Ned Drury has got my early Vol of M.S.S. I lent it him at first but like all my other M.S.S. else were I coud never get it agen — he has a great quantity of Songs written purposly for an intended publication with music by Crouch1 5 or 6 of them was publishd but what profit they made I cannot tell I got nothing — he has copys of all my M.S.S. except those written for the Shepherds Calender — the ‘early M.S.S. Book’ was the one which I bought of J.B.Henson of Market Deeping it is a thin Folio in parchment covers I gave 8 shillings for it
[D14, 6r]
To E. Drury
As I expect the words of the dead are venerably noticed which they leave behind let me hope then from you (if my survi[v]er) that my wishes may be complied with in publishing no poems which are against my inclination in any improved form what ever but to utterly condemn them to oblivion M.S.S. excepted if I knew such things I dissaprove of shoud appear in print in part after my death it woud be the greatest torture possible therefore all you find in these books mark wi a cross an[y] of the above description this is the only thing I wanted to2 look the books over for and this is a thing which as a friend I hope one day or other you will see acted according to my wishes
John Clare
[BL, Add.MS.54224,fol.143r]
There is one thing which I do not like in this matter and that is the trumpeting my difficulties in the papers and the fact is they are made much worse then they are — I have had small sums of money at different times from Taylor which may imperceptibly amount to a larger sum then one is aware of but there is no settling in the matter and no disposition to settling and as I wish not to leave my family in any shadow where the world can have any apology by way of kindness to make any mistatements of money charges on their little property I am anxious it should be settled the worst is the first bookseller to whom my trifles were intrusted turned round upon me with a meaness that I never dreamed of and cheated me out of all profit connected with the first Vol — he said I sold it for 26 pound and then made a charge on T[aylor] and H[essey] on my account for £20 as copy right — I should have been glad then to have sold it for £10 but the fact is I never recieved a farthing in that shape for of all the little sums I recieved from him every farthing was placed against my account with Taylor and to mend the matter as I objected to the account as being a great deal too much his conscience took off a portion yet avarice is never conquered and in a bye way after the other was paid without acquainting me with the matter he presented a bill of £20 a fiction to the fraction of a farthing and Taylor without acquainting me untill it was paid — paid it — this compleatly upset my faith in the honesty of professions and when my bother was over for this Drury threatened me with law in the first instance and I in too much haste to escape an idle threat which he dare not have put in force wrote to T[aylor] and H[essey] to get them to settle it and to secure my property as a turn over but nothing of that kind was done and I was never settled in my mind but always wishing for a settling I wrote to Taylor to correct the errors in the accounts and he said they should be looked into but as yet I have heard nothing I wrote to Drury asking him how he could make such mistakes to my injury and also for the trifles in MS he possessed of mine — of the copy right fiction he was silent and made no reply of the invented bill for £20 he ‘wrote’ I had it in ‘money and goods’ and of the MSS he said I had given them to him — perhaps I might — but I thought not but as to the other lies I was sure of it which was the only part of the loss that injured me — I could hardly bear patience enough to contradict such a barefaced lie — and when I did it was to no purpose so I was done out of £40 which from the difference of right had it been mine to recieve make £80 less — here is the fact of the matter — and tho I know I am cheated such is the cunning of avarice like the tricks of a conjeror it defies detection
[A57, 67-9]
