The news that a poet had arisen on the borders of the Fens soon spread
far and wide, even into Northamptonshire. The 'Quarterly Review' and
'Gentleman's Magazine' carried the report into mansions, villas, and
vicarages, and the 'Stamford Mercury' and other local papers spread it
among the inmates of farmhouses and humbler dwellings. Much incredulity
was manifested at first; but the news being confirmed on all hands, there
arose a great and universal desire to behold the new poet. The reign of
fame commenced soon after Clare's return from London, when, true to his
resolution, he had taken to his old labours in the fields. About the
second or third morning after resuming work, there came a message from
his father, requesting him to return home in all haste, in order to see
some gentlemen waiting for him. Clare ran as fast as he could, and found
two elderly men in spectacles, who said they were schoolmasters, had come
from Peterborough, and wished to make his acquaintance. After questioning
him closely for two hours, upon all matters, and at the end subjecting
him to a rigid cross-examination, they went away, promising to call
again. Clare had lost part of a day's work; however, he did not mind it
much, for he was somewhat flattered by the visit. The day passed, and the
next morning; but on the following afternoon, he was again called away
from his labours. This time, there were three aged ladies from Market
Deeping, who said that they had bought a copy of his poems between them,
and could not rest till they had seen him face to face. One of the ladies
was somewhat deaf, and Clare had to answer all questions twice; first by
speaking to two of his visitors in the ordinary key, and then shouting it
into the ear of the third old dame. After detaining him for an hour, the
elderly individuals said they did not know their way back, and nothing
remained but to show them the road for a couple of miles. It was getting
late, and Clare, therefore, instead of going to his work again; went into
the public-house. Fame threatened to be dangerous.
The tide set in with full force before another week was over. Not a day
passed without Clare being called away from his work in the fields, to
speak to people he had never seen in his life; people of all ranks and
conditions, farmers, clergymen, horsedealers, dissenting ministers,
butchers, schoolmasters, commercial travellers, and half-pay officers.
One morning, the inmates of a whole boarding-school, located at Stamford,
visited the unhappy poet, and, a shower coming on, the fluttering damsels
with their grave monitors crowded every room in the little hut,
preventing the baby from sleeping, and Mrs. Clare from doing her weekly
washing. Most of the visitors were polite; some, however, were sarcastic,
and a few rude. After having inspected Clare, his person, house, wife and
child, father and mother, they wanted further information concerning his
daily habits, mode of eating and drinking, quantity of food consumed, and
other particulars, and not getting the wished-for replies to all their
questions, they told him to his face that he was an ill-bred clown. But
there was another class of visitors still more dangerous to the peace of
Clare and his little household. Young and middle-aged men came over from
Stamford, from Peterborough, and sometimes as far as from London,
inviting the poet to conversation and 'a glass' at the tavern, and
keeping him at their carousals for hours and whole days. Already too much
inclined by nature and early bad example to habits of intemperance, the
good resolutions of Clare fairly gave way under this new temptation. The
persons who invited him to the alehouse were among the most intelligent
of his visitors; they talked freely and pleasantly about subjects
interesting to the poet, and often made their conversation still more
attractive by music and song. To resist the incitement of flying the dull
labours of the fields in favour of such company, required more moral
strength than Clare possessed, or was able to command. Early training he
had none; and even now there was not a soul near to teach and warn him of
the danger. So the unhappy poet kept gliding down the fatal abyss.
Clare's visits to Stamford were not quite so frequent after his return
from London as before, although he made it a point to call upon Mr.
Gilchrist and Mr. Drury at least once a week. On one of these occasions
he made the acquaintance of a very eccentric elderly gentleman, who, cold
at first and almost offensive in speech, subsequently proved himself a
warm friend. This was Dr. Bell, a retired army surgeon, who had long
resided near Stamford, and was on good terms with many of the gentlemen
of the neighbourhood. While serving in His Majesty's forces abroad, Dr.
Bell became the intimate friend of a versatile colleague, Dr. Wolcot,
subsequently known as Peter Pindar, who inspired him with a taste for
literature, to which he devoted himself with a real passion after his
retirement from the army. Though not a writer himself, he brought out
several books, among them a very droll one, made up of quotations of the
most curious kind, and entitled, 'The Canister of the Blue Devils, by
Democritus, junior.' Dr. Bell possessed a very large library, and spent a
good part of his time in extracting, both from his books and the
newspapers and periodicals of the day, all available paragraphs
containing quaint sayings and doings, which he stuck upon large pieces of
pasteboard, for the inspection of his friends, and subsequent publication
in some 'canister' shape. John Clare met Peter Pindar's friend at the
house of Mr. Gilchrist; they did not seem to like each other at first
sight, but got on better terms at the second meeting, and after a while
became attached friends. Dr. Bell had an instinctive dislike to poets,
whom he held to be 'moonstruck.' He was not long, however, in discovering
that John Clare was a great deal more than a mere maker of verses and
apostrophiser of love-sick boys and girls. The high and manly spirit of
the poor labourer of Helpston; his yearning after truth, and his constant
endeavour to discover, beneath all the forms and symbols of outward
appearances, the godlike soul of the universe, struck him with something
like wonderment. He first began to look upon Clare as a sort of
phenomenon; but found that the more he studied him, the more
incomprehensible, yet also the more admirable, appeared this great and
lofty spirit, wrapped in the coarse garb of a ploughman and lime-burner.
The odd, tender-hearted doctor soon conceived a passionate affection for
Clare, and set him up as a hero at the shrine of his devotion. He thought
of nothing else but advancing his young friend's welfare, and worked with
great zeal to this effect; to such an extent that his endeavours
frequently overstepped the bounds of prudence. The first thing he did was
to write letters to all the wealthy inhabitants of the neighbouring
district, begging, nay, entreating them to set their name to a
subscription list for a fund, destined to make the poet independent for
the rest of his days. However, the appeal was but faintly responded to,
and most of the persons addressed either declined, or contented
themselves by forwarding small sums. But Dr. Bell was by no means
discouraged at this result. With consummate worldly experience, he
resolved upon attacking his 'patients' from the weakest side, and extract
from their vanity what he could not get from their munificence. He put
himself in communication with Mr. John Taylor, and, by dint of extreme
pressure, succeeded in enlisting him in his project. It was to make an
appeal in favour of John Clare on the part of the conductors of the
'London Magazine;' with delicate hint that any act of liberality would
not be condemned to blush unseen. But this scheme, too, did not realize
the expectations of Dr. Bell, chiefly because Mr. John Taylor, out of
feelings easily comprehended, did not join him in his endeavours with the
heartiness he expected. To make the appeal appear as much in favour of
poetry as of a single poet, Mr. Taylor, in his letters, asked assistance
for Keats as well as for Clare, wording his request in terms more
dignified than persuasive. There was only one response to this petition,
which came from Earl Fitzwilliam, who forwarded £100 to Clare and £50 to
Keats. The liberality of the kind nobleman was scarcely appreciated as it
deserved. One of the friends of Keats, in a loud article in the 'London
Magazine,' of December, 1820, disclaimed his intention to be beholden to
any lord. 'We really do not see,' ran the article, 'what noblemen have to
do with the support of poets, more than other people, while the poor
rates are in existence. In the present state of society, poetry, as well
as agricultural produce, should be left to find its own level.' All this
was very fine; though it looked somewhat inconsequential that the
conductors of the very periodical in which this was printed, should go
a-begging for poets, and that the poets themselves--Keats not
excepted--made no scruple in taking the money. As for poor Clare, he got
the news of Earl Fitzwilliam's noble gift together with the 'London
Magazine' of December, 1820, and felt utterly ashamed to accept the money
with the accompanying reminder of the poor rates being in existence.
John Clare for some time was unaware of all the exertions made by his
friends to secure him an independence, and when he heard the whole of it,
so far from being pleased, reproached them for what they had done. He
told them they were wrong in bringing him forward in the character of a
beggar without his consent, and with some energy declined to live upon
alms as long as he was able to subsist by the work of his hands. Mr.
Taylor was somewhat offended when he got this protest, which seemed to
him like ingratitude; but Dr. Bell remained undisturbed, and secretly
made up his mind to continue his efforts with more energy than ever for
his friend. 'A noble soul, yet altogether unfit for this ignoble world,'
he said to Mr. Gilchrist, issuing his circulars for another philanthropic
campaign. When Clare learnt that new appeals to assist him had been put
forward, he determined to interfere in the matter. Accordingly, he wrote
long letters--very pathetic, though ill-spelt--to Earl Fitzwilliam, Earl
Spencer, General Birch Reynardson, and other gentlemen, telling them that
he had nothing to do with these appeals in his favour, and that he
required no assistance whatever. Clare's innate nobility of character was
strikingly shown in these epistles; nevertheless, they were very
injudicious, and had an effect decidedly contrary to that imagined by the
author. The gentlemen to whom the letters were addressed naturally came
to the conclusion that Clare, scarcely risen from obscurity, was already
quarrelling with those who had helped him to rise, and showed himself
ungrateful as well as ill-bred. Besides, the wording of the letters was
of a kind not to inspire any admiration of the poet. Though verse flowed
as naturally from his pen as music from the throat of the nightingale,
Clare, all his life long, was unable to express his thoughts in prose
composition. There was not wanting in his letters a certain ruggedness
and picturesqueness of style, but it was marred nearly always by
ill-expressed and frequently incoherent eruptions, and disquisitions on
extraneous matters, marking the absence of a regular chain of thought. It
was here that Clare's want of education was most strongly visible.
High-soaring like the lark in his poetical flights, yet unable to trot
along, step by step, on the grammatical turnpike road of life, Clare's
mode of expressing his thoughts, orally or in writing, was not of the
ordinary kind, and required some sort of study to be duly appreciated.
But it could scarcely be expected that gentlemen like Earl Spencer, and
the other exalted personages to whom the poet addressed his pathetic
notes, should enter upon such a study. They saw before them nothing but
large sheets of paper, of coarse texture, full of ill-spelt and
ill-connected sentences, made more obscure by an utter absence of
punctuation; and the not unnatural judgment thereupon was that the man
who wrote such letters was a thoroughly vulgar and uneducated person.
There came doubts into the minds of many, who read these prose
compositions, as to whether the author was really the genius exalted by
the periodicals of the day. Was it not possible that the 'Quarterly
Review' which unduly depreciated poor Keats, had, equally unjustly,
raised John Clare upon an unmerited pedestal of fame? This was the
question asked by some of the former patrons of Clare, notably Earl
Spencer and General Birch Reynardson. The latter spoke to Dr. Bell about
it; but was astonished at the burst of indignation which broke from the
lips of Peter Pindar's friend. 'What! Clare not a poet?' exclaimed the
irate doctor; 'well, if he is not a poet, there never was one in the
world.' General Reynardson, having a great respect, somewhat mingled with
fear, for the author of the 'Canister,' humbly acquiesced in the
decision, promising to put his name down on the Stamford subscription
list. But Dr. Bell was ill at ease nevertheless, and rode over the same
day to Helpston. 'If you ever again write letters to our friends without
showing them to me first, I shall be very angry with you--I shall put you
among the Blue Devils.' So spoke the doctor; and John Clare, having heard
the whole story of the effect of his epistles, promised obedience. He
knew but too well, by this time, that the speech which God had given him
was poetry, not prose.
The stream of visitors which set in at Helpston during the spring of
1820, did not cease till late in the summer of the same year. After the
flood of schoolmasters, of farmers' wives, and of boarding-school misses,
there came a rush of rarer birds of travel, authors and authoresses,
writers of unpublished books, and unappreciated geniuses in general. The
first of the tribe 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, owing to ignorance of public and
publishers. He sent Clare formal notice that he would come on a certain
day, and, previous to coming, forwarded a large box full of manuscripts.
There was a full description of his life, with sketch of his rare talents
and accomplishments; also the greater part of his poetical writings,
comprising five epics, three hundred ballads, and countless acrostics,
madrigals, and sonnets. John Clare felt greatly flattered when he got the
large box, and the same evening, after coming home from his work in the
fields, sat down to inspect the manuscripts sent for his perusal.
However, he did not get far, but fell asleep over the first dozen pages
of the first epic. He honestly tried again the second evening, but with
the same result as before; and on the third day relinquished the attempt
in despair, accusing himself for his want of intelligence. Soon after,
Mr. Preston made his appearance. He was a tall, thin man, with red
whiskers and a red nose; dressed in a threadbare black coat, buttoned up
to the chin. Introducing himself with some dignity, he at once fell into
a familiar strain: 'How do you do, John?' and 'Hope you are glad to see a
brother poet.' John was glad, of course; very glad. The tall, thin man
then gave a glance at his large box, and John trembled. To allay the
coming storm, Clare confessed at once that he had not had time to read
through the manuscripts, having been hard at work in the fields. The
great man frowned; yet after a while relaxed his features, telling Clare
that he would give him two days more to read through his poems. At the
end of this term, he intended to ask for a kind of certificate containing
the brother poet's appreciation of his works, together with letters of
introduction to his patrons and publishers. It seemed cruel to refuse the
request of such a dear and determined brother. John Clare, weighing in
his mind how poor and friendless he had been himself but a short while
ago, felt stirred by compassion, and though he knew he could not read the
epics, indited a warm letter of praise and admiration for Mr. Preston.
The latter thereupon took his farewell, and went away, accompanied by his
large box. Some days after, Dr. Bell came down to Helpston, in greater
excitement than ever. 'What do you mean by sending me such a d----
fellow?' he broke forth in a burst of indignation. Poor Clare! he meant
nothing, thought of nothing, and knew nothing; and all that he could do
was in a few simple words to explain the whole story. The doctor quietly
listened to the account of Mr. Preston and his box, and when Clare had
finished, delivered another lecture upon practical wisdom, threatening
his friend, as penalty for disobedience, with the 'Canister of the Blue
Devils.'