly in the same manner it was related     I was very pleasd with it and thought it one of the best I had written and I think so still     the next spring my master Wilders sent for me to work in the Garden and I started when I renewd my acquantance with Patty which had rather broken off     I usd to seize the leiseur that every wet day brought me to go to Drurys shop to read books and to get new tunes for my fiddle which was a pleasure of a pastime     when ever I wrote a new thing I usd to take it to Drury very often on Sunday morning to breakfast with him and in one of these visits I got acquanted with D^r Bell133 a man of odd taste but a pleasant acquantance     he was fond of books and had edited a droll one Entitled the banisher of the blue devils a jest book     he usd to cut out all the curious and odd paragraphs out of the news papers and paste them on sheets of paste board     he had a great many of these things which [he] had collected for many years     he had been a docter in the army and in the east or west Indias [and] became acquainted with Peter Pindar then in the same capacity some of whose early poems he possesd which had never been published     he wrote to earl Spencer respecting me and succeeded in getting me a salary of £20 per Annum — I was full of hopes at my present success but my money matters were still precarious for Drury objected at times to paying all my bills tho he did it afterwards134     my mistress wishd to see some of my pieces and usd to be anxious to introduce me to strangers whom she woud talk too about me and who woud express a curosity to see me but I usd to get out of the way when I coud     one of these who stopd there a day or two saw some of them and said that the poem of evening was an imitation of somthing which has slipt my memory now     I thought the man shoud say somthing if he knew nothing and seeing we displayd but a bookeless appearance he hazarded his make shift for learning as heedless as he pleasd     I know nothing of who or what he was — Drury told me now that my poems was crownd with the utmost success I coud wish for as they were in the hands and met the favourable opinion of a gentleman who coud and woud do them justice but he woud not tell me his name and a painter of profiles was in the town whom he engagd to take my likness     these things were trifle[s] to remember but they were great at their beginings     they made me all life and spirits and nothing but hopes and prosperity was before me — (Pattys friends who rather lookd coldly on my acquainten[ce] with her and who seemd to take my [attentions] as more of intrusions then visits) now began to be anxious after my [welfare] and courted my acquaintance while I on the contrary felt their former slights and now I felt my self on advantage ground I determind to take my revenge and neglected to go or but slightly heeded their urgent invitations and while I as at home in the winter I renewd my acquaintance with a former love and had made a foolish confidenceith a young girl at Southorpe135 and tho it began in a heedless [flirtation] at Stamford fair from accompanying her home it grew up in to an affection that made my heart ach to think it must be broken for patty was then in a situation that marriage coud only remedy     I felt awkardly situated and knew not which way to proceed     I had a variety of minds about me and all of them unsetteld     my long smotherd affections for Mary revivd with my hopes and as I expected to be on a level with her bye and bye I thought then I might have a chance of success in renewing my former affections     amid these delays pattys emergencys became urgent     she had reveald her situation to her parents when she was unable to conseal it any longer who upbraided her with not heeding thier advice and told her as she had made her bed hard she shoud lye on it for on my first arrival at Casterton a young shoemaker paid his addresses to her whose visits were approvd off more by her parents then her self and when I had disinherited him of his affections they encouragd him to come on and tryd and urgd to win her mind over to his and their wishes     when I reflected on these things I felt stubbornly disposd to leave them the risk of her misfortunes but when she complaind of their [coldness towards her] I coud stand out no longer and promisd that my prosper[i]ty shoud make me her friend and to prove that I was in earnest I gave her money to [bolster her] independance till we shoud be married     this behaviour pacified them and left her at peace — they were poor tho they had known better days and they fancyd that the memory of these things aught to be accou[r]ted for and make them above the level in the vulgar occupations of life like my profession     their friends too still enjoyd prosperity and woud fancy it a stain to [unite] their family with a lime burner     such was the tide that bore strongly against us on our first acquaintance but when my book was publishd the wind changd and all were on my side courting my acquaintance and things will fall in their season wether they are wanted and expected or not     Autum seldom passes away without its tempest and friendship began upon speculation and self interest is sure to meet with a shock as chances and changes fall out     the man that built his house upon sand was run down by the tide — my friendship is worn out and my memorys are broken

I held out as long as I coud and then married her at Casterton church     her uncle John Turner was father and gave her the wedding dinner

I workd on at the New Inn till the winter and then returnd home on a disagreement in the wages as he promisd me nine shillings a week the year round and then wanted to put me off with seven     he was an odd man but a good Master and the place on the whole was one of the best I ever met with     I left it with regret and rather wishd to return as I liked the town and the fields and solitudes were wild and far better then the fenny flats etc that I [had] been usd but circumstances fell out to prevent me     I left Casterton on the Bullruning day at Stamford and on calling on Drury I fell in with John Taylor whom I found was the Editor of my poems then in the press and nearly ready for publishing     he was visiting M^r Gilchrists and in the evening they sent one of the servant maids to Drurys to invite me to go     I felt loath but on his persuasion I started and he showd me the door and felt very irksome while I stayd     M^r Gilchrist read an account of Woodcroft Castle from Woods Historys136 and Taylor talkd over some sayings and doings of the living authors     I stopt a short time and when I got back to Drurys I wrote some ryhmes which was publishd in the first [volume]

[A32, 18-22]

most of the Poems which I destroyd137 were descriptive of Local Spots about the Lordship and favourite trees and wild flowers     one of these ‘On the Violet’ was inserted by Taylor in the Village Minstrel and the ‘Walk to Burghley Park’138 is of the same date     There was another on ‘Round Oak Spring’139 as good as either of these which has not been publishd     Chauncy Hare Townsend140 saw the Book in Drury’s possesion and told me he was particularly pleased with this poem which made me think more of them afterwards then I had done     the encouragment my first Volume met with lifted me up into heartsome feelings and ryhming was continually with me night and day     I began the Village Minstrel a long while before attempting to describe my own feelings and love for rural objects and I then began in good earnest with it after the trial of my first poems was made and compleated     it was little time but I was still unsatisfied with it and am now and often feel sorry that I did not withold it a little longer for revision     the reason why I dislike it is that it does not describe the feelings of a ryhming peasant strongly or localy enough     I began a second part to effect this and got a good way in it and sent Taylor a specimen but he said nothing in return either for it or against it and as I found the verses multiplied very fast and my intended correction of localitys growing very slow I left off and destroyd a good part of it     the rest remains as they were — all the poems in the Village Minstrel save the early ones above mentioned were written after the publication of the first Vol and a many more unpublished yet     most of the Poems now written were written in the three years preceding the first publication     I have written nothing since I was taken ill march was a twelvemonth in ryhme     I had many ryhming projects in my head and often felt anxious to write a dramatic Poem but perhaps the prevention by illness has been the means of saving the fame I have gotten as they might have been such failures in such matters [as to] have forfieted all

[B6, R81]

A pro[p]het is nothing in his own country

Envy was up at my success with all the lyes it coud muster     some said that I never wrote the poems and that Drury gave me money to father them with my name     others said that I stole them out of books and that parson this and Squire tother knew the books from which they were stolen     pretending scholars said that I had never been to a grammer school and there fore it was impossible for me to write any thing and our parson141 industriously found out the wonderful discovery that I coud not spell and of course his opinion was busily distributed in all companys which he visited that I was but a middling success of a poet but his opinion got its knuckles rapt — and then he excusd the mistake by saying he did not read poetry and consequently knew little about it     there he was right — one sunday the same prophet caught me working a common problem in geometry with the scale and compasses in which I was fond to dabble and after expressing his supprise at my meddlings in such matters he said we do these things different at colledge     we make a circle without compasses and work a problem without a scale — the solution of this problem was somthing like a round lye — an old leistershire farmer and his family in a neighboring vill[a]ge was uncommonly against me     they declard it was impossible for me to do any thing and dis believd every thing but that which was against me — thus every kind loves its own color and on that principal the Indian believes the devil a white sprit and the europea[n]s a black one — the old man had a lubberly son whom he fancied to make a learned one by sending him to school till he was a man and his ten years wisdom consisted of finding that 2 and 2 makes 4 that a circle was round and a triangle had 3 corners and that poetry was nothing in comparison to such knowledge     the old men believd it and though[t] like wise

[B3, R90]

The Critics speaks their guesses or opinions with such an authourity of certainty as tho they were the fountain of truth     some of them said I had imitated the old poets Raleigh Drumond etc and several of them complaind at my too frequent imitations of Burns     now the fact is that when my first poems was written I knew nothing of Burns not even by name for the fens are not a literary part of england     nay my ignorance was not only a wide guess from all these but they had no existance with me — and I know nothing of Drummond etc further then the name even now     I had an odd Volume of Ramsay a long while and if I imitated any it shoud be him to which I am ready to acknowledge a great deal

[B3, 81]

I have been accused of being a drunkard and of being ingratful towards my friends and Patrons by a set of meddling trumpery to whom I owe none who never gave me furether notice then their scandal which is too weak or foolish for me either to notice or replye to     they are a set of little curs without teeth whose barkings can do no harm and whose busy meddling rather serves to create laughter then anger     the utmost breath of their satire tho blown up to bursting has not sufficient strength to bear up a soap bubble so let them rail     most of them have known me from childhood and coud never find that I had any faults till now — I possesd their good word 18 years and it did me no service — and if I shoud live to wear their bad one as long it will do me no harm so I care nothing about them tho their meddlings get the ears of some that believe them — I have felt all the kindness I have received tho I did not mak[e] a parade of it     I did not write eternal prases and I had a timidity that made me very awkard and silent in the presence of my superiors which gave me a great deal of trouble and hurt my feelings     I wishd to thank them and tell them that I felt their kindness and remained silent     neither did I trumpet the praises of patrons eteranly werever I went — I had found that great talkers were always reckond little liars and that eternal praisers in public were alowd to be whisperers of slander in secret so I thought that if I was always speaking of myself and patrons among such company I shoud be suspected and reckond as one of them — I was never utterly cast down in adversity     I struggled on     neither was I at any time lifted up above my prosperity     I never attempted to alter my old ways and manners     I asumed no proud notions nor felt a pride above my station     I was courted to keep company with ‘the betters’ in the village but I never noticed the fancied kindness     the old friends and neighbours in my youth are my friends and neighbours now and I have never spent an hour in any of the houses of the farmers since I met with my [success] or mixd in their company as equals     I visit none but an old neighbours with whom I was acquainted in my days of labour and [hardship]     I keep on in the same house that we always occupied and have never felt a desire to have a better — tho it has grown into a great inconvinience since my father first occupied it 35 years ago     it was as roomy and confortable as any of our neighbours and we had it for 40 shillings rent while an old apple tree in the garden generaly made the rent     the garden was large for a poor man and my father man[a]ged to dig it night and morning before and after the hours of labour and lost no time     he then did well — but the young farmer that succeeded our old Landlord raised the rent and the next year made four tennements of the house leaving us a corner of one room on a floor for 3 Guineas a year and a little slip of the garden which was divided into 4 parts but as my father had been an old tennant he gave him the choice of his share and he retaind our old apple tree     tho the ground was good for nothing yet the tree still befrended us and made shift to make up the greater part of our rent till every misfortune as it were came upon him to crush him at once for as soon as hee was disabled from work the old tree faild to bear fruit and left us unable to get up the rent and when Drury found me out we owd for 2 years and was going to leave it the next year     my father was going to a parish house and I was at Casterton in service were I intended to remain and when I met with my unexpected prosperity I never felt a more satisfied happiness then being able to keep on the old house and to put up with all its unconven[i]enc[e]s and when I was married the next door occupier happend to leave his tenement so I took it and remaind on — I have often been urged and advised to leave it and get a more roomey and better looking house by visitors who gave me no better encouragement then their words and whom I did not expect woud be of any service to me in case their advice happend to lead me into greater inconvinences in the end so I took no notice of them and lived on in the same house and in the same way as I had always done following my old occupations and keeping my old neighbours as friends without being troubled or dissapoi[n]ted with climbing ambitions that shine as fine as they may only tempt the restless mind to climb so that he may be made dizzy with a mockery of splendor and topple down headlong into a lower degradation then he left behind him —

and as soon as he went to the parish for relief they came to clap the town brand on his goods and set them down in their parish books because he shoud not sell or get out of them     I felt utterly cast down for I coud not help them sufficient to keep them from the parish so I left the town and got work at Casterton with Gordon     I felt some consolement in solitude from my distress [by] letting loose my revenge on the unfeeling town officer in a Satire on the ‘Parish’ which I forbore to publish after wards142 as I thought it [     ]

and they remaind quiet spectators of my success and ceased to meddle with my father when I did not care for their kindness [nor] fear the[ir] resentment

[B3, 85-7]

In the beginning of January my poems was publishd after a long waiting anxiety of nearly two years and all the reviews excepting Philips waste paper Mag:143 spoke in my favour     in the course of the publication I had venturd to write to Lord Milton to request leave that the vol might be dedicated to him but his Lordship was starting into Italy and forgot to answer it so it was dedicated to nobody which perhaps might be as well     as soon as it was out my mother took one to Milton when his Lordship sent a note to tell me to bring 10 more copys on the following sunday     I went and after sitting awhile in servants hall were I coud eat and drink nothing for thought his Lordship sent for me and instantly expland the reasons why he did not answer my letter in a quiet unaffected manner which set me at rest     he told me he had heard of my poems by parson Mossop who I have since heard took hold of every oppertunity to speak against my success or poetical abilitys before the book was publishd and then when it came out and others praisd it instantly turnd round to my side     Lady Milton also askd me several questions and wishd me to name any book that was a favourite expressing at the same time a desire to give me one but I was confou[n]ded and coud think of nothing so I lost the present     in fact I did not like to pick out a book for fear of seaming overeaching on her kindness or else Shakespear lay at my tongues end     Lord fitzwilliam and lady fitzwilliam too talkd to me and noticd me kindly and his Lordship gave me some advice which I had done well perhaps to have noticed better then I have     he bade me beware of booksellers and warnd me not to be fed with promises — on my departure they gave me an handfull of money the most that I had ever possesd in my life together     I almost felt that I shoud be poor no more     there was seventeen pound

Af[ter]wards I was visited by the Hon^bl M^r Pierpoint144 with an invitation to go to burghly on the sunday but when sunday came it began to snow too unmercifully for a traveller even to ventur thus far so I coud not go till the monday tho it was not the weather that prevented me     I felt fearfull that my shoes woud be in a dirty condition for so fine a place     when I got there the porter askd me the reason why I did not come before and when I spoke of the weather he said ‘they expected you and you shoud stand for no weathers tho it rained knives and forks with the tynes downward     we have been suspected of sending you away’    this was a lesson that I afterwards took care to remember after awhile his Lordship sent for me and went upstairs and thro winding passages after the footman as fast as I coud hobble almost fit to quarrel with my hard naild shoes at the noise they made on the marble and boarded floors and cursing them to myself as I set my feet down in the lightest steps I was able to utter     his Lordship recieved me kindly askd me some questions and requested to look at the MSS which Mr Pierpont wishd me to bring in my pocket     after I had been about half an hour eyeing the door and now and then looking at my dirty shoes and wishing myself out of the danger of soiling such grandeur he saw my embarassments as I suspect and said that I shoud loose my dinner in the servants hall and said I had better go but it was no use starting for I was lost and coud not stir a foot     I told his Lordship and he kindly opend the door and showed me the way when he sudde[n]ly made a stop in one of the long passages and told me that he had no room in his gardens for work at present but that he woud alow me 15 gineas a year for life which woud enabale145 me to pursue my favourite studys at least two days in a week (this bye the bye was far better)     I was astonishd and coud hardly believe that he had said it     he then calld a servant and I went off scarcly feeling the ground     I went on and almost fanc[y]ing myself as rich a man as his Lordship     that night I calld at O. Gilchrists and he scarcly belie[v]d it and I thought I was mistaken

[A55, 7-8; A32,1]

good luck began to smile from all quarters and my successes made me almost beside myself     Lord Radstock wrote to me with the most feeling affections and has acted to me more of a father then a friend     Blairs Sermons146 accompanied the letter and M^rs Emmerson147 about the same time wrote with kind encouragments and accompanied it with a Youngs Night thoughts but the first letter I ever recievd was from a disguised name A.B. supposd to be Dawson Turner of Yarmouth148 seasond with good advice which I did not heed as I ought and Captain Sherwell149 wrote to me early and kindly     it was thro his friendship that I recievd the present from Walter Scott of 2 Guineas and the Lady of the Lake which was wrongly and sadly mistated in the gossip that appeard in the London Mag: intitld a Visit etc     I felt dis apointed when I heard it was a present from the author but I said nothing     C.S. made an apology for the omision by saying that Walter Scott enjoyd such a high literary character that he did not wish to hazerd an opin[i]on or insert his name in the Vol     I cannot exactly say what the words were without refering to the letter but a little slip of paper was inserted in the vol by CS stating that Walter Scott presented the Lady150 of the Lake to John Clare with the modest hope that he woud read it with attention     it was a foolish modesty at best — I told a friend of mine about the matter [and he] laughd and said that he rememberd the time when the author of the lady of the lake hazarded his reputation in a matter by courting the favour of the critics in stating that his livelihood consisted in his writings     wether this be true or false it rests in my mistake for Octave Gilchrist was the man that told me and I believe him —

[A32, 1-2; B3, 75]

[Visitors and Visits]

I was now wearing into the sunshine and the villagers that saw caraiages now and then come to the house filld with gossiping gentry that was tempted by curosity more then any thing else to seek me     from these I got invitations to corespond and was swarmd with promises of books till my mother was troubld and fancied that the house woud not hold them but her trouble was soon set aside for the books never came and one letter generally worded with extravagant praise courting a quick reply I replied warmly and there the matter ended     I had nothing but my dissapointment in return but I soon felt expierenc[e] growing over these deceptions and when such matters was palmd on me again I never answerd them     I had two or three of these things nay more from parsons — amid these successes I went to work as usual but was often tormented and sent for home to satisfye the gaze of strangers — Lord Radstock started a subscription that filld me with astonishment at his accounts of its success     Taylor and Hessey inserted a hundred pounds in there names at the top of the List and the good Lord Fitzwilliams gave me a hundred pounds from a letter which Taylor sent who took the [opportunity] to kill two birds with one stone and mentiond Keats in his letter to whom his Lordship gave 50 pound and a short time after a tirade [was published in the] London Magazine

[A32, 2-3]

the first publication of my poems brought many visitors to my house out of a mere curosity to expect to know wether I realy was the son of a thresher and a laboring rustic as had been stated and when the[y] found it realy was so they lookd at each other as a matter of satisfied supprise askd some gossiping questions and on finding me a vulgar fellow that mimicd at no pretentions but spoke in the rough ways of a th[o]rough bred clown they soon turnd to the door and dropping their heads in a good morning attitude they departed — I was often annoyd by such visits and got out of the way when ever I coud and my wife and mother was often out of temper about it as they was often caught with a dirty house     then which nothing was a greater anoyance

[B7, R93]

some of them askd me if I kept a book to insert the names of visitors and on my answering in the negative they woud often request to insert them on my paper and many of them left promises which they never performd so I soon learnd that promises was a good seed time but prefromances brought a bad harvest forgetfulness coming in between like pharoahs lean kine and swallowing them up151     I had the works of Lord Byron promisd by 6 different people and never got them from none of them

[B7, R93]

Among the many that came to see me there was a dandified gentleman of uncommon odditys of character that not only borderd on the ridicilous but was absully152 smotherd in it     he made pretentions to great learning and knew nothing     on his first coming he began in a very dignified manner to examine the fruits of experience in books and said he hoped I had a fondness for reading as he wished to have the pleasure to make me a present of some     he then begd my walking stick and after he had got it he wanted me to write my name on the crook     I really thought the fellow was mad     he then asked me some insulting libertys respecting my first acquaintance with Patty and said he understood that in this country the lower orders made their courtship in barns and pig styes and asked wether I did     I felt very vext and said that it might be the custom of high orders for aught I knew as experience made fools wise in most matters but I assured him he was very wrong respecting that custom among the lower orders here     his wife said he was fond of a joke and hoped I shoud not be offended but I saw nought of a joke in it and found afterwards that he was but a scant remove from the low order himself as his wife was a grocers da[u]ghter     after he had gossiped an hour he said well I promised to give you a book     but after examining your library I dont see that you want any thing as you have a great many more then I expected to find     still I shoud make you an offer of somthing     have you got a Bible     I said nothing but it was exactly what my Father had long wanted and he instantly spoke for me and said we have a bible sir but I cannot read it the print is so small so I shoud thank you for one     the man lookd very confused and explaind by his manner that he had mentioned the very book which he thought we had to escape giving it

[A33,1]

[Preston]

his name was Preston153 and he made me believe that he was a very great Poet and that he knew all the world and that almost all the world knew him     he had a vast quantity of M.S.S. he said by him but had not published much at present tho he had two rather important works in the press at that time whose publication he anxiously awaited and on pressing him hard about their size and contents he said that one was an Elegy on the death of the Queen and the other some anecdotes that he had pickt up in India which the religious tract society was printeing for him     he said he thought that the first woud be about 9^d and the other 3^d price but his grand work for he calld it so himself was yet to be tried     it was ‘The Triumph of Faith’     he had met with one patron at Cambridge by accident as it were who admird a hymn which had been sung and enquiring after the Author M^r Preston present him self and the person invited him to sup with him were he heard his himny again sung to the Pianaforte with excessive gratification as him self expressd it — he had been a sailor and pretended to be familiarly acquainted with Ireland the Shakespear Phantom154 whom he described as a great and unfortunate Genius — he was for ever quoting beautys from his own poetry and he knew all the living poets in England and Scotland as familiar as his own tongue — he was a living hoax — he had made two or three visits to Bloomfield and talkd of him as familiar as if he had been his neighbour half a life time     he calld him ‘brother bob’155

he was one who was very fond of asking questions and answering them him self by guesses before those whom he was talking to had time to replye     ‘how large will your new book be — say about 5 shillings     who is your first Patron     shall we say Lord Radstock     how many are printed at an edition     we’ll say a thousand eh’ and these he woud utter and reply too in one breath without a break or hesitation to wait your reply or to know the correctness of his guesses and between the intervals of his discourse he woud156 repeat some lines from Byron in mouthing drawl somthing like the growl of a mastiff — he askd me wether I was a good reader of poetry and on my saying that I was not he woud say come to London sir by all means ‘come to London Sir’     we have sporting clubs Lectures and all manner of [exercises] to make you a perfect reader and reciter of poetry — he knew all the Painters and Royal Accademicians and coud critis[iz]e their various exellences and defects with great dexterity of tongue     he praised Hilton157 and two or three others as the tops of the tree while a stood abusing a sketch of my head that hung by the wall and finding a thousand faults with it     I let him go on and then told him it was done by Hilton he turnd himself round on his heel blamed his eyesight and discoverd nothing but beautys afterward

with ‘well friend John you must give me so and so’ he utterd a prayer expounded a chapter in the bible sung a hymn told a smutty story and repeated one of Mores Songs in quick succession     I felt quite wearied with his officious company for I had him the whole day and some months after he wrote me word that urgent busness had brought him to Peterbro and that if I wanted to see him I shoud write a welcome to tell him so     I thought this was an easy oppertunity to let silence inform him he was not welcome so I never wrote and he never came

[A33, 8; A18, 275, 269]

Another impertinent fellow of the Name of Ryde158 who occupys a situation which proves the old Farmers assertion that the vilest weeds are always found in the richest soil

[A18, 269]

A Mr Frellingham of Peterboro came to see me with a painter159

[B6, R85]

Hopkinson

Mr Hopkinson160 of Morton the magistrate sent an odd sort of invitation for he was an odd sort of man     he sent a note saying that a horse woud be at my door at helpstone on such a morning at such a time of the clock leaving me no option wether I chused to go or not     it was harvest and I was busy reaping wheat     I told the man I was reaping for about the matter and he said I had better go so accordingly the poney came and I started     the day after I got in his wife took me round the town to walk as she told me but I found it was to sho me to her parishioners     I felt very much anoyd at the awkard situation it led me in for I found they did not want to be troubled either with one or the other     her impertinent enquireys were often evaded with a earless indifference and a pretending business at their domestic labours     they woud scarcley wait to hear her speak ere the weel was started into a quicker twirl or the pots and pans scoured with a more bustleing hand     she was going to take me regularey round from door to door but I was obliged to tell her that I was not fond of such visitings so she desisted but not without seeming to be offended — she was one of the oddest and most teaseing ca[r]ds in her fancied kindness that I ever met with — as soon as I got in she took me up stairs to show me a writing desk which she told [me] to consider as my own and showd me at the same time all the draws and their contents of Paper Pens ink sealing wax sticks saying that she expected I shoud make use of it and hoped I woud write something every day as she woud find me plenty of paper but when the up shoot came and after I had exhausted my whole budget of thanks and compliments for the present she begd to caution me that I shoud not take it away that it was mine every time I came and as long as I staid but she coud not part with it out of the house as it was an old favourite — she proposed reading my poems over leaf by leaf to give her opinions of them and make observations etc etc for my benefit and advantage to correct in a second edition and she began with the introduction     she read a few lines and then preached over an half hours comment      she said the introduction was very well written but I must now think of improving it as I had met with many friends whom it woud be very rude of me not to mention as they certainly woud look for some compliment from me for the notice they had taken and she thought that I coud do it better in ryhme     when she got to the poems she woud remark this is a pretty poem but why did you not dedicate it some one of your friends as you did the woodman     she read in a loud confident voice like the head boy in a school who is reckond a good reader and whos consiet thinks he is so g[ood] and tho she met with words frequently in reading other books that she did not understand she woud jar them over with an unmeaning mutter as if she thought you woud take no notice or did not understand it — she161 woud often lift up her eye from her book to see if I was attentive and on finding my attention occupied with other things she gave up the critisismes after commenting on a few passages     she appeard to be a woman of very little understanding and less learning to help it out — there were two daughters that were well read in books and of quiet and amiable disposition but they had quarreld with her and did not come down stairs while I stayd — the man was one of odd taste and habits and I found that tho a magistrate he woud tell lies — he had written a book with a design of instructing his parishoners in a pompous and long winded style     he never wishd to be seen ignorant of any[thing] not even in the gossip or news of the village — he woud not bear contradicting and therefore was well quallified for a country magistrate     if you told any thing at dinner as an interesting story or fact of any kind it woud not seem to move his attention to listen a moment but the next day he woud repeat your story word for word as his own and tell it to you with as much gravity as if you had been a stranger to it and never heard it before

He askd me some pointless questions about my patrons in a earless manner as if he did not need enquireys when one day or two after wards he woud talk about them as if he had been a familiar acquaintance and knew much more about them then I did nay he woud tell me about them as if I knew nothing     he askd about the way in which Lord Milton and Exeter [behaved] and after I had told him he said he woud mention me to them as if they had never known or noticed me — he said he was acquainted with Lord Waldgrave and showd me a vol of my poems which he said Lady Waldgrave had given him — he took me with him to see Falkingham jaol a good distance from Morton and every one we met gentle or simple he woud stop to speak too and almost ask their business nay he woud question those that appeard his inferiors as if they were under going an examination in a court of justice — once when we were going to see Belvoir Castle while walking by a plantation a labourer happend to break out into a brisk loud whistle of a song tune and he instantly stopt to listen and swore they were poachers and bade me go on the other side to watch which way they started     I tryd to convince him that the whistle was a song tune but it was no use — and as soon as the fellow heard or perhaps saw that he was suspected tho hid from us I expect he felt fearful and stopt his whistle     this convinced the other that his opinion was right — so after watching awhile the fellow made his appearance and met us to know if we was waiting for him     He askd him his business there and he said he was putting down fencing which satisfied the magistrate — who I verily believe mistrusted every stranger for thieves or vag[a]bonds

[A25, 20, 28-30]

I had several kind and gentlemanly [visitors] came to see me     Chauncy Hare Townsend came to see me     it was one evening in summer and asked me if John Clare lived there     I told him I was he and he seemd supprised and askd agen to be satisfied for I was shabby and dirty     he was dissapointed I dare say at finding I had little or nothing to say for I had always had a natural depression of spirits in the presence of strangers that took from me all power of freedom or familarity and made me dull and silent for [if] I attempted to say any thing I coud not reccolect it and made so many hums and hahs in the story that I was obliged to leave it unfinished at last     I often tryd to master this confusion by trying to talk over reasonings and arguments as I went about in my rambles which I thought I did pretty well but as soon as I got before any body I was as much to seek as ever — C.H.T. was a little affecting with dandyism and he mimicked a lisp in his speech which he owd to affectation rather then habit     otherwise he was a feeling and sensible young man     he talkd about Poets and poetry and the fine scenery of the lakes and other matters for a good while and when he left me he put a folded paper in my hand which I found after he was gone was a sonnet and a pound bill     he promised and sent me Beatties Minstrel162     some letters passd between us and I sent him a present of my Village Minstrel when I never heard of him afterwards163     he has since published a Volume of Poems

[B6, R86]

I met with notice from the Bishop of Peterbro164 who sent me a beautifully bound copy of Miss Aikins Elizabeth165     his Lady came to see me twice with the Rev^d M^r Parsons166 and a young lady who presented me with a vol of sermons on the Christian religion     M^r Parsons gave me a copy of the Oxford sausage167     they talkd awhile about my poems and then lookd in the garden at my flowers and started — Drury usd to be very fond of introdusing me to strangers when I was at his house and I went there very often and at one of these calls General Birch Reynardson168 came into the shop to buy some books and made some enquireys about me     Drury told him I was at hand and he expressd a desire to see me when he invited me to come to Holywell (and expressd a regret that Lady Sophia his sister coud not see me being very ill and having sat up too long the day before on expecting my coming     I felt vext I did not go but it was no use her Ladyship gave me the pleasures of hope169) which I did in the beginning of April     it was a pleasant day for the season and I found the scenery of Holywell very beautiful     he showd me his library which was the largest I had seen then and he pulld out of the crammd shelves a thin Quarto beautifully bound in red morrocco     he said they were Love Elegys written by his father and of course in his mind were beautiful     I just glancd over them and fanc[i]ed they were imitations of Hammond170     at the end were some in MS which I suspected to be written by himself     I then went to see the garden and strolld a little about the park     a little river ran sweeping along and in one place he was forming a connection with it to form an Island     in one sunny spot was a large dial and near it under the shadows of some evergreens was a bird house built in the form of a cage glass all round and full of canarys that were fluttering about busily employd in building their nests — in looking about these places with the general a young lady the governess to the child[e]r whom accompanyd us whom I mistook for his wife neither of whom unriddeld my mistake till I found it out and I felt ashamd and vexd     when I started home the young lady wishd to see me again

after dinner the young lady came and requested I woud write a copy of Verses for her and an elderly woman wanted me to write an address to her son in imitation of Cowpers Lines on his mothers Picture

[A32, 3-4]

after looking about the gardens and the library I was sent to dinner in the Servants Hall171 and when it was over the housekeeper invited me into her room were the governess came and chatted in a free manner and asking me to corespond with her gave me her address     the house keeper wishd me to write an address to her son in imitation of Cowpers lines on his mothers picture — the governess was a pretty impertinent girl and mischeviously familiar to a mind less romantic then my own     I felt startled into sudden supprises at her manner and in the evening on my return home I was more supprisd still when on getting out of the park into the fields I found her lingering in my path and on coming up to her she smiled and told me plainly she was waiting to go a little way home with me     I felt evil apprehensions as to her meaning but I was clownish and shoy and threatnd no172 advantages to interpret it     she chatted about my poems and resumed the discourse of wishing me to correspond with her which I promised I woud     when we came to the brink of the heath that stands in view of Pattys cottage I made a stop to get rid of her but she lingerd and chatterd on till it grew very late when a man on horseback suddenly came up and askd the road we had came from when she thinking it was the General hastily retreated but on finding her mistake she returnd and resumd her discourse till it grew between the late and early when I wishd her good night and abruptly started without using the courage of shaking her by the hand — I felt excessive[l]y awkard all the way home and my mind was filld with guesses and imaginings at her strange manner and meanings — I wrote one letter too her and intended to be very warm and very gallant in it but fearing that she only wanted me to write love letters to have the pleasure to talk about them and laugh at them so my second mind wrote a very cold one in which I inserted the second address to a Rosebud in humble life173 in which I requested no Answer nor hinted a second adventure so there the matter or mystery ended for I never unriddeled its meanings tho it was one of the oddest adventures my poetical life met with     it made me rather consieted as I sometimes fancied the young lady had fallen in love with me and I expected [     ]174 — she came from Birmingham     I shall not mention her name here

[A25, 19-20]

I now recieved invitations to go to Milton not to visit Lord Milton but his servants but they were the first rate of the house and well informed men not unacquanted with books and I never met with a party of more happy and hearti[e]r fellows in my life     There was Artis up to the neck in the old Norman Coins and broken pots of the Romans and Henderson175 never wearied with hunting after the Emperor Butterfly and the Hornet Sphinx in the Hanglands wood and the Orchises on the Heath and West an upright honest man tho his delight in reading extended little further then the prices that fat sheep and bullocks fetchd and the rise of corn every week in the news paper — ‘the mans the man for a that’ and Roberts176 who sung a song of Moor[e]s and admired his poetry as clever and as stoutly as most ametuers and Grill the Cook177    he was a french man and possesd a fund of patient good humour and a countenance inimitable in england     his visage was a Ciracature in good earnest and woud heartily repay Cruikshanks a journey from London to take it     Artis drew an outline often of his countenance but they want the spirit of the origional     they are only outlines — and there was Hague the wine Butler whose library consisted of one solitary book ‘Browns reflections on a summers day’     he was an odd good sort of fellow — there were two young maidens — Mrs Procter and M^rs Byron178 who had not the womanly affectation about them of even attempting showing some affinity of kindred from the coinsidences of their names with two popular poets     they were above pardonable vanity and one of them was a lover of poesy

[A18, 273]

John Taylor came to see me merely I suppose to make up an article for the London Mag: for he never came afterwards     he was to have met a friend who came from the same place a hearty fellow that called the day before — I was a going to Stamford and met Taylor on the road     he spent most part of the day with me in walking about the fields

Taylor is a man of very pleasant address and works himself into the good opinions of people in a moment but it is not lasting for he grows into a studied carlessness and neglect that he carries into a system till the purpose for so doing becomes transparent and reflects its own picture while it woud hide it —179 he is a very pleasant talker and an excessive fluent on Paper currency and such politics     he can talk on matters with a superficial knowledge of them very dexterously and is very fond of arguing about the latin and Greek poets with the Reverends and the Cambridge [scholars] that drop in to his Waterloo house     he assumes a feeling and fondness for poetry and reads it well — not in the fashionable growl of mouthing spouters but a sort of whine — he professed a great friendship for me at my first starting and offerd to correct my future poems if he did not publish them180 so I sent all my things up as I wrote them and neither got his opinion or the poems back again his only opinion being that he had not time to spare from other pursuits to revise and correct them for the press and when I sent for the poems agen he was silent — he wrote the Introductions to both my Vols of Poems — his manner is that of a cautious fellow who shows his sunny side to strangers     he has written some pamphlets on polotics and the Identity of Junius181 a very clever book and some very middling papers in the London Magazine and bad sonnets     Gilchrist told me that he first displayd the schoolboy prodogy of translating some of Horaces odes into ryhme which he sent to the Mirror that hot bed of Indications — he askd me to correspond with him which I did very thickly as I fancied he was the greatest frend I had ever met with but after he had publishd 3 vols of my poems his correspondence was laid by and I heard nothing more from him

he never asks a direct question or gives a direct reply but continualy saps your information by a secret passage coming at it as it were by working a mine like a lawyer examining a witness and he uses this sort of caution even in his common discourse till it becomes tedious to listen or reply     he sifts a theory of truth either true or false with much ingenuity and subtelty of argument and his whole table talk is a sort of Junius Identified but his patience carrys it to such lengths in seeming consistency till the first end of the ravelled skein which he winds up at the begining is lost again and unwound in looking for the other — to sum up his character he is a clever fellow and a man of Genius and his Junius Identified is the best argument on circumstantial Evidence that ever was written

[B6, R86-R85]

A Confession of Faith

My creed may be different to other creeds but the difference is nothing when the end is the same — if I did not expect and hope for eternal happiness I should be ever miserable — and as every religion is a rule leading to good by its professor — the religions of all nations and creeds where that end is the aim ought rather to be respected then scoffed at — a final judgment of men by their deeds and actions in life is inevitable and the only difference between an earthly assize and the eternal one is that the final one needs no counsellors to paint the bad or good better or worse then they are     the judge knows the hearts of all things and the sentence may by expected to be just as well as final wether it be for the worst or the best — this ought to teach us to pause and think and try to lead our lives as well as we can

[N30, 3]

Opinions in Religion

I have not mentioned any thing about my opinions on religious matters and I am sorry to say I am much wanting     in my younger days I inclined to deism but on reading Pain[e]s Age of Reason lent me by a companion instead of hardening my opinion it broke it and I was doubtful of pain[e]s sub[t]eltys for he seemd determined to get over every obstacle with the opinion he set out with

after this I turned a methodist but I found the lower orders of this persuasion with whom I assosiated so selfish narrow minded and ignor[ant] of real religion that I soon left them [and] sank into m[ethodist] sects agen     they believed every bad [opi]nion [except about] themselv[es] [Henson] the preacher then of [Market Deeping]182

[D2, 8]

I som times thought seriosly of religion and in one of my moral reflective moments found the Methodists but I found them [incomplete]

if every mans bosom had a glass in it so that its secret might be seen what a blotted page of Christian profession and false pretentions woud the best of them display

My mind was always hung with doubts     I usd to fancy at times that religion was nothing and woud say to myself if there is a god let him dry up this pond of water or remove this stone and then I will believe and then on seeing things remain as they were I concluded that my doubts were true but after reflection upbraided my foolish presumption and my conscence woud struggle to correct my errors

[A25, 17]

I feel a beautiful providence ever about me as my attendant deity     she casts her mantle about me when I am in trouble to shield me from it     she attends me like a nurse when I am in sickness puts her gentle hand under my head to lift it out of pains way and lays it easy by laying hope for my pillow     she attends to my every weakness when I am doubting like a friend and keeps me from sorrow by showing me her pictures of happiness — and then offering them up to my service     she places herself in the shadow that I may enjoy the sunshine and when my faith is sinking into despondancy she opens her mind as a teacher to show me truth and give me wisdom when I had it

[A53, 43r]

A religion that teaches us to act justly to speak truth and love mercy ought to be held sacred in every country and what ever the differences of creeds may be in lighter matters they ought to be overlookd and the principle respected

[B4, 136]

First Visit to London

My Gilchrist often asked me if I shoud like to see London and as I felt an anxiety he said I shoud go up with him the next time he went which was early in March and I started with him in the old Stamford Coach183     my mind was full of expectations all the way about the wonders of the town which I had often heard my parents tell storys about by the winter fire and when I turnd to the reccolections of the past by seeing people at my old occupations of ploughing and ditching in the fields by the road side while I was lolling in a coach the novelty created such strange feelings that I coud almost fancy that my identity as well as my occupations had changd that I was not the same John Clare but that some stranger soul had jumpd into my skin — when we passd thro Huntingdon M^r G. shewd me the House at this end of the town were Oliver Cromwell was born and the parsonage with its mellancholy looking garden at the other were Cowper had lived which was far the most interesting remembrance to me tho both were great men in the annals of fame     I thought of his tame hares and Johnny Gilpin184     as we glided along in the heavy sweeing coach I amusd myself with catching the varying features

of scenery     I remembere the road about Royston was very dreary      the white chalk like hills spread all round the cir[c]le and not a tree was to be seen     on[e] mellancholy thorn bush by the road side with a bench beneath it was all that my eye caught for miles     as we approached nearer London the coachmen pointed out 3 large round hills close by the road side and told a superstition about them which I forget

[A33, 9]

Here is one of the old Castles here that was in such requisition in the days of Cromwell and the holes in the wall then used for the cannon have never been filled up — it is a dreary looking building close to the turnpike

I have often read my self into a desire to see places which poets and novelists and Essayists have rendered classical by their descriptions of the[ir] presence and other localitys rendered sacred by genius — such is the parsonage house at Huntington with its old garden once the habitation of Cowper — such the brigs over the river Ouse ere you enter Huntington where he wandered with his dog which doubtless there cropt him the white water lily and won a song for its pains — then at the other end of the town is the ‘premises’ were the english napoleon Oliver Cromwell followed the occupation of a brewer

but I had forgot the neat house and pleasant shrubbery of [Amwell] and the reading world has forgot him — as the wild bees honey is forgotten in the meadow grass yet the coachman had often seen a plain quaker like man wandering in a summers morning by the side the awthorn hedges in the pleasant grounds surrounding that house and that man was John Scott185 the quaker poet

[A46, 153]

on the night we got into London it was announcd in the Play Bills that a song of mine was to be sung at Covent garden by Madam Vestris186 and we was to have gone but it was too late     I felt uncommonly pleasd at the circumstance     we took a walk in the town by moonlight and went to Westminster bridge to see the river thames     I had heard large wonders about its width of water but when I saw it I was dissapointed thinking I shoud have seen a fresh water sea and when I saw it twas less in my eye then Whittlesea Meer187     I was uncommonly astonished to see so many ladys as I thought them walking about the streets     I expressd my suprise and was told they were girls of the town as a modest woman rarely venturd out by her self at nightfall

[A33, 10]

Mem: ladys thronging the streets at night

[B3, 82]

I had often read of the worlds seven wonders in my reading Cary at school but I found in London alone thousands     Octave took [me] to see most of the curositys     we went to Westminster abbey to see the poets corner and to both Play houses were I saw Kean and Macready and Knight and Munden and Emmery188     the two latter pleased me most of all but the plays were bad ones     they were [incomplete]

[A31, 58]

When I was in london the first time Lord Radstock introduced me to M^rs Emmerson     she has been and is a warm kind friend of tastes feelings and manners almost romantic     she has been a very pretty woman and is not amiss still and a womans pretty face is often very dangerous to her common sense for the notice she recievd in her young days threw an affectatious [air] about her feelings which she has not got shut of yet for she fancys that her friends are admirers of her person as a matter of course and acts accordingly which appears in the eyes of a stranger ridiculous enough but the grotesque wears off on becoming acquanted with better qu[a]litys and better qualitys she certanly has to counterballance them     she [was] at one word the best friend I found and my expectations are looking no further     her corespondence with me began early in my public life and grew pretty thick as it went on     I fancyd it a fine thing to corespond with a lady and by degrees grew up into an admirer some times writing as I felt somtimes as I fancyd and sometimes foolish[l]y when I coud not account for why I did it     I at length requested her portrait when I reccolect ridicu[lous] enough alluding to Lord Nelsons Lady Hamilto[n]     she sent it and flatterd my vanity in return     it was beautifuly done by Behn[e]s the sculpter but bye and bye my knowledge [of] the world sickend my roma[n]tic feelings     I grew up in friends[hip] and lost in flattery afterwards so she took to patronizing one of Col[e]ridges [sons] who had written a visionary ode on Beauty in Knights quarterly Magaz[in]e189 in whom she discoverd much genius and calld him on that stake one of the first Lyric poets in England — she then whisht for her picture agen and I readily agreed to part with it — for the artificial flower of folly had run to seed

[B3, 82]

the hills on the road to London — bare bleak awful misty and beautiful190

[B3, 82]

I spent a good deal of time too with Rippingille191 the painter whom I first got acquainted with in meeting him at Mrs Emmersons     he is a rattling sort of odd fellow with a desire to be thought one and often affects to be so for the sake of singularity and likes to treat his nearest friends with neglect and carlessness on purpose as it were to have an oppertunity of complaining about it

he is a man of great genius as a painter and what is better he has not been puffed into notice like the thousands of farthing rush lights (like my self perhaps) in all professions that have glimmered their day and are dead     I spent many pleasant hours with him while in London     his greatest rellish is puning over a bottle of ale for he is a strong dealer in puns     we acted a many of lifes farces and crackt a many jokes to gether many of them bad ones perhaps and without kernels and we once spent a whole night at Offleys the Burton ale house192 and sat till morning     he has some pretentions to ryhme and wrote An Address to Eccho which was inserted in the London Mag     most of his ‘Trifles’ in that way are satirical     I was to have gone over to Bristol to see him but illness prevented me     he affected to be little taen with worldly applause and was always fishing for it — he was very earless of money and squandered it away as a thing of no other use but to spend

[B3, 56]

and from him I had learnd some fearful disclosures193 of the place     he used to caution me if ever I happend to go to be on my guard as if I once lost my way I shoud [be] sure to loose my life as the street Ladys woud inveigle me into a fine house were I shoud never be seen agen and he described the pathways on the street as full of trap door[s] which dropd down as soon as pressd with the feet and sprung in their places after the unfortunate countryman had fallen into the deep hole as if nothing had been were he woud be robd and murderd and thrown into boiling chauldrons kept continualy boiling for that purpose and his bones sold to the docters — with these terrible jealousys in my apprehensions I kept a continual look out and fanci[e]d every lady I met a decoyer and every gentleman a pickpocket and if the[y] did but offer any civility my suspicions were confirmd at once and I felt often when walking behind Gilchrist almost fit to take hold of his coat laps

[A31, 59]

Burkhardt194 took me to Vauxhall195 and made me shut my eyes till I got in the midst of the Place and when I opened them I almost fancyd myself in fairey land but the repetition of the round about walk soon put the Romance out of my head and made it a faded reality — these were the scenes that he delighted in and he wishd to take me sometime to see the Beggars Opera196 a public house so calld the resort of [thieves] but we had no time     I had had a romantic sort of notion about authors and had an anxious desire to see them fancying they were beings different to other men but the spell was soon broken when I became acquanted with them but I did not see many save at Taylors Dinner partys were Charles Lamb and young Reynolds and Allan Cunningham197 and Carey with Wainwright the painter198 often met and I saw Hazlitt

[A31, 58]

One of my greatest amusments while in London was reading the booksellers windows     I was always fond of this from a boy and my next greatest amusment was the curiosity of seeing litterary men     of these all I have seen I shall give a few pictures just as they struck me at the time     some of them I went purposly to see     others I met in litterary partys that is the confind contributors dinners at Taylors and Hesseys     I had no means of meeting the constellation of Genius in one mass     they were mingld partys     some few were fixd stars in the worlds hemisphere     others glimmerd every month in the Magazine     some were little vapours that were content to shine by the light of others     I mean dabling critics that cut monthly morsels from genius whose works are on the waters free for all to catch at that chuses     these bye and bye I coud observe had a self satisfaction about them that magnified molehills to mountains     I mean that little self was in its own eye a giant and that every other object was mere nothings I shall not mention names here but it is evident I do not alude to friends

[I have heard it asserted that all critics are dissapointed ryhmsters there attempts for a name turning bankrupt as soon as they began business     this may be because of their general abuse of the trade     this general opinion to the extent of my knowledge holds good of every critic I know     were they were not poets by profession I have found they had been ryhmers in their boyish days and their librarys generaly conseald in one corner the thin lean vollumne splendidly bound and dedicated to some young friend a lover of poetry and of consequence a poet     this little great pretending volume with its unasuming pretentions pleasd the circle of friends for whom it was printed at the authors expence and on getting no further they found it was easier to talk about a book then make one so they turnd critics and sold their brain dress of praise and abuse at market price]199

Reynolds200 was always the soul of these dinner partys     he was the most good natured fellow I ever met with     his face was the three in one of fun wit and punning personified     he woud punch you with his puns very keenly without ever hurting your feelings for it you lookd in his face you coud not be offended and you might retort as you pleasd     nothing coud put him out of humour either with himself or others     if all his jokes and puns and witticisms were written down which were utterd at 2 or 3 of these dinner partys they woud make one of the best Joe Millers that have ever passd under that title     he sits as a carless listner at table looking on with quick knaping sort of eye that turns towards you as quik as lightning when he has a pun joke or story to give you     they are never made up or studied     they are the flashes of the moment and mostly happy     he is a slim sort of make som thing as you may conscieve of an unpretending sort of fashionable fellow without the desire of being one     he has a plump round face a nose somthing puggish and a forehead that betrays more of fun then poetry     his teeth are always looking through a laugh that sits as easy on his unpuckerd lips as if he was borne laughing     he is a man of genius and if his talents was properly applied he woud do somthing     I verily believe that he might win the favours of fame with a pun but be as it will wether she is inclind to smile or frown upon him he is quite at home wi content     the present is all with him     he carrys none of the Author about him      an hearty201 laugh which there is no resisting at his jokes and puns seems to be more reccompence then he expected and he seems startld into wonder by it and muses a moment as if he turnd the joke over agen in his mind to find the ‘merry thought’ which made the laughter     they drop as it were spontaniously from his mouth and turn again upon him before he has had time to conside[r] wether they are good or bad     he sits in a sort of supprise till another joke drops and makes him himself again…202

[B3, 68-70]

Reynolds is a near kin to Wainwright in openheartedness and hillarity but he is a wit and a punster and very happy and entertaining in both pretentions for with him they are none for they come naturally from his discourse and seem rather to flow from his ink in his pen in his writings then from his mind     there is nothing studied about them — and be the pun as severe as it may his pleasant arch manner of uttering it forbids it to offend and it is always taken in the same good natured way as it is intended — he has written a great deal in Magazines and periodicals of all names and distinctions and he is an author of no mean pretentions     as to quantity tho he has never acknowledged any with his name     he wrote the Poem called the Naiad in imitations of the old scotch ballad called the Mermaid of Galloway The Remains of Peter Cocoran The Garden of Florence and a mock Parody on Peter Bell all full of wit fun and real Poetry with a good share of affectation and somthing near akin to bombast

He is one of the best fellows living and ought to be a Poet of the first order     himself is his only hinderance at present     Lord Byron was his first Patron and corrected a poem and praised it which has not been published

[B3, 58-9]

Hazlit[t] is the very reverse of this     he sits a silent picture of severity     if you was to watch his face for a month you woud not catch a smile there     his eyes are always turnd towards the ground except when one is turnd up now and then with a sneer that cuts a bad pun and a young authors maiden table talk to atoms were ever it is directed     I look upon it that it carrys the convi[c]tion with it of a look to the wise and a nodd to the foolish    he seems full of the author too and I verily believe that his pockets are crambd with it     he seems to look upon M^r This and M^r Tother names that are only living on Cards of Morning calls and Dinner Invitations as upon empty chairs as the guests in Macbeth did on the vacancy were Banquos ghost presided     they appear in his eye as nothings too thin for sight and when he enters a room he comes stooping with his eyes in his hands as it were throwing under gazes round at every corner as if he smelt a dun or thief ready to seize him by the colar and demand his money or his life     he is [a] middle sizd dark looking man and his face is deeply lind with a satirical character     his eyes are bright but they are rather turned under his brows     he is a walking satire and you woud wonder were his poetry came from that is scatterd so thickly over his writings     for the blood of me I coud not find him out that is I shoud have had no guess at him of his ever being a scribbler much more a genius    they say she is an odd lady and sure enough in him her odditys are strongly person[i]fied — then there is Charles Lamb a long remove from his friend hazlett in ways and manners     he is very fond of snuff which seems to sharpen up his wit every time he dips his plentiful finger into his large bronze colord box and then he sharpens up his head thro[w]s himself backward in his chair and stammers at a joke or pun with an inward sort of utterance ere he can give it speech till his tongue becomes a sort of Packmans strop turning it over and over till at last it comes out wetted as keen as a razor and expectation when she knows him wakens into a sort of danger as bad as cutting your throat but he is a good sort of fellow and if he offends it is innosently done     who is not acquanted with Elia and who woud believe him otherwise     as soon as the cloath is drawn the wine and he’s become comfortable     his talk now doubles and threbles into a combination of repetitions urging the same thing over and over again till at last he — leans off with scarcly ‘good night’ in his mouth and dissapears leaving his memory like a pleasant ghost hanging about his vacant chair and there is his sister Bridget203 a good sort of woman tho her kind cautions and tender admonitions are nearly lost upon Charles who like an undermined river bank leans carlessly over his jollity and recieves the gentle lappings of the waves of womans tongue unheedingly till it ebbs and then in the same carless posture sits and recieves it again tho it is all lost on Charles     she is a good woman and her cautions are very commendable for the new river runs very near his house and the path for a dark night is but very precar[i]ous to make the best of it and he jeanty fellow is not always blind to dangers so I hope the advice of his Sister Bridget will be often taken in time to retire with the cloth and see home by daylight

and there sits Carey the translator of Dante204 one of the most quiet amiable and unasuming of men     he will look round the table in a peacful silence on all the merry faces in all the vacant unconser[n]ment imaginable and then he will brighten up and look smilingly on you and me and our next hand neighbour as if he knew not which to address first and then perhaps he drops a few words like a chorus that serve all together     his eyes are not long on a face     he looks you into a sort of expectation of discoursing and starts your tongue on tiptoe to be ready in answering what he may have to start upon when suddenly he turns from you to thro[w] the same good naturd cheat of a look on others     he is a tallish spare man with a longish face and a good forhead     his eyes are the heavy lidded sort whose easiest look seems to meet you half closd     his authorship and his priesthood sit upon him very meekly     he is one of those men which have my best opinions and of whom I feel happy with every oppertunity to praise     on my second visit to London I spent 2 very happy days with him at Chiswick (I was then in good health)     his wife is a good sort of person and of so young a look in his company that I mistook her a long while for his daughter     he lives [in] the house once occupied by Thorn[h]ill the painter205 and he showd me the window thro which Miss Thorn[h]ill elopd with Hogarth and over the chimney piece were some heads sketchd on the wall by Hogarth but the servants being left to themselves to white wash the room in Mr Carey’s abscen[c]e from home utterly defacd this precious relic and he greatly regretted the loss when he told me     I also saw Hogarth[s] painting room at the end of the garden which is now a hay loft     you asend to it by a broad stept ladder     it has no prepossesing appearance about it and you almost feel to doubt memorys veracity when she whispers you this is the spot were Hogarth sat and painted pictures for the royal academy of fame but proofs as strong as holy writ meet your eye in a corner of the Garden were two narrow slips of stones stand close to the wall one [to] the memory of a bird with an inscription on it by Hogarth himself and the other to the memory of a dog with an inscription taken from Churchills poetry206 by M^rs Hogarth ‘Life to the last enjoyd here Pompey lies’     the Arbour of honey suckles or creepers hangs shadowy silence above them and in this corner M^r Carey pointed out the spot were Hogarth usd to play skittles and if my memory wears right impressio[n]s the frame is there still and then to wind up the curosity that such objects had excited we went to see the monument of Hogarth in the Church yard     I coud not help fancying when I walkd about the garden that the roses and cloves and other flowers were old tennants that knew Hogarth and his lady as well as their present occupants     bye the bye the translator of Dante will not deminish the classical memorys of the old mansion with his possesion of it     Poetry and painting are sisters — There was Col[e]ridge at one of these Partys     he was a man with a venerable white head fluent of speech not a ‘silver tong[ue]d hamilton’207 his words hung in their places at a quiet pace from a drawl in good set marching order so that you woud suppose he had learnt what he intended to say before he came     it was a lecture parts of which [then cut away]

[B3, 70, 61-3]

A little artless simple seeming body somthing of a child over grown in a blue coat and black neckerchief for his dress is singular with his hat in his hand steals gently among the company with a smile turning timidly round the room — it is De Quincey the Opium Eater and that abstruse thinker in Logic and Metaphysics XYZ

Then there is Allan Cunningham (Reynolds calls him the dwarf) comes stalking in like one of [Spenser’s] black knights but his countenance is open and his look is hearty     he hates puns and is fond of scotch ballads scotch Poets and every thing Scottish down no doubt as far as scotch snuff — well he is a good fellow and a good poet and when the Companys talk is of poetry he is ready to talk 2 ways at once but when puns are up his head is down over his glass musing and silent and nothing but poetry is the game to start him into hillarity again — There is a young man of the [last seven words in different ink and then cut away]

[B3, 64]

Southey

I never saw him but I heard somthing about him by meeting in company with 2 of his wifes sisters at M^rs Emmersons those ‘Pretty milliners of Bath’ as Byron calls them but I cannot say much for his judgment if these sisters are to be taken as a sample for the rest     they are sharp ready witted girls but rather plain     I learnd from them that Southey was a livly sort of man aways in gay spirits who wrote both in prose and verse with a great deal of ease but the Number of his publications woud almost tell us that this is the fact     he writes amid the noise of his childern and joins in their sport at intervals     Wordsworth on the contrary cannot bear a noise and composes with great difficulty     I shoud imagine he prefers the mossy seat on the mountains to the closet for study     at least his poems woud lead one to think so

Southy presents a copy of every work he publishes to his wife and he wrote a copy of Roderic208 on french green paper on purpose to present to her

[B3, 84]

I stopt about a month in London and spent my time very pleasantly visiting about the town with those former wonders of Poets Painters and authors of most denominations that had worn out of my wonders into common men     I vis[i]ted Hilton Wainwright Lamb [and Hood] with Taylor209     Wainwright is a very comical sort of chap     he is about 27 and wears a quizzing glass and makes an excuse for the ornament by complaining of bad eyes     he is the Van Vink booms Janus Weathercock210 etc of the Magazine     he had a picture in the exebition of ‘Paris in the chamber of Helen’ and the last time I was in London he had one there of ‘the Milk maid’ from Waltons angler both in my opinion very middling performances but my opinion is but of it self a middling one in such matters so I may be mistaken — he is a clever writer and some of his papers in the Magazine are very entertaining and some very good particularly the beginging of one a description of a Church yard —211 [B3, 54]

[Second Visit to London]

When Taylor came to see me he invited me to come to London and I took his invitation and started a second time     I spent most of my time at Taylors and M^rs Emmersons — I went up by my self as poor Gilchrist was very ill and coud not start just then tho he came up afterwards     he took me to see Gifford212 who the first time we went up was too ill to see us but this time he was rather getting near neighbour to health and gave me welcome with a hearty shake of the hand and congratulated me on my last poems (the Village Minstrel) then just published which he said were far better then my first     he also bade me beware of the booksellers and repeated it several times213     he was sitting on his sofa surrounded with books and papers of all sorts     he chatted awhile to Gilchrist about Books and Authors and Pope and lent him a New Satire to read called the ‘Mohawks’214 in which he said he was mentioned     he supposed Lady Morgan was the Author and after Gilchrist had dipt into it here and there he prono[u]nced it worthless — the next day we went to call on Murray215 in Albemarle street who flatterd me with some compliments on my success and hoped that I woud always call on him when ever I came to London he is a very pleasant man     he showed us the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers illustrated with Portraits which we turned over and departed and as we got at the door Giffords carriage drove up and on leaving the shop he gave each of us a copy of his Translation of Persius

[B3, 88]

altho I had conquered the old notion of kidnappers or men stealers being a common trade in London and staid long enough to find that this was a tale on my first visit I found that another very near kin to it on my second visit that I had not expected to find in the places were it was most practised was very common among all professions — they are a sort of genteel Purse knappers that tho they do not want the carcass will quickly lighten the pockets in exchange for bad bargains and they seem to know and pounce on a countryman as a raven on carrion — I wanted several things while there as curoisitys or presents to take home with me and I used to think that by going into the best looking shops in the most thorough fare streets I shoud stand the least risk to be cheated so in I went and gave every farthing they set upon the article and fancied I had got a good bargain till experience turned out to the contrary     when I first got up being rather spare of articles of dress I went into a shop in fleet street and purchased as a first article a pair of stockings for which the man asked 3/6 and on my giving it without a word of contrariety he made a pause when I asked him the price of another article and told me as he kept nothing but first rate articles they were rather high in the price and laying a redy made shirt on the counter he says that is 14 Shillings     I told him it was too high for me and with that he instantly pretended to reach me another which was the very same article agen     this was 6^s / 6^d     I paid it and found afterwards that the fellows fine cloth was nothing but callico — I obse[r]ved it was always a custom in most shops that when you went in to ask for an article the thing they first shew you was always put a one side and another recommend[e]d as superior which I found was always to the contrary — so experience taught me always in future to take the one they did not reccommend — on my last visit to London I wanted to take somthing home for Patty and thinking that Waithman216 had been a great stickler for freedom and fair dealing among the citizens his news paper notoriety reccomended me to his shop at the corner of Bridge street as the hope that I might come in for a fair bargain but here I was more decieved then ever for they kept the best articles aside and reccomen[d]ed the worst as soon as they found out their customer was of the country     when I took the things home I found that they were a bad bargain still and a great deal dearer then they might have been bought for at home — so much for Patrons of Liberty and news paper passports for honest men — I saw more in the way of wonders this time then I did at first but they did not leave such strong impressions on my memory as to be worth remembrance — I usd to go with Thomas Bennion Taylors clerk or head porter about the city when he went out on errands and very often went into each curosity that came in our way such as [     ] A[nd] [     ] and other hard names for claptraps to ease the pocket of its burthen     I remember going into Bullocks Mexico217 with the Editors Ticket that Taylor gave me and the fellows at their several posts of money catching fancying I dare say that I was the critisizing editor looked with much supprise at my odd clownish appearance and asked me so many pumping questions that I was glad to get out agen without paying much attention to the wonder of the show — Tom was very fond of introducing me to the booksellers were he had business who were too busily occupied in their own conserns to take much heed of mine

[D2, 1; B3, 54-6]218

I did not know the way to any place for a long while but the royal academy and here I used to go almost every day as Rippingille the painter had told the ticket keeper who I was and he let me come in when ever I chose which I often made use of from nessesity

[B3, 54]219

I do not know how the qualms of charity come over those who have plenty of riches to be charitable but I often feel it so strongly myself when objects of compassion pass me that its the only thing that makes me oftenest wish I had plenty for the pleasure of relieving their wants and when I was in London I often parted with my little money so freely that I was often as bad off as those I relieved and needed it perhaps as bad that is I felt220 as bad or worse inconvinience then they from the want of it     I remember passing S^t Pauls one morning where stood a poor Affrican silently soliciting charity but the sincerity of his distress spoke plainer then words     I felt in my pockets but I had only fourpence in all and I felt almost ashamed to recieve the poor creatures thanks for so worthless a pittance and passed him but his looks spoke so feelingly that even a trifle would be acceptable that I ran back a long way and put the fourpence into his hand and I felt worse dissapointment when I saw the poor creatures heart leap to thank me and the tears steal down his cheeks at the gratification of the unlooked for boon for his thanks and supprise told me he had met with little of even such charity as mine — and I determind the next day to get my pocket recruited if possible and give him a shilling and my first walk was to St Pauls but the poor affrican was gone and I never saw him again — [B5, R93]

My [Third] Visit to London

‘Nothing set down in malice’221

A journey for pleasure is a precarious sympathy soon robd of its enjoyments by unforeseen dissasters but a journey for the improvment of ill health undertaken by that smiling encourager hope hath little to make it palatable tho the joys of the one are as much to be relied on as the other

Upon this last matter my Journey to London was made     I went for the benefit of advice to a celebrated scotch phisic[i]an D^r Darling222     the complaint lay in my head and chest     I was very ill when I first went but I gradualy recievd benefit     some reccolections of this visit shall be the subject of this chapter    they are observations of men and things thrown together in a myscellaneous manner     this was the third time I had been up so the vast magnitude [of] that human ant hill that strikes every stranger with wonder had lost its novelty     the first time I went up was in company with a first friend of old long syne memory Octavius Gilchrist now gone to the land of uncertainty     poor Octave     I still remember how we went sweeing along the road on the heavy reeling coach     London was no novelty with him but with me every thing was a wonder     I had read in my reading [made] easy of the worlds seven wonders but I found in london alone thousands     as we approachd it the road was lind wi lamps that diminishd in the distance to stars     this is London I exclaimd     he laughd at my ignorance and only increasd my wonder by saying we were yet several miles from it     when we got in it was night and the next morning every thing was so uncommon to what I had been usd to that the excess of novelty confou[n]ded my instinct     every thing hung round my confusd imajination like riddles unresolvd     while I was there I scarcly knew what I was seeing and when I got home my remembrance of objects seemd in a mass one mingld in another like the mosiac squares in a roman pavement     on my second visit things became more distinct and seperate on the memory and one of my greatest wonders then was the continual stream of life passing up and down the principal streets all the day long and even the night and one of my most entertaining amusments was to sit by Taylors window in Fleet Street to see the constant successions throng this way and that way and on this my last visit I amusd my illness by catching the most beautiful women[’s] faces in the crowd as I passd on in it till I was satiated as it were with the variety and the multitude and my mind lost its memory in the eternity of beautys successions and was glad to glide on in vacancy with the living stream     one of the greatest curiositys I saw then was Devilles the Phreneologists223 collection of heads himself excepted     he is a kind simple hearted good humourd man     Phrenenology is with him somthing more then a System     it seems the life and soul of his speculations     he is never weary of talking about it or giving ‘Lectures on heads’     Strangers of all exceptions Poets Philosophers Mathematicians and humble unknown beings that with the world have no name are all welcomd up his stairs and led to his matchless head gallery while he with smiling politness satisfys ever eager enquirey as readily as it is askd for     they have only to pull off their hats and drop half hints and then the lecture on heads commences     he mostly begins with ‘Why Sir I shoud say heres order very strong — or wisa wersa the want of it     heres plenty of constructivness — I shoud say your fond of mathematics and heres ideality     I shoud say that you have a tallent for poetry     I dont say that you are a poet but that you have a tallent for it if applied     heres the organ of collor very strong     I shoud say you are fond of fine colors and wisa wersa     were theres the organ of form with out color nothing showy is likd of     here is benevolence wery prominent     I shoud say you seldom pass a beggar or street sweeper without dropping a copper     heres weneration very high     I shoud say you are religious     (the subject perhaps is worldly minded and remains silent)     I dont say your a Christian mind but you have a veneration for the deity thats sufficient for our system     heres combativness very large     I shoud say you are not slow at revenging an insult particulary if it be offerd to a female for the armorous propensitys are large also     I shoud say you have a love for the fair sex but not so as to make it troublsome     aye aye sir     now I look agen heres order very strong sure enough     I shoud say that things being put out of order displeases you very much and that you are often tempted while at table to put a spoon or knife and fork in its place I shoud say its the most likly thing to create disturbances in your family     heres form very strong     I shoud say you are a painter or that you have talents for painting if applied     heres construction very large     I shoud say you are fond of mathematics and I shoud say you have a great talent that way if the mind was turnd to it     heres ideality too (he is a poet)     no I shoud not say that     I shoud say he has a talent for it if put into action    are you a poet Sir (yes)     aye aye the systems right but I shoud not venture so far as to decide upon that as a many heads develop poetry very stron[g]ly were it has never been applyd    well sir you see the system is correct     he then in smiling silence waits your de[c]ision of his remarkable prophecy and hard and earthlike is that soul who can return an harsh and unbelieving opinion on the system but I believe his is seldom paid so unkindly for his good naturd trouble     his perdictions are so cautiously utterd with so many causes for the liklihood of failures in nice points that even failings them selves in his lectures strike as convictions     when he lecturd on my head I coud not help likening him to a boy (perhaps he had no existance but in my friends Reynolds fancy for it was he that told the story) who was so cautious as not to be out in any thing     he was once askd wether the earth went round the sun or the sun round the earth     the boy said he believd they took it by turns one going round one day and the other the next — Deville then leads your eye to his collection [and] points out on particular heads the most convincing proof of his system in the characteristics of Murderers Poets Painters Mathematicians and little actors of all work were his wisa wersas become very frequent     he then takes you below were the apparatus is all ways ready to bury you in plaster if you chuse and if Literary men and Artists he politly hints that he shoud like a cast of them     they cannot do less then comply and the satisfaction of adding fresh materials to his gallery doubly repays him for all his trouble

[B3, 65-8]

After I had been in London awhile Rippingille came down from Bristol with M^r Elton224 and as I was much improved in health under D^r Darling I indulged in some of the towns amusments with my old comrade for he was fond of seeking after curiosity and brancing about the town     he was always for thinking that constant exercise taking all weathers rough and smooth as they came were the best phisic for a sick man and a glass of Scotch Ale only seemed to strengthen his notions     the first jaunt that we took together was to see the ‘Art of Self Defence’ practiced at the fives court225     it was for the Benefit of Oliver226 and I caught the mania so much from Rip for such things that I soon became far more eager for the fancy then himself and I watch’d the appearance of every new Hero on the stage with as eager curosity to see what sort of a fellow he was as I had before done the Poets — and I left the place with one wish strongly in uppermost and that was that I was but a Lord to patronize Jones the Sailor Boy227 who took my fancy as being the finest fellow in the Ring — I went with Rippingill and Elton to see Deville the Phrenologist and a very clever fellow in his own profession we found him     after he found who I was he instantly asked me permission to take my bust in plaister which I consented to as Rippingill and Elton wanted a copy — the operation was stifling and left a strong dislike on the [subject] not to do it again — Rippingille also introduced me to Sir T.L.228 who was a very polite courtouis and kind man which made the other matters sit very agreeable about him — just as we got up to the door Prince Leopold was going in to sit for his picture — and we took a turn up the Square for a while and did not offer to venture till we saw him depart     Rip sent in his card and we was instantly sent up into his painting gallery were we amused ourselves till he came and kindly shook me bye the hand and made several enquireys about me     he paid Rip several fine compliments about his picture of the breakfast at an Inn and told him of his faults in a free undisguised manner but with the greatest kindness     after he had shown us about his painting room and chatted a considerable time we prepared to start when he followed up and said he coud not let me go without showing me a brother poet and took us into another room were a fine head of Walter Scott stood before us — I left his house with the satisfactory impression that I had never met with a kinder and better man then Sir T.L. and I dare say Rip was highly gratified with the praise he had received for S[ir] T[homas] told him that the Royal family at a private view of the Exebition before it opened to the public took more notice of his picture then all the rest — but Rip woud not own it for he affects a false appearence of such matters — we went to F Freelings229 the same day who had expressed a desire to have a copy of his picture of the ‘post office’ but he was ‘not at home’ so I had not the pleasure of seeing him and when Rip went the next day I coud not go with him

[B3, 12, 18]

Rip was very fond of seeming to be amused [and] talking and looking at things of which he understood nothing230 and with this feeling we went 2 or 3 times to the french Playhouse231 somewere in tottenham court road     none of us understood a word of french and yet we fancied ourselves delighted for there was a very beautiful actress232 that took our fancys and Rip drew a Sketch of her in penc[i]ling for me which was somthing like her tho he stole none of her beauty to grace it     still

we also went to see Astleys Theatre233 were we saw morts of tumbling

Rip stopt about 3 weeks this time and hastened home to get ready some Lectures on painting which he intended to deliver at the Bristol Institution234

[B3, 20]

I got acquainted this time with Van Dyk235 a young man whose literary matters sat very quietly about him     he was of a very timid and retreating disposition before strangers but to a friend he was very warm hearted     he published a little vol of Poems called Theatrical Portraits     he was very ready at writing an impromtu which he woud often do very happily     he went with me to M^rs E[mmerson]s were we met with Lord R[adstock] who was very friendly with him

[B3, 18]

Etty the Painter

I went with Hessey to visit a very odd sort of character at the corner of St Pauls Church yard     he was a very simple good sort of man with a troublesome sort of fondness for poetry which was continually uppermost and he wrote ryhmes himself which he thrust into any ones notice as readily as if they were anothers     he had two daughters who seemd to be very amiable girls one of which kept an album in which her fathers productions were very prominent     he seemed to be very fond of translating Davids Psalms into ryhme     he was a friend and acquaintance to Miss Williams to whom he said he had sent a copy of my poems     at his house I met with Etty the painter236 he was a man of a reserved appearance and felt as awkardly situated I dare say as myself when M^r Vining237 proposed healths and expected fine speeches in reply for tho Etty replyed he did it very shortly and when mine was drank I said nothing and tho the Companys eyes were expecting for some minutes I coud not say a word tho I thought of some several times and they were wishes that I was out of the house — M^r Vining appeared to be a sort of patron to Etty

[B3, 20, 30]

for 3^rd Visit to London

When I used to go any were by my self especially Mrs E[mmerson]s I used to sit at night till very late238 because I was loath to start not for the sake of leaving the company but for fear of meeting with supernatural [apparitions] even in the busy paths of London and tho I was a stubborn disbeliever of such things in the day time yet at night their terrors came upon me ten fold and my head was as full of the terribles as a gossips — thin death like shadows and gobblings with soercer eyes were continually shaping in the darkness from my haunted imagination and when I saw any one of a spare figure in the dark passing or going on by my side my blood has curdled cold at the foolish apprehension of his being a supernatural agent whose errand might be to carry me away at the first dark alley we came too and I have often contrived to catch his countenance by the windows or lamps which has only satisfied me to undergo the terrors of a fresh [apprehension]     I have often cursed my silly and childish apprehensions and woud disbelieve it tho I coud not help thinking so on — I coud not bear to go down the dark narrow street of Chancery lane     I[t] was as bad as a haunted spot to pass and one night I resolved to venture the risk of being lost rather then go down tho I tryd all my courage to go down to no purpose for I coud not get it out of my head but that I shoud be sure to meet death or the devil if I did     so I passd it and tryd to find fleet street by another road but I soon got lost and the more I tryd to find the way the more I got wrong so I offerd a watchman a shilling to show me the way thither but he said he woud not go for that and asked a half a crown with I readily gave him when he led me down many narrow alleys and I found myself in Chancery lane at last

I believe I may lay this foolish night feeling to a circumstance in my youth when I was most terribly frightend239 I coud never forget it nor yet be thoroughly pacified tho I always boasted of a disbelief of such matters in the day time to keep up a forced courage to keep one from being laughd at as I often do now for the same reason [incomplete]

[B3, 16]

while I was in London the melancholly death of Lord Byron was announ[c]d in the public papers and I saw his remains born away out of the city on its last journey to that place were fame never comes — tho it lives like a shadow and lingers like a sunbeam on his grave it cannot enter     therefore it is a victory that has won nothing to the victor     his funeral was blazd forth in the papers with the usual parade that accompany the death of great men     one ostentatious puff said to be written by Walter Scott which I dont believe was unmercifully pompous     Lord Byron stood in no need of news paper praise those little wirl puffs of praise     I happend to see it by chance as I was wandering up Oxford street on my way to M^rs Emmersons when my eye was suddenly arested by straggling gropes of the common people collected together and talking about a funeral     I did as the rest did tho I coud not get hold of what funeral it coud be but I knew it was not a common one by the curiosity that kept watch on every co[u]ntenance     bye and bye the grope collected into about a hundred or more when the train of a funeral suddenly appeard on which a young girl that stood beside me gave a deep sigh and utterd poor Lord Byron     there was a mellancholy feeling of vanity — for great names never are at a loss for flattere[r]s that as every flower has its insect — they dance in the sunbeams to share a liliputian portion of its splendour — upon many countenances — I lookd up in the young girls face     it was dark and beautiful and I coud almost feel in love with her for the sigh she had utterd for the poet     it was worth all the News paper puffs and Magazine Mournings that ever was paraded after the death of a poet since flattery and hypocr[is]y was babtizd in the name of truth and sincerity — the Reverend the Moral and fastidious may say what they please about Lord Byrons fame and damn it as they list — he has gaind the path of its eterni[t]y without them and lives above the blight of their mildewing censure to do him damage — the common people felt his merits and his power and the common people of a country are the best feelings of a prophecy of futurity — they are below — or rather below240 the prejudices and flatterys the fancys of likes and dislikes of fashion — they are the feelings of natures sympathies241 unadulterated with the pretentions of art and pride     they are the veins and arterys that feed and quiken the heart of living fame     the breathings of eternity and the soul of time are indicated in that prophecy     they did not stand gaping with suprise on the trappings of gaudy show or look on with apathisd indefference like the hir[e]d mutes in the spectacle but they felt it     I coud see it in their faces     they stood in proufond silence till it passd not enquiring what this was or that was about the show as they do at the shadow of wealth and gaudy trappings of a common great name — they felt by a natural impulse that the mighty was fallen and they mournd in saddend silence     the streets were lind as the procession passd on each side but they were all the commonest and the lowest orders     I was supprisd and gratified     the windows and doors had those of the higher [orders] about them but they wore smiles on their faces and thought more of the spectacle then the poet — tho there was not much appearance of that     it lookd like a neglected grandeur     the young girl that stood by me had cou[n]ted the carriages in her mind as they passd and she told me there was 63 or 4 in all     they were of all sorts and sizes and made up a motly show     the gilt ones that lede the procession were empty — the hearse lookd small and rather mean and the coach that followd carried his em[bers] in a urn over which a pawl was thrown tho one might distinguish the form of the [urn] underneath and the window seemd to be left open for that purpose — I believe that his liberal principals in religion and politics did a great deal towards gaining the notice and affections of the lower orders     be [that] as it will it is better to be beloved by the low and humble for undisguisd honesty then flattered by the great for purchasd and pensiond hypocrisy were excuses to win favours are smmuggeld on the public under the disguise of a pretended indifference about it242

[B3, 71-2]

he stood in no need of News paper praise not even from Walter Scott     the public did not think of looking for the imortality of his name among Warrens Blacking Princes Kalador and Atkissons Bears Greese243 the universal occupiers of News papers that emblazon their columns with flourishing and colored deceptions like so many illuminated M.S.     when they looked for Lord Byrons popularity they sought it among more deserving and more respectable company     they expected to see it among the immortal Memorys of the Bards of Old England were they find it occup[y]ing one of the [highest places]

[B3, 72]

I woud advise young authors not to be upon too close friendships with booksellers that is not to make them bosom friends – they may all be respectable men tho respectability is but a thin garment in the worlds eye of pretending claims that often ‘covers a multitude of sins’ — and their friendships are always built on speculations of profit like a farmer shewing his sample     if a book suits them they write a fine friendly letter to the author     if not they neglect to write till the author is impatient and then comes a note declining to publish mixd with a seasoning of petulance in exchange for his anxiety     therefore like all other matters of trade interested friendships too close and hastily made must meet some time or other a drop in the market and leave one side dissapointed     when I first began with the world a fair promise was a sufficient pledge to trust my heart in the opinion and a warm friendship was soon kindled     as I grew older in them some of these began to dissapoint me and I regretted but leaping out of the frying pan into the fire I remain were I began     When I began with the world I felt as much worldly faith in fair words and seasoning promises as woud have loaded a car[a]van to mecca but as soon as I mixd up with it I felt the mistake and reformd a little     I knew of some little trea[c]herys in low life of mock friendships that spoke fair words to the face and soon as the back was turnd joind in the slanders against him who told lyes for a purpose and acted the hypocrite in matters of religion friendship gain or an ruling passion that might be uppermost but I was not aware that these dwarfs had grown up with fashions and other life to giants     on my first visit to London I had a glimpse of things as they are and felt doubtful     on my second I had more dissapointments and in my last I saw so much mistey shuffling that my fa[i]th of the world shrunk to a skeleton and woud scar[c]e fill a nutt shell or burthen a mouse to bear it — the vastest of wisdoms hath said ‘put no confidence in men for they will decieve you’

[B7, 77-8]

near conclusion

Many people will think me a vain fellow perhaps for attaching or fancying such importance to these memoirs as to think they will repay my vanity or labour in dwelling on them to this length and in many instances the manner in which they are written may draw on me a juster [criticism] for some of my remarks ar[e] very weak and some of the anecdotes very trifling and the expressions impertinent but most of the naritive was written in severe illness which may be a sufficient appology for defects in the author tho not perhaps for their being thrust on the reader244     As to the humble situation245 I have filled in life it needs no appology for all tastes are not alike     they do not all love to climb the Alps but many content themselves with wanderings in the valleys — while some stand to gaze on the sun to watch the flight of the towering eagle — others not less delighted look down upon the meadow grass to follow the fluttering of the butterflye     in such a lattitudde I write not without hopes of le[a]ving some pleasures for readers on the humble pages I have here written

[D2, 8; cf. A32, 11]

I may be thought a vain fellow by acknowledging things that others keep secret but I care not for I am proud of the notice I have met with and he that gets a name or fame for both is one be the duration what it may and affects to despise it or treat it with carlessness is a liar and a hypocrite for the meanest nature will exert itself to be noticd one way or other — the clown tries all his might to be the heroe of the restling ring     this is the lowest species of fame yet it brings with it a satisfaction and reward equal to the highest

[A25, 10]

I shoud imagine that my low origin in life will not be a mote in the eye of literature to bear against me and I will not urge it as an excuse for what I have written

[B3, 59]

As we grow into life we leave our better life behind us like the image of a beauty seen in a looking glass     happiness only dissemminates happiness while she is present and when she is gone we retain no impression of her enjoyments but a blank of cold imaginings and real dissapointments246 unless we are determined to shape our conduct to her approval and then she is ever with us [and n]ot her picture but her perfection not in shadow but reality — read this over again and profit by it

[D14, 9r]

Like the poor purgatorial convict of the grecian mythology I have for these nine years been rolling hopes to that mountain of promise pointed out to me in the beginning by friendly inte[r]ferences and often I have seemed as if I had accomplis[h]ed to the very top when down went hopes and all together to the bottom again — in the shape of broken promises stinging impositions and other trouble unaccounted for and unknown till they made their appearance — and as yet I am but as an alien in a strange land

[Pfz 198, 48; cf. A49, preceding p.1]

My family has increased and my affections also grow with them — and the old love for parted places the heaths and woods and cowcommons around my native place wears out — whenever I am surrounded by my family there is my comfort and if I was in the wilds of america with them for my companions there would my home be — but I am too old fashioned for the times     I have no taste for the rage for emigration — if I cannot find peace at home I dare not venture to look for it out of my own country and therefore my emigration is but a short way

[Pfz 198, 47]

Charity is is said covers a multitude of sins — but avarice is a cruel beast — it would throw water on a drowned mouse — cheat an adam out of his fig leaved apron and paint the very devil with lamp black — with a visage all the while as sincere and sanctified as if it was preaching a charity sermon

[B5, 41]

With not a few ‘envy hatred and malice’ is a trinity and with many self interest is a god and with the rest I think misrepresentation and hypocrisy is an idol — or the world is still a mistery for from boyhood I have been going on fools errands and my whole life has been a first of april — the veriest lout that can scarcely muster wit enough to tell his right hand from his left has been able to out wit me and make me believe his deceptions — I have been bandied from pillar to post with every assurance of fair play to be further cheated — and every imposture is coloured into friendship as if a thief should say ‘poh man what offended at help and assistance’ when he had pickt his pocket

[B5, R41]

The world seems eager of the oppertunity to discomfort one[s] feelings under the indulgence of imagined friendship — but I have no animosity of any kind about me — even insult could not burn me into anger melt me into tears or curdle my feelings into scorn but it would sink into my heart like a stone and I fear that if envy hatred or malice owes me any ill will they are gratified for my spirits are nearly broken and my condition sadly out of repair

[B6, R146]

We had a very uncomfortable occurence indeed in the death of Lady Milton247     she was such an amiable woman and so well beloved that our whole neighbourhood is in mourning not in dress but in heart and I fear the loss will never be supplied — she must have been an excellent woman for she has left no public enemies behind     all join in her praise at least all that I hear of

[B5, R83]

Poverty has made a sad tool of me by times — and broken into that independance which is or ought to belong to every man by birthright — the travellers situation is no riddle to me now — tho I used to wonder over it when I had no friends — A traveller who had been questioned as to what he had seen and where he had been declared that [he] had been so far as to be able to get no further [to] see the greatest of wonders and being at last forced to turn back as not being able to place even a sixpence between the earth and the sky and altho the earth and sky did not actualy grow together

     I have been so long a lodger with difficulty and hope and so often looked on the land of promise without meeting with it — that I have often felt myself in the midst of Solomons advice to his son — ‘My son it is better to die then to be poor — for the honesty of a poor man is ever suspected while the rich “makes faults graces”

And on the finger of the throned queen

The basest jewel will be well esteemed’248

[A53.49r, 64v]

some bring in a [plea] on the reader that have had an eye to modesty that they have written nothing no not even a syllable that she need even blush to read     another says that they have kindled their musings at the coals of the alter and that they breath in toto the true spirit of religion as if writing about religion was the test of Poetry     another urges the persuasion of friends and quotes the proofs of their judgments praises to be sure — these are the cants and excuses of prefaces

[B6, R83]

I might have inserted several praises from friends in extracts from their letters mentioning my poems etc but I leave the books I have published and the poems that may yet be published to speak for themselves     if they cannot go without leading strings they will never go far with them so let them fall and be forgotten — they have gained me many pleasures and friends that have smoothed the rugged road of my early life and made my present lot sit more easily on the lap of life and I am proud of the notice they have gained me and I shall feel a prouder gratification still if my future publications be found worthy of further encouragment and if nothing I have written be deemed worthy the notice of posterity I have neither the power nor the wish to save them from the fate that awaits them249

[B3, 68 and A31, 51]

When a person finds fault with every body but himself it may be rightly infered that self is the only pleasant thing in life with him and that the credit of every body is sacrifised to mentain that opinion — but when one speaks with the same freedom of himself as of others it can never be doubted that there is any other cause or interest attached to it then the one that he writes as he feels — impartially is not always truth as it sometimes and often mistakes its own opinion for it but it never can be construed into pergury as uttering a false opinion for the interest of itself or others — I have attempted to do so throughout this narative     I have described things as I thought they were without feeling a dislike to this person or a love for that — I have exposed my own faults and feelings with the same freedom as tho I was talking of an enemey     I have not hesitated about the interpretations that they may give birth too but related them as they are and were ever     [if] I am mistaken in my opinion of others it is my Judgment and not my will that misled me

[B3, 59]

I have provd the world and I feel disapointed     the hollow pretendings calld friendships have deadend my feelings and broken my confidence and left me nothing and perhaps the fault is not in the world but in me     every friendship I made grew into a vain attachment     I was in earnest always or I was nothing and I believd every thing that was utterd came from the heart as mine did     I made my opinions of people the same to their faces as I did behind their backs reserving nothing     I spoke as freely of their faults as I did of their merits and lovd everybody the better for serving me like wise     if I tryd to disemble my real opinion in my inosc[ence]ness woud break thru and betray me so I spoke as I thought and [not for the deceiving]250 and when I made a familiar friend I gave him my confidence and unbosomd my faults and failings to him without hesitation and reserve putting my all into his hands and there bye making my self bare to his with out caring to enquire into his own as a holdfast or earnest to keep secrets     on the other hand I have a fault that often hurts me tho I cannot master it     I am apt to mistake some foibles that all men are subject to into breaches of friendship and therebye grow hessitant and loose my sincerity for them and when I feel dissapointed in my opinions of them I never can recover my former attachment tho I often try and I always see the silent enmity of an enemey when I can no longer feel the sincerity of a friend     I know I am full of faults tho I have improvd and temperd my self as well as I was able but these that stick to me were born with me and will dye with me     if ever any body did or does me a foul barefacd wrong that memory grows with my life and break[s] out with every oppertunity and if there is a resurection quickning with the dust it is such a vivid spark in my nature that I believe I shall not forget it in my grave

[D2, 7]

Notes

1 I was: Clare has written ‘I way’.

2 eastwell spring: A natural spring near Helpston which became a local meeting-place.

3 harvest home: The harvest celebrations. The harvest supper was once a grand occasion when all the harvest workers were invited to the farmer’s groaning table.

4 in man hood: Clare has written ‘mad’.

5 shepherds and herd boys: See Clare’s poem ‘A Sunday with Shepherds and Herdboys’.

6 Emmonsales: Emmonsales, or Ailsworth, Heath — now a nature reserve.

7 a new world: Followed by the deleted words: ‘and expected the worlds end bye and bye but it never came’.

8 Langley Bush: A favourite meeting-point for gypsies near Helpston and originally the site of the open courts. A gibbet once stood at the spot. Clare tells us that the bush was destroyed by vandalism.

9 splashing steam:? steam for ‘team’ or ‘stream’.

10 but: Clare has written ‘by’.

11 the old woman: Clare originally wrote ‘milk maid’.

12 the Marquis: Clare is referring to Lord Milton.

13 poor cade foal: This story of the cade, or pet, foal is so near to Robert Bloomfield’s poem, ‘The Fakenham Ghost’, that one wonders once again whether fact and fiction may not have become intertwined in Clare’s mind.

14 ‘Rotten Moor’, ‘Dead Moor’, Eastwell moor, Banton green, Lolham Briggs, Rine dyke: Many of these spots are identified in Daniel Crowson’s pamphlet, Rambles with John Clare (1978), and in Peterborough City Council’s two booklets of Country Walks Around Peterborough.

15 how many days: This passage originally began: ‘I never had much relish for noisey games such as hunt the stag’.

16 Northborough: This legend is clearly connected with the chapbook, History of Gotham.

17 a young lady being killd … by a shield ball: This may be connected with the unidentified book, The Female Shipwright. Stories of young girls going to sea in search of their lovers were common.

18 the old man and his ass: A chapbook. Several editions in the Harding Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

19 Lilys astrology: William Lilly (1602–81), Christian Astrology (1647) reprinted as An Introduction to Astrology (1835).

20 Culpeppers Herbal: Nicholas Culpeper, possibly the edition by John Hill (London, 1792).

21 Noells of Walcott Hall: The Noel family owned the Hall in the nineteenth century.

22 Sandys travels: George Sandys, Travels, 7th edn (London, 1673).
Parkinsons Herbal: John Parkinson, Theatrum Botanicum (1640).

23 to read them: Followed by the deleted words: ‘for his parents woud let him lend nothing’.

24 his: Clare has written ‘he’.

25 to pill oaks: Followed by the deleted words: ‘and some times to shoot crows’.

26 the king and the cobler: A chapbook. Several editions in the Johnson and the Harding Collections, Bodleian Library, Oxford, e.g. The Comical History of the King and the Cobler, the Two Parts in One, Liverpool, Printed for W. Armstrong, Banaster-Street. See also Briggs, op. cit., Part A, vol.2, p.437.
Seven Sleepers: A chapbook. Several editions in the Harding Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford. See also R. Johnson, The Most Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom.

27 the Pleasant art of money catching: An anonymous publication, 1816–51. See The Pleasant Art of Money-Catching and the Way to Thrive by Turning a Penny to Advantage … Falkirk, Printed for the Booksellers, 1840, in the Harding Collection.

28 Randolph: Thomas Randolph (1605–35), poet and dramatist. Born in Newnham, Northamptonshire, he led a boisterous life in London, and returned to his native county in 1634, broken in health and heavily in debt. His works include Amyntas, a pastoral comedy, and the poem The Muse’s Looking-glasse both published postumously in 1638.

29 Tarlton: Richard Tarlton (d.1588), comic actor, wit, and hero of the anecdote collection Tarlton’s Jests.

30 insert them here: Not yet identified among Clare’s manuscripts.

31 Lord Radstock: Admiral the Hon. William Waldegrave, second son of the third Earl Waldegrave, became the first Baron Radstock. Friend of Nelson and Naval Governor of Newfoundland, he quelled a mutiny on board HMS Latona at the mutiny of the Nore. He was an ardent evangelical and a very kindly man. See J. Marshall, Royal Naval Biography (1823–5), 8 vols, The Annual Biography and Obituary (1825), and D.W. Prouse, A History of Newfoundland (1896). He died in 1825.

32 Behnes: Henry Burlow Behnes (d.1837), the sculptor. Also made a bust of Clare now in Northampton Public Library. He tried to get S.C. Hall and others to pay Clare for his work.

33 Lord fitzwilliam: Charles William Wentworth Fitzwilliam (1786–1857), third Earl Fitzwilliam, a man noted for his probity and independence of mind. See also pp.118-19 and 121.

34 Revd Holland: Revd Isaiah Knowles Holland (d.1873). Presbyterian minister at Northborough and then St Ives, Huntingdon. Clare dedicated ‘The Woodman’ to him.

35 ‘Village funeral’: Early Poems, i, 223-7.

36 the Woodman: Early Poems, ii, 287-96.

37 Kirk White: The poet, Henry Kirke White, author of Remains (1824). See Powell, items 396-7. The book was also published as a chapbook.

38 or: Clare has written ‘of’.

39 Drakards: John Drakard (1775?–1849), bookseller, proprietor of the Stamford News from 1809 and the Stamford Champion in January 1830. Renowned for his radicalism, he was once horsewhipped by Lord Cardigan in his own shop.

40 Cf. B3,83 for another version of the second paragraph. There are no significant variants.

41 the Scotch Rogue: A chapbook. Several editions in the Harding Col lection, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

42 Mr Gee: Edward Gee, a retired farmer, who bought Clare’s original cottage in 1778. He died in 1804.

43 Tannahills song of Jessey: See Journal, 14 Oct. 1824. Passage followed by ‘Sir Michael B. Clare West India’.

44 Another version of this paragraph appears at B4, R99: As to my learning if I was to brag over it I might make shift to say a little about mathematics Astronomy Botany Geography and others of the Abst[r]use Arts and sciences for I puzzled over such matters at every hour of leisure for years as my curosity was constantly on the enquiry and never satisfied and when I got fast with one thing I did not despair but tryd at another tho with the same success in the end     yet it never sickend me I      still pursued knowledge in a new path and tho I never came off victor I was never conquored

45 Lord Milton: Charles Fitzwilliam, usually so-called by Clare in his father’s lifetime. See note 33 above.

46 Milton: The Fitzwilliam estate near Peterborough.

47 good luck and success: Followed by the deleted words: ‘it raind hard before we got there and when we got there we was put into the peterboro room’.

48 Identified titles include: Dilworths Wingates Hodders Vyses and Cockers Arithmetic: Thomas Dilworth, The Schoolmaster’s Assistant: being a compendium of arithmetic, both practical and theoretical (London, 1744); Edmund Wingate, Arithmetique made easie, (London, 1652: 18th edn by 1751); James Hodder, Arithmetick (London, 1702): Powell, item 242; Charles Vyse, The Tutor’s Guide: being a complete system of Arithmetic … (1770); Edward Cocker, Cocker’s Arithmetic (London, 1688): Powell, item 159.
Horners Mensuration and Wards Mathematics Leybourns and Morgans Dialling: Horner: not identified. E. Ward, The Elements of Arithmetic (Liverpool, 1813); William Leybourne, The Art of Dialling, by a Trigonal Instrument (1699); Sylvanus Morgan, Horologiographica: Dialling Universal and Particular (London, 1652).
Female Shipwright: Unidentified chapbook. But see W. Clark Russell, A Book for the Hammock (1887), pp.91-114, for stories of women going to war in search of missing lovers or husbands.
Martindales Land Surveying and Cockers Land surveying: Alan Martindale, The Country Survey-Book, or Land Meeter’s Vade Mecum (London, 1682), Unidentified book by Edward Cocker, author of Arithmetic (1678).
Hills Herbal: John Hill, The British Herbal (1756). Clare requested the Revd Charles Mossop in a letter dated January 1832 to send back his copy of Hill’s Herbal. (Letters, p.565).
Balls Astrology: Richard Ball, An Astrolo-Physical Compendium: or a brief introduction to astrology (London, 1697).
Rays History of the Rebellion: James Ray, A Compleat History of the Rebellion … in 1745 (1749).
Sturms Reflections: Christopher Christian Sturm, Reflections on the Works of God, trans, from the German in 1788. Clare was presented with the same author’s Morning Communings with God (1825), by Herbert Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough, on 24 August 1827 (Powell, item 370). Selections from Sturm were also published as a chapbook.
Harveys Meditations: James Hervey, Meditations among the Tombs (1746), and many subsequent editions.
Thompsons Travels: Charles Thompson, The Travels (1744). See Powell, item 376.
Life of Barnfield: Probably The Apprentices Tragedy or the History of George Barnwell. A chapbook. See the Harding Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
more: Probably Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, unless he means Hannah More, whose Spirit of Prayer (1825) was given to him by Lord Radstock (Powell, item 312).
Duty of Man: Richard Allestree, The Whole Duty of Man (1659). It was also published as a chapbook.
Lees Botany: James Lee, the elder, An introduction to botany … extracts from the works of Linnaeus (London, 1760).
Kings Tricks of London laid open: Richard King, The new Cheats of London exposed; or, the frauds and tricks of the town laid open to both sexes (Manchester, 1795).
The Fathers Legacy or seven stages of Life: A chapbook called ‘The Seven Stages of Life’ occurs in the Harding Collection, Bodleian Library.

49 O. Gilchrist: Octavius Graham Gilchrist (1799–1823). Grocer of Stamford, wrote on Clare in the London Magazine, January 1820. He was editor of Drakard’s Stamford News, which included an obituary of him 1 July 1823.

50 We have chosen to insert paragraphs from B3, 73 (cf. A18, 271) and from B5, 46 into this account of Clare’s reading which continues with ‘I also was fond’.

51 Ray: John Ray (1627–1705), author of the famous Historia Plantarum (1686–1704, 3 vols), also a Synopsis stirpium Britannicarum (1690). It may be the shorter work to which Clare refers. Ray’s interest in English words and proverbs would also have endeared him to Clare. See C.E. Raven, John Ray Naturalist: His Life and Works (Cambridge, 1950).
Parkinson: John Parkinson, Theatrum Botanicum (1640).
Gerrard: John Gerard, The Herball, or generall Historie of Plants … (1630).

52 classing: Clare has written ‘calassing’.

53 my friend Artis: Edmund Tyrell Artis (1789–1847). Steward to Lord Milton but famous as an archaeologist. Published the beautiful Durobrivae of Antoninus in 1828. Clare helped him with his digs.

54 Docter Touch: Possibly the man described in a ‘Copy of a letter received by a gentleman in Hull, dated Market Raisen, October 21’ and printed in Drakard’s Stamford News, 24 November 1809:

Market Raisen has been crowded for these last ten days, past all belief; hundreds of people have come from all parts of the country to witness the far-famed skill of a Quack Doctor, whose account of himself is, that he was never born, but taken out of the side of his mother, that he is the seventh son of a seventh son, for seven generations, and that his mother was a seventh daughter. Many very genteel people even come to him, and positively assert that he cures all disorders by his touch; he licks their sores, breathes into their mouths, etc etc makes the blind see, the dumb speak, and the deaf hear. He is such a figure as perhaps you never beheld; he parades the streets accompanied by a fiddle, a fife, a drum, and several men with ribbons to their hats; he has a long black beard, walks without his coat, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, and his stockings about his heels; he takes very little money of his patients, and yet spends a great deal; he gives a dinner or supper every day to the poor; he has six attendants, to each of whom he gives a guinea a day; his daily expences are supposed to be about twenty pounds. All the inns here are very much crowded, many people have been obliged to sleep on the floors; he generally has about two hundred patients a day, many have been here a week, and have not been able to see him. He went in a post-chaise and four, a few days ago, to visit a patient out of town; when he got to the town-end on his return, the horses were taken from the chaise, and he was dragged into the town by men amidst the huzzas and acclamations of the mob, ringing of bells, etc etc     indeed, they look upon him as something more than human; he pretends to much religion. I understand he was taken up at Lincoln, and committed to the house of correction as a vagrant, but they were obliged to give him his liberty. He will leave this place in a few days.

55 Pool of Bethsheba: Bethesda. See John 5:2-9.

56 mentiond awhile back: Clare either had another order in mind for his observations on Farrow or a passage about him is missing from the MSS.

57 following Epitaph: Clare is referring to ‘On the Death of a Quack’ (Early Poems, i, 330-2).

58 another long tale: ‘The Quack and the Cobler’, which appears in Pforzheimer Misc. MS 197, where Clare refers to it as ‘a true tale’, and is printed in Early Poems, i, 164-70).

59 on an old woman: Clare is referring to ‘On the Death of a Scold’ (Early Poems, i, 245-6).

60 in dispair: This is followed by Clare’s description of two alternative endings: ‘when the phantom of liberty in[s]tantly appears to cheer the lean figure with prophetic’ and ‘when the bloated pha[n]tom shrinks from its presence and fades away’.

61 shoe maker: Followed by the deleted words: ‘to a man in the Village who woud have took me for nothing out of kindness to my Father’.

62 M^rs Bellairs: Owner of Woodcroft Farm. Clare was still enquiring after her as late as 1 June 1849. See p.278 below.

63 ‘the milking pail’: There are many songs of this name. This may be related to a chapbook entitled ‘The Milk Pail’ published by Aldermary Churchyard Press.
‘Jack with his broom’: To be found most easily as ‘The Green Bloom’ in Lucy E. Broadwood, English Country Songs, pp.88-9. It may also be found as ‘The Jolly Broom-man: or, the Unhappy Boy turnd Thrifty’ in Thomas d’Urfey, Wit, and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–20), 16 vols, vol.IV, p.100.

64 Cf. A34,9, a shorter version.

65 and then: Followed by the deleted words: ‘and longd to be a trade but I’.

66 it was usless: Followed by the deleted words: ‘a little time after his abilitys and’.

67 Page torn off here, but the passage is clearly continued at A34, R7 below, which was originally the same MS.

68 for fireing: Followed by the deleted words: ‘and I was often sent to take my fathers dinner when he was mowing were I often dallyd on the way with it’.

69 ‘Little red riding hood’ etc.: Most of these chapbooks stories are familiar even to the modern reader, but see K.M. Briggs, A Dictionary of British Folk Tales and G. Deacon, John Clare and the Folk Tradition. R. Holmes, The Legend of Sawney Bean (1975), p.18 identifies four broadsheet versions in the National Library of Scotland. The Seven Sleepers appears in the Harding Collection, Bodleian Library. It is also printed in William Hone, The Every-day Book, vol.1, cols.1034–7, for 27 July 1838. The History of Gotham is discussed in J.E. Field, The Myth of the Pent Cuckoo (1913). See Clare’s passage about Northborough, pp.47-8 above. Clare made a note to purchase Valentine and Orson as a Christmas present for his daughter Anna, and Cock Robin for Eliza (see p.69 above). ‘Old mother Bunch and ‘old Nixons Prophecys’ are identified above, note 3 on p.36. Robin Hoods Garland was a ‘special chapbook’ published by the Aldermary Churchyard Press. It was a collection of songs and can be found as no.29 in the John Johnson Collection at the Bodleian Library. The History of Thomas Hickathrift, Aldermary Churchyard Press (London, 1790), is also to be found, with other editions, in the Harding Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford. The History of Tom Long the Carrier, The History of Johnny Armstrong and The History of Lawrence Lazy were all Aldermary Churchyard chapbooks.

70 Oliver Cromwell memory: This passage continues with a description very similar to that given above, from B8,101, and here omitted.

71 over to try: Followed by: ‘so after — (insert here the Journey to Wisbeach’.

72 a: Clare has written ‘and’.

73 Rippingille: Edward Villiers Rippingille (1798–1859), painter of rural scenes. He worked in Bristol. These paintings have not yet been identified.

74 This is line 76 of ‘Summer’ in Robert Bloomfield’s The Farmer’s Boy.

75 destroyd them: Followed by the deleted words: ‘all save some of the woods and dingles    I livd at this place a twelvmonth’.

76 No words are omitted, but we have interrupted this passage, which continues below at ‘… the man was of so harsh a temper’, in an attempt to preserve some continuity in the narrative.

77 The last five words are chemically faded.

78 Tant Baker: See Drunken Barnaby’s Four Journeys to the North of England (1822), edited by Gilchrist for an account of Baker’s ‘Hole in the Wall’ or ‘Hole of Sarah’, the ‘drunkard’s cave’. His death was announced in Drakard’s Stamford News, 15 March 1822.

79 Cf. ‘Ale’, Early Poems, ii, 280-6.

80 George Cousins: The death of George Cousins, labourer, by accidental poisoning, aged 65, was announced in Drakard’s Stamford News, 25 March 1821.

81 Grantham: Clare has a very damaged passage which appears to refer to their arrival in Grantham: ‘[by the time we go]t there it was night     when we [woke at last on] the next day it appeard to me [the air was full o]f rattling repetition noise as if all [the people in the] streets was turning skreekers and knocking at shutters [     ] we learnd since that they were stocking weavers’ [A34, R9]. The condition of this passage has deteriorated still further (1995).

82 Newark on trent: The following passage seems to refer to Newark. It will be noticed that the account of the enlisting in the milita does not seem to square with that at A34, R11-10 which follows: ‘While here we went to a little village feast calld Bald wick and the Nottingham shire Militia was then very brief in getting substitutes or recruits     we got fresh’ [A34, R13]. (Baldwick is unidentified.)

83 so we: Followed by the deleted words: ‘returnd home and my parents was very happy to see me’.

84 with the world: Followed by the deleted words: ‘I did not know what to be at’.

85 The confusion over this militia episode is increased by a deletion after ‘ill at rest’ which reads: ‘the Nottinghamshire Militia was then recruiting in the town and I woud have listed but was’, and by the single name, Moulton, which appears after the phrase ‘I fled my toils and listed’.

86 in the day: Followed by the deleted words: ‘Fame is very cheaply gained in a village and a pert fool with a little impudence’.

87 Peter Pindar: The pseudonym of John Wolcot (1738–1819), author of The Lousiad (1785), in which he ridiculed the King, Pitt, and others.

88 ever: Clare has written ‘every’.

89 to be saving: Followed by the deleted words: ‘for I had been measured at the Taylors for a new olive green coat a color which I had long aimd at’.

90 Tycho Wing: (1696–1750). Astrologer and editor of Olympia Domata.

91 Clare’s note: ‘wild ducks etc’.

92 Smiths: Well-known gypsy name. See Clare’s Journal, 3 June 1825, and note 10 to Journey out of Essex on p.338.

93 Boswells: Another well-known gypsy name. Tyso Boswell’s daughter, Sophia, married John Grey, who taught Clare the fiddle. See Sylvester Boswell, The Autobiography of a Gipsy, ed. John Seymour, 1970, and Claire Lamont, ‘John Clare and the Gipsies’, The John Clare Society Journal, no. 13, July 1994, pp. 19-31.

94 king Boswell: ‘On Friday last an interesting funeral took place at Wittering, a village three miles South of Stamford. The individual, whose remains were consigned to the earth, was in life no less a personage than Henry Boswell, well known as the Father or King of the Gipsies resorting to this part of the country. The old man was encamped on Southorpe Heath with several of his family and subjects on Sunday s’ennight, when death put an end to his reign and his earthly wanderings. He has been ill for a few days, but his complaint was really a decay of nature, for the patriarch was nearly a hundred years of age …’ (Stamford Mercury, 15 October 1824).

95 to join them: Followed by the deleted words: ‘I woud join in their slang terms almost as ready as them selves’.

96 The first square bracket is Clare’s, the second ours.

97 Clare has written in the margin: ‘Bur vine Wasp weed Buck bane husk head Furze bound Viney Liskey’.

98 Clare has corrected ‘robbing’ to ‘begging’.

99 Mary ——: Mary Joyce.

100 Elizabeth N[ewbon]: Elizabeth, or Betty, Newbon. Wrongly identified as ‘Newton’ in F. Martin’s Life of John Clare.

101 Ezra: Actually it is Esther.

102 Lord Napiers Key to the revelations: John Napier, A Plaine Discovery of the whole Revelations of Saint John (1593).

103 Moors almanack: Old Moore’s Almanack. An example is reproduced in L. James, Print and the People, 1819–1851 (1976), p.156.

104 threw: Clare has written ‘thro’.

105 The ballad would appear to be ‘When natures beauty shone compleat’ and the song ‘Of all the days in memoreys list’ (Early Poetry, ii, 201-2 and 395-6).

106 the lodge: Walkerd Lodge, home of Patty (Martha Turner).

107 first volume: Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820).

108 Rev^d M^r Lucas of Casterton: Richard Lucas, Rector of Great Casterton with Pickworth 1784–1827.

109 threw: Clare has written ‘thro’.

110 I twisted him down: Followed by the deleted words: ‘and I never felt dissapointment more keenly then I did in not thumping him’.

111 to buy: Followed by the deleted words: ‘cut trousers’ ‘awkard squad     ducking in plantations’.

112 disdaind to: Followed by the deleted words: ‘join in such wifish follys’.

113 about it: Followed by the deleted words: ‘bad lodgers etc’.

114 Chatterton: Thomas Chatterton (1752–70) who tried to pass off his poems as old MSS. He killed himself at the age of seventeen. See ‘The Resignation’, Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover, The Collected Works of Thomas Chatterton (Clarendon Press), pp.84-6.

115 which: Clare’s mistake for ‘while’?

116 Davy: Presumably John Davis, The Life of Thomas Chatterton (1806).

117 ‘The Resignation’ (Early Poems, i, 325-7).

118 ‘The Death of Dobbin’ (Early Poems, i, 84-90).

119 ‘The Lodge House’ (Early Poems, i, 233-47).

120 calld: Clare has written ‘callded’.

121 ‘history of Joseph’: The History of Joseph and his Brethren, a popular chapbook, was reprinted in J. Ashton, Chapbooks of the Eighteenth Century (1882). There is an edition (no.41) in the Johnson Collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and several in the Harding Collection in the same library. Most editions are embellished with woodcuts.

122 ‘What is Life?’ (Early Poems, i, 392-3).

123 royal: Variant of ‘Ryhall’.

124 Henson: Clare has written ‘Henderson’ in error.

125 Rev^d M^r Mounsey: Revd Thomas Mounsey, second master at Stamford Free Grammar School.

126 henson: Clare has written ‘henderson’ in error and five lines later has amended ‘Hendersons’ to ‘Hensons’.

127 Drury: Followed by the deleted words: ‘when I reminded him of his engagment to pay my debts’.

128 Revd M^r Towpenny: Clare’s mistake for ‘Twopenny’. Revd Richard Twopenny (1757–1843) was vicar of Little Casterton from 1783 until his death. See Early Poems, i, 234.

129 Sir English Dobbin: Sir John English Dolben of Finedon Place, Northamptonshire, ancestor of Robert Bridge’s friend.

130 The subsequent passage from ‘the address to a Lark’ down to ‘on the common’ also appears at A32,7 but it is there followed by: ‘The lost Greyhound was made while going and returning from Ashton      I saw one lye quaking under a haystack in the snow     I supposd it was lost and wrote the above
      some of the sonnets a short poem or two are early     the rest was written at later periods and most of them at Casterton     the one on the Fountain was written one Sunday evening while sitting bye a brook on Casterton cowpasture with patty’.

131 Edwin and Emma: David Mallet’s ‘Ballad of Edwin and Emma’ was published as a chapbook. See also Journal of the Folk Lore Society, June 1909, no.13 and no.3.
The poems mentioned by Clare in this section, ‘Helpstone’, ‘The Fate of Amy’, ‘Address to a Lark’, ‘The Lost Greyhound’ or ‘On a lost Greyhound lying on the Snow’, ‘Crazy Nell’ and others can be found in Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820). They are also included in Early Poems, i. These poems represent the genre of story-telling ballads describing pathetic rural events to which Clare was always strongly attracted. John Taylor, his publisher, while favouring them at first seems to have become increasingly critical of such poems.

132 charlotte Smith: Charlotte Smith (1749–1806). Her popular Elegiac Sonnets appeared in 1784.

133 D^r Bell: It was Dr J.G. Bell who secured a half yearly annuity from Earl Spencer for Clare. See Letters, pp.132 and 205.

134 afterwards: Followed by the deleted words: ‘I pursued my avocations at Casterton in gardening etc till the latter end of’.

135 a young girl at Southorpe: Betty Sell, daughter of a labourer at Southorpe.

136 Woods Historys: This was the story of the king’s chaplain, Dr Michael Hudson, who was trying to escape from Woodcroft Castle and had his hands cut off as he hung from the battlements. The story was told in Sir Walter Scott’s Woodstock and in Clare’s original version of ‘The Village Minstrel’ (see Early Poems, ii, 163-7).

137 which I destroyd: This passage amplifies a statement in Sketches in the Life of John Clare (see p.13 above).

138 ‘To the Violet’ (Early Poems, ii, 10-11) and ‘Narrative Verses written after an Excursion from Helpston to Burghley Park’ (Early Poems, ii, 4-10).

139 ‘Round Oak Spring’: Published in M.C., p.442.

140 Chauncy Hare Townsend: The Revd Chauncy Hare Townsend (1798–1868), friend of Dickens. Great Expectations was dedicated to him. He published Poems in 1821 (Powell, item 379) and Sermons in Sonnets in 1851. His letters to Clare are in the Egerton MSS, The British Library.

141 our parson: Revd Charles Mossop, Vicar of Helpston 1817–53.

142 after wards: Clare has written ‘words’. See Early Poems, ii, ‘The Parish’, lines 1230–1369.

143 Philips waste paper Mag: Sir Richard Phillips (1767–1840), who founded the Monthly Magazine in 1796. Clare criticised him in a letter to Taylor 6 November 1821 (Letters, p.217) for his unsigned review of The Village Minstrel in the November issue.

144 Hon^bl M^r Pierpoint: Henry Manvers Pierrepont, brother-in-law to the Marquis of Exeter.

145 enabale: A32,1 starts here.

146 Blairs Sermons: Hugh Blair, Sermons (1819). See Powell, item 117. See also Clare’s Journal for 31 October 1824.

147 M^rs Emmerson: Eliza Louisa Emmerson (1782–1847). See pp.136-7. She was a poet and a keen admirer of Clare’s work. Unfortunately most of Clare’s letters to her have disappeared. She was a friend of Lord Radstock and an evangelical.

148 Dawson Turner of Yarmouth: Dawson Turner (1775–1858), botanist and antiquary. Three of his letters to Clare survive in F1 on the first of which Clare has written ‘This is the first letter I recieved’.

149 Captain Sherwell: Captain Markham E. Sherwill, author of Ascent to the Summit of Mont Blanc (1826) and Poems (1832).

150 the Lady: This passage onwards used to be attached to B3, 75, but is now missing.

151 At B7, 90 Clare has the couplet:
      A lean mouthd fellow whose dead visage seems
      Akin to pharoahs hunger hanted dreams

152 absully: Clare presumably intended to write ‘absurdly’ or ‘absolutely’.

153 Preston: Edward Preston. F. Martin, The Life of John Clare, ed. E. Robinson and G. Summerfield (1964), p. 124 says of him: ‘The first of the tribe [of writers of unpublished books visiting Clare] was an individual of the name of Preston, a native of Cambridge, and author of an immense quantity of poetic, artistic and scientific works — none of them printed …’.

154 Ireland the Shakespear Phantom: William Henry Ireland (1777–1835) wrote verse imitations of early authors and then graduated to forging Shakespearian plays. When discredited he wandered almost penniless through Wales and Gloucestershire, visiting at Bristol in the autumn of 1796 the scenes connected with Chatterton’s tragic death. He also wrote in imitation of Robert Bloomfield.

155 ‘brother bob’: Followed by: ‘he made some enquireys after some’.

156 he woud: Followed by the deleted words: ‘truth over somthing’.

157 Hilton: William Hilton, painter, RA (1819) and Keeper of the Academy (1820). He painted portraits of both Clare and Keats.

158 Ryde: Henry Ryde, estate-agent at Burghley. He was accused of assault on Mrs Woods in Drakard’s Stamford News, 12 June 1829.

159 a painter: Clare has written below: ‘Sir T Lawrence’ Sir M B Clare’.

160 Mr Hopkinson: Hopkinson may have been the religious magistrate denounced by Clare for his unfeeling denunciation of gypsies. See p.83. He was Vicar of Morton with Hacconby, Lines, 1795–1841, also Rector of Etton, 1786–1828. Clare once wrote to Taylor ‘if I had an enemey I coud wish to torture I woud not wish him hung nor yet at the devil my worst wish shoud be a weeks confinement in some vicarage to hear an old parson and his wife lecture on the wants and wickedness of the poor …’ (7 January 1821; Letters, pp.137-8).

161 she: Clare has written ‘you’.

162 Beatties Minstrel: James Beattie, The Minstrel (1819), presented by Chauncy Hare Townsend, 6 May 1820 (Powell, item 113).

163 never heard of him afterwards: Clare was in fact to receive further letters from him.

164 the Bishop of Peterbro: Herbert Marsh, Bishop 1819–39.

165 Miss Aikins Elizabeth: Lucy Aikin, Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth (1819). See Powell, item 93.

166 his Lady … Rev^d M^r Parsons: Marsh’s wife, Marianne, who was a regular correspondent of Clare’s … Rev^d Joseph Parsons, Preben dary of Peterborough Cathedral.

167 Oxford sausage: An occasional publication, principally of ‘poems of humour and burlesque’. The Revd Joseph Parsons gave Clare a copy (Powell, item 325).

168 General Birch Reynardson: Thomas Birch married Etheldred Ann Reynardson, eldest daughter of Jacob Reynardson of Holywell Hall in the county of Lincoln, and in 1801 assumed the additional surname of Reynardson. Drakard’s Stamford News, 18 April 1823, shows Reynardson and W. Hopkinson (note 159) on the same bench of magistrates sitting at Folkingham.

169 pleasures of hope: Thomas Campbell, The Pleasures of Hope (1816). See Powell, item 146.

170 Hammond: James Hammond (1710–42), poet. His Love Elegies were written in 1732 and published anonymously in 1743. They were condemned by Dr Johnson for ‘frigid pedantry’. Perhaps this was the book General Reynardson showed Clare.

171 the Servants Hall: Followed by the deleted words: ‘were I recognized an old enemey in a letter boy who had often anoyd me while passing to Stamford by our Kiln at Royal’ (i.e. Ryhall).

172 threatnd no: Before ‘no’ Clare has tried to obliterate? ‘threatnd’ by writing ‘John Clare’ in bold letters through it.

173 ‘Second Address to the Rose Bud in humble Life’: (Early Poems, ii, 331-2).

174 This hiatus is sufficient for four or five words.

175 Henderson: Joseph Henderson, head gardener at Milton, a keen botanist friend of Clare’s.

176 Roberts: Frederic Roberts, servant at Milton Hall. See Clare’s Journal, 2 August 1825. In a letter dated ‘15th March — at Milton’ he thanked Clare for sending him ‘A Comic song’ (BL, Egerton 2250, fol. 295r – 6v).

177 Grill the Cook: Monsieur Grilliot, head cook at Milton Hall, better known to the servants as ‘Grill’. See Martin, Life of John Clare, pp.190-1, 195-7.

178 Mrs Procter and M^rs Byron: See Clare’s Journal, 13 July 1825.

179 it woud hide it —: Followed by the deleted words: ‘he invited me to come up to London before he left me’.

180 publish them: Followed by the deleted words: ‘and wrote to Lord Radstock (in answer to one from his Lordship’.

181 the Identity of Junius: John Taylor, The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character Established (1816 and 1818).

182 Incomplete and bady torn reference to Henson, the bookseller. Clare regarded him as an arch hypocrite and may have been thinking of him when he wrote the second sentence that follows. A further reference to methodists occurs at B3,81; it may refer to a brother of Stephen Gordon of Kingsthorpe: ‘insert account of Oliver who woud not suffer a book to be in the house unless the name of Lord or God was in it’.

183 Stamford Coach: Followed by the deleted words: ‘but I felt very awkard in my dress’.

184 Johnny Gilpin: Clare has deleted the words between ‘which was far’ and ‘Johnny Gilpin’.

185 John Scott: John Scott (1730–83), the Quaker poet, whose Elegy written at Amwell, in Hertfordshire appeared in 1769 and the Poetical Works in 1782.

186 Madam Vestris: John Clare’s ‘The Meeting’, set to music by Haydn Corri, was sung by Madame Vestris and was published as a broadsheet. See Deacon, John Clare and the Folk Tradition, pp.64-5.

187 Whittlesea Meer: In Clare’s day undrained and an attractive stretch of inland water.

188 Kean and Macready and Knight and Munden and Emmery: Edmund Kean was playing at Drury Lane in The Hebrew, a drama based on Ivanhoe, Macready at Covent Garden in Ivanhoe, or The Jewess, a musical play. Edward Knight was playing on the London stage in the early 1820s. Munden and Emery were in a farce at Covent Garden.

189 Knights quarterly Magazine: Charles. Knight (1791–1873), author and publisher, edited unsuccessfully Knight’s Quarterly Magazine between 1823 and 1825. The ‘visionary ode on Beauty’ was titled ‘Beauty; a lyrical poem’ and appeared in the June-October 1823 number, pp.77-84. It is dated 1821 and above the initials D.C. Derwent Coleridge (1800–83), S.T. Coleridge’s second son, contributed to the magazine under the same initials, but as ‘Davenant Cecil’.

190 bleak … misty: These two words could equally well read ‘blea[c]hd’ and ‘rusty’.

191 Rippingille: Cf. the passage at A31,54 which says that Clare met Rippingille ‘on my first visit to London’.

192 Offleys the Burton ale house: Martin, op. cit., p.151, writes: ‘After staying punctually through the performance in the Tottenham Court Road Theatre, sighing over the enchanting looks of Mademoiselle, the friends adjourned to a neighbouring public-house, and from thence to a tavern known as Offley’s, famous for its Burton ale’.

193 fearful disclosures: These stories suggest the chapbook Sweeney Todd.

194 Burkhardt: J.C. Burkhardt, a London jeweller, and Gilchrist’s brother-in-law.

195 Vauxhall: The spacious pleasure gardens were a source of merriment and romance.

196 Beggars Opera: Clare means Beggars Bush, a public house and vaudeville in Holborn.

197 Allan Cunningham: Writer and poet (1784–1842), collector of Scots tales and poems. He wrote to Thomas Hood, 28 May 1840: ‘… now how wellcome were your recollections of the Taylor and Hessey days when Lamb scattered his bright though dilatory jokes about, and Hazlitt sat with his fox like eyes looking direct at nothing and yet seeing all …’ (National Library of Scotland archives, Edinburgh MSS.583, fol.739).

198 Wainwright: Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794–1852). Friend of Charles Lamb, author, painter, forger. See J. Curling, Janus Weathercock (1938). Did paintings from Walton’s Angler.

199 We have chosen to insert this paragraph from D2, 3-4 into the discussion of writers meeting at John Taylor’s.

200 Reynolds: John Hamilton Reynolds (1796–1832), friend of Keats and Byron, most famous for his Peter Bell (1819), a very witty parody of Wordsworth. It is interesting to find him satirizing Wordsworth for mentioning the number of eggs in a nest since this would seem more appropriate as a criticism of Clare. (‘Look! five blue eggs are gleaming there’). Reynolds published The Naiad (1816), a book of literary forgeries The Fancy: A Selection from the Poetical Remains of Peter Corcoran (1820), and The Garden of Florence (1821). He contributed to the London Magazine under the name of Edward Herbert but eventually quarrelled with Taylor.

201 hearty: Clare has written ‘heartly’.

202 We have interrupted this passage which, in the original MS, continues uninterrupted with ‘Hazlitt is the very reverse of this’ below, to include two further paragraphs headed ‘Reynolds’ occurring at B3, 58-9.

203 Bridget: Mary Ann Lamb, Charles Lamb’s sister, was also known as Bridget Elia. Cf. the end of Lamb’s essay ‘Dream Children’ (1822): ‘and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor armchair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side — but John L. (or James Elia) has gone for ever.’

204 Carey the translator of Dante: The Revd H.F. Cary (1772–1844). The following description of the crane in Clare’s The Shepherd’s Calendar derives at least in part from Cary’s Dante which Clare owned (Powell, item 151).
             the solitary crane
      Swings lonly to unfrozen dykes again
      Cranking a jarring mellancholy cry
      Thro the wild journey of the cheerless sky
See E. Robinson, G. Summerfield, and D. Powell, John Clare; The Shepherd’s Calendar (Oxford, 1993), p.33.

205 Thornhill: Sir James Thornhill (1675–1734), painter, was employed by Queen Anne on important works at St Paul’s Cathedral, Hampton Court, Greenwich and Windsor. His daughter Jane married William Hogarth clandestinely on 23 March 1729.

206 Churchills poetry: Charles Churchill (1731–64), poet and satirist, who attained fame with the publication in 1761 of The Rosciad and The Apology. Cowper found Gotham (1764) ‘a noble and beautiful poem’. ‘Life to the last enjoy’d, here Churchill lies’ is line 152 of ‘The Candidate’ (1764).

207 ‘silver tongued hamilton’: John Hamilton Reynolds who published The Garden of Florence and Other Poems (1821) under the name of John Hamilton (Powell, item 233).

208 Roderic: Robert Southey, Roderick; the Last of the Goths (1814).

209 Wainwright Lamb … Taylor: In all probability the missing name is Hood.

210 Van Wink booms Janus Weathercock: T.G. Wainewright wrote for the London Magazine under the name of ‘Janus Weathercock’. Lamb enquired of Hessey in the spring of 1822: ‘What is gone of the Opium Eater, where is Barry Cornwall, and above all what is become of Janus Weathercock — or by his worse name of Vink — something? He is much wanted!’ (E.V. Lucas, ed., The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 1935, vol.11, p.323).

211 Church yard —: This passage is followed by: ‘I was often puzzled to [?see] Hood’.

212 Gifford: William Gifford, editor of the Quarterly. His translation of The Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus was published in 1821 (see Powell, item 221).

213 several times: At this point, in the margin: ‘Mem: Wainwright Hood’.

214 ‘Mohawks’: A satirical poem by Sydney Owenson, later Lady Morgan.

215 Murray: John Murray, the publisher.

216 Waithman: Robert Waithman, Lord Mayor of London in 1823, was a political reformer. He was a linen-draper.

217 Bullocks Mexico: An exhibition of Mexican curiosities at the Egyptian Hall.

218 The first fifteen words are at B3,54 and the passage continues down to ‘home with me’ in what is now D2,1, though originally the same MS. B3,55 begins with ‘and I used to think’.

219 There are two other versions at B6, R80 and R82.

220 I felt: Clare has written ‘felt I’.

221 ‘Nothing set down in malice’: Cf. Othello 5.2.346.

222 D^r Darling: Dr George Darling (1782–1862), friend of John Taylor, physician to Keats, Wilkie, Haydon, Chantrey and others.

223 Devilles the Phreneologists: Deville was one of the most respected ‘Professional’ phrenologists in London, from the 1820s to the 1840s. See Clare’s letter to Sir Charles Elton, (Letters, pp.309-11).

224 Elton: Sir Charles Abraham Elton (1778–1853), 6th baronet, was a scholar and author. His novel, The Brothers was published in 1820 (see Powell, item 197).

225 fives court: See Tom Bates, ‘John Clare and “Boximania”’, The John Clare Society Journal, no.13, July 1994, pp.5-13.

226 Oliver: Tom Oliver, famous pugilist.

227 Jones the Sailor Boy: A famous pugilist with whom Clare identified himself in his years of madness.

228 Sir T.L.: Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), painter and President of the Royal Academy from 1820. Clare always remained appreciative of his kindness.

229 F Freelings: Sir Francis Freeling (1764–1836), Secretary to the General Post Office.

230 he understood nothing: At A25, R27 Clare writes: ‘Rip was very fond of seeming to be amused by sympathy and looking at things of which he understoo’ [incomplete].

231 the french Playhouse: The Royal West London in Tottenham Court Road was known as the ‘French Theatre’. See C.V. Fletcher ‘The poetry of John Clare, with particular reference to poems written between 1837 and 1864’, M.Phil. thesis, University of Nottingham, 1973.

232 a very beautiful actress: The leading actress in 1824 was known as ‘Mlle. Delia’.

233 Astleys Theatre: A low vaudeville in London.

234 Bristol Institution: Followed by the deleted words: ‘and he sent home for these that we shoud look over them together but no time was found for the purpose except one morning after breakfast’.

235 Van Dyk: Harry Stoe Van Dyk helped Taylor to edit Clare’s Shepherd’s Calendar. He was the author of English Romances and Songs of the Six Minstrels. He also published the poem The Gondola in 1827 (Powell, item 382) and Theatrical Portraits in 1822 (Powell, item 383).

236 Etty the painter: William Etty, R.A. (1787–1849), whom Clare classed alongside Hilton and Rippingille, as one of the neglected geniuses of the age.

237 Mr Vining: Possibly James Vining (1795–1870), actor.

238 till very late: Followed by the deleted words: ‘for as soon as it began’.

239 Over this passage are the deleted words: ‘knocking at odd looking houses at night’.

240 or rather below: Did Clare intend to write ‘above’?

241 sympathies: Clare has written ‘symptays’.

242 were … about it: These last nineteen words appear at B3,87 but, we believe, belong here.

243 Warrens Blacking Princes Kaladar and Atkissons Bears Greese: Warrens Blacking was one of the most widely advertised commodities in the 1820s and 1830s and few newspapers failed to carry their rhyming adverts. In a letter to Taylor, October 1831, Clare refers to ‘puffers of Blacking and Bearsgreese’ (Letters, p.550). Also advertised in the papers were such products as Rowland’s Kalydor for the complexion and Atkinson’s curling fluid and vegetable dye for the hair.

244 Italicized words written in different ink.

245 situation: Clare has written ‘situtation’.

246 real dissapointments: Followed by the deleted words: ‘that is if we do not build our’.

247 Lady Milton: Lady Milton died 1 September 1824.

248 And on the finger …: Shakespeare, Sonnets XCVI.

249 from … them: These last six words are at A31,51.

250 Torn away leaving a few incomplete letters, perhaps ‘not for the deceiving’.