Clare's second excursion to London was productive of many evil
consequences. From the first trip he returned with a renewed love for the
simple life of the country, and a renewed desire to spend his days
peacefully in his humble cottage, earning bread and health by hard labour
in the fields; but from this new visit he came back with wild visions of
glory and fame, a restless, fretful, discontented man. A feeling he had
never before known now got hold of him--the silent dread of poverty. The
month he had stayed in London, sitting down every day at a well-filled
table, moving every day and night among bright and genial men, among
beautiful and intelligent women, had opened to him a new mode of life of
which he had scarcely been conscious before. His vivid imagination
painted it even brighter than it was in reality. He did not see, and
could not see, the petty cares and miseries hidden behind all the
brilliant scenes which met his eyes; and though he discovered the great
truth in course of time, he was not aware as yet that real happiness is
found distributed with tolerable equality among all ranks and classes.
But John Clare was only getting towards thirty, and not yet a
philosopher. Returning to his humble home, he fondly kissed his wife and
little girl, and fondly embraced his aged father and mother; but the
first transport of love gone, he sat down moody and discontented. During
his absence large parcels of books, the presents of old and new friends,
had arrived at Helpston, and, eagerly as he looked over the volumes,
particularly those of poetry, his heart grew sad in thinking that there
was nobody near to share his pleasures with him. While in London he had
become accustomed to constant conversation on poetical and artistic
subjects, his daily routine being to spend his mornings in reading all
the new works within his reach, and during the afternoons and evenings to
discuss the matters treated in these books. It seemed a terrible want to
miss these delights on returning to his narrow home. He felt it, for the
first time, as a personal affliction and source of misery that his wife
was unable to read and write; that his parents were talking of nothing
but their illness and physical sufferings, and that all the inmates of
his home alike had no more sympathy with him and his poetical joys and
sorrows than if they had been inhabitants of another world. It seemed to
him as if he had been banished from the Eden of intellect into a lower
and grosser existence, and every letter and every book he received had
but the effect of making him more sad and fretful. He had not been long
at home when there came a richly-bound volume, inscribed on the
title-page, 'The gift of Admiral Lord Radstock to his dear and excellent
friend, John Clare, August 1st, 1822.' The gift gave him no pleasure,
but, awakening thoughts of the past and the present, only brought tears
into his eyes.
The reaction from this unmanly and morbid state of feeling came in time,
and Clare's pride and native strength of mind got the better of his
sickly yearning after lost pleasures. Nevertheless, one lasting source of
unhappiness remained. He found that his regular income of forty-five
pounds a year, secured to him by his friends and patrons, was quite
insufficient, with his new wants and desires, to cover his expenditure,
and the profits derived from his books being fluctuating and altogether
inconsiderable, he experienced the worst pangs of poverty in the terrible
knowledge of being constantly in debt. To improve his position, he formed
a thousand plans, some practicable and some visionary; but all equally
barren as to the net result. The first and most natural idea that
occurred to him was to write as many verses as possible and to sell them
immediately. In order to effect this, and seeing the very moderate
success of his last published two volumes, he resolved to print his poems
separately, and offer them to readers in this form. Mr. Drury, to whom he
communicated this somewhat singular plan, approved it, suggesting at the
same time to have the poetry set to music. This struck Clare as
exceedingly appropriate, and he set to work at once to produce a liberal
supply of verses. He began with such eagerness as to bring forth no less
than seventy-six poems in less than three weeks; and though physically
and mentally exhausted by this effort, he felt exceedingly joyful and
buoyed up by bright anticipations of the future, when handing the whole
of these manuscripts to Mr. Drury. But hard as was the toil, and prodigal
the waste of mental power, it absolutely came to nothing. Mr. Drury,
having entered into arrangements with a small publisher in Paternoster
Row, despatched the poems to London, and a number of them were set to
music by Mr. Crouch, and issued on picturesque sheets of paper, with
flaming dedications to fashionable singers, and to supposed generous
noblemen, patrons of all the arts. Clare was much surprised on seeing his
verses turn up in this unexpected shape; however, he consoled himself
with the hope, in which he was strongly backed by Mr. Drury, that the
profits on his poetry would be as bounteous as the expenditure of gold
and colours upon the picturesque sheets. But, to his utter dismay, he got
no payment whatever for his verses. All applications to Paternoster Row
proved ineffectual to secure even the return of the verses not printed,
which were found afterwards coming to the surface in albums, reviews, and
periodicals, in wonderful disguises and with new names attached. To crown
the misfortune, Clare received a reproachful letter from Mr. John Taylor,
complaining of his connexion with Mr. Crouch and the flaming dedications,
and intimating that these dealings with small composers and publishers
would damage his reputation, Clare felt utterly dejected at the result of
the whole speculation, although it gained him the valuable experience
that able as he was to write verses, he was utterly unable to convert
them into money and bread.
Having recovered from this great disappointment, Clare resolved upon
another experiment for getting a living, and, provisionally, getting out
of debt. He thought that if he could become the possessor of a small
farm, not so extensive as to require the use of valuable stock and
cattle, but large enough to produce food for his family, with something
to sell at the market-town, he should be able, together with his annuity,
to place himself in a respectable and comparatively independent position.
This was an excellent idea, and had it been realized, might have saved
Clare from despondency and final ruin. Unfortunately, its realization,
though easy at one moment, depended not upon the poet, but upon his
patronizing friends, who proved painfully lukewarm at this momentous
period of his life. It so happened that in the winter of 1822-3, an
opportunity offered itself for acquiring a piece of freehold land of
about seven acres, close to the poet's cottage, known to the people of
Helpston as 'Bachelors' Hall' and already noticed as belonging to two
brothers of the name of Billing. The brothers were somewhat improvident,
leading gay bachelors' lives; and, getting into debt gradually, they were
compelled at last to mortgage their small property to a Jew for the sum
of two hundred pounds. For some years, the interest was duly paid, but
this failing at last, on account of the growing infirmity of the
brothers, the Jew stepped in, threatening to sell the property. This
roused Clare to a desperate effort for raising the necessary sum to pay
off the mortgage, and, by acquiring the small estate, benefit both
himself and his staunch old friends, the brothers Billing. The latter
agreed to let him have 'Bachelors' Hall' with its seven acres, on
condition of discharging the encumbrance, and allowing them a very small
sum for the remaining few years of their lives, which they intended
spending with some relatives in a neighbouring village. The offer was a
very favourable one, and the more so as freehold property was extremely
scarce at Helpston, the ground being, as in most agricultural counties,
the property of a few large landowners. The more Clare thought upon the
subject, the more anxious did he become to enter upon the proposed
arrangement, and, in settling on this little piece of ground, shape his
whole future career into a more fixed direction. But his boundless
anxiety met with no assistance on the part of those who called themselves
his friends. Though it was for the first time in his life that he claimed
help for himself, he, to his immense distress, found all doors resolutely
closed against him.
To get the two hundred pounds required to pay off the mortgage upon
'Bachelors' Hall,' Clare addressed himself first to Lord Radstock, whom
he looked upon as one of his wannest and most sincere friends. What he
asked was not to lend him the money, but to take it from the sum standing
in his name in the funds. To Clare's surprise, Lord Radstock told him
that this could not be done, as the four hundred and twenty pounds were
invested in the name of trustees, who had no power to withdraw any
portion of this amount. Glare looked upon this as a personal humiliation,
fancying that he was treated like a child, or like a man not responsible
for his own actions, and deeming the refusal a new attempt to keep him in
leading strings. For a moment, Clare felt quite angry with his noble
patron, who, he thought, might have easily advanced him the small sum of
money had he so liked. The explanation was that Lord Radstock, like most
other of Clare's patrons, was entirely ignorant of the poet's character,
regarding him in the light of a genial infant, full of intellect, but
without strength of character. What chiefly produced this impression on
his lordship, otherwise decidedly the truest friend of the poet, was that
Clare, notwithstanding repeated advice to that effect, had neglected to
make a good arrangement, or, in fact, any arrangement at all, with his
publishers, so that he stood to them in the position of a helpless
client. Probably, Lord Radstock reasoned that as his friend had shown
himself thus unable to carry on the ordinary affairs of life, he would
not be better qualified to be the manager of a farm, although one of only
seven acres. In consequence, he not only refused to get the two hundred
pounds, but strongly advised Clare to have nothing to do with the
purchase of 'Bachelors' Hall.' The poet saw through the motives which
dictated this advice, and keenly felt the distrust and want of
appreciation of him whom he held to be one of the best of his friends.
Much downcast, however, as Clare was by Lord Radstock's refusal, he did
not give up the struggle for his great object. His next attempt was to
get the required sum of two hundred pounds from his publishers, to whom,
he offered, in return, a sort of mortgage on his writings, for a period
to come. He addressed himself to Mr. John Taylor in a very pathetic
letter, vehement almost in the anxiety manifested to gain the little plot
of land, and thus become an independent man. 'The cottage with land,' he
wrote to Mr. Taylor, in a letter bearing date January 31, 1823, 'is a
beautiful spot of six or seven acres. There are crowds for it if it be
sold; but if I could get hold of the mortgage, it would be mine, and
still doing a kindness to a friend. I should like to alter it into Poet's
Hall, instead of its old name of Bachelor's Hall, which must soon be
extinct if I don't succeed. I'll do this way if you like. I'll sell you
my writings for five years for that sum, which can't be dear.' Fervent
though this appeal was, it left the great publisher in Fleet Street very
cold. Mr. Taylor replied, with some sarcasm, that he could not see what
put the ambition into Clare's head to become a 'landed proprietor.' Very
likely, Mr. Taylor thought it would raise the cost price of the verses,
if they were to be manufactured at a 'Poet's Hall.' Therefore, while
declining to advance the two hundred pounds, he told his friend, in a
long letter, not to be ambitious, but to remain in the state in which God
had placed him. The counsel was seasoned, somewhat unnecessarily, by
quotations from the Bible.
'Bachelors' Hall' did not become 'Poet's Hall,' but went to the Jew.
Clare, seeing all his efforts vain, sunk into a state of low despondency,
followed by a long and serious illness. It was the turning period of the
poet's life. His career, hitherto, had been strange and anomalous. Tossed
about in the surging waves of existence, now in deepest poverty, and now
again amidst wealth and splendour, he was beginning to feel weary and
faint-hearted, doubting whether he should ever be able to reach the haven
of rest and of ease. At the age of thirty now he fancied he had a glimpse
of this blissful haven. He felt, and the feeling was undoubtedly just,
that the possession of a small independent property would secure to him
the much-wanted support in life, not only as furnishing him with
additional means of subsistence, but in raising his mental energies,
dependent hitherto upon the fitful accidents connected with his position
of farm-labourer. His fancy painted to him, in glowing colours, how happy
he should be in his roomy 'Poet's Hall,' standing on his own land, 'a
beautiful spot of six or seven acres,' full of flowers and fruit trees,
with hedges of roses and laurel, and songbirds nestling under the green
leaves. No more necessity, then, to take his visitors to the public-house
for entertainment; no more necessity to hide in hollow trees in the wood,
seeking poetical inspiration; no more necessity to go about, with
downcast look, among the insolent farmers, in that most humiliating of
all pursuits, asking for work. A charm to even the coarsest minds, the
overwhelming consciousness! of being _owner_ of a fraction of the surface
of great mother earth, had countless allurements to the poet. He knew it
would not only raise him in the world, but would make him a better, a
nobler, a wiser man. Yet for all that, and though the haven was so near,
he was not allowed to reach it. With patrons in abundance, there was not
one willing to advance the small sum of two hundred pounds, which, he
said, would make him happy for life; with friends who praised his genius
to the skies, there were none who thought it safe to entrust him with the
means for purchasing independence otherwise than 'under trustees.' The
patrons and friends admired the poet's genius, but they never forgot that
he was a 'Northamptonshire peasant,' the son of a pauper. As such, even
kind Mr. John Taylor thought proper to preach humility, and refer the
'Village Minstrel' to the Bible.
With the failure of all his schemes, the great truth began, to dawn upon
Clare that he was destined, notwithstanding all his friends and patrons,
to remain a farmer's drudge and poetical pauper; destined to plough and
thresh for others, and, in his spare hours, to make pretty songs for
ladies and gentlemen--something better than a clown, and something less
than a lackey in uniform. Clare was meek and accustomed to suffering, yet
for a long time he could not reconcile himself to the thought that this
was part of 'the eternal fitness of things.' So he chafed and fretted
under his new burthen of sorrow, and finding it weigh too heavily upon
his heart, again sought forgetfulness in the wretched refuge open at the
tavern. He drank not much, for he was too poor to do so, at this moment;
but even the small quantity of ale or spirits which he imbibed to drown
his mental anguish acted like poison upon a weak and ailing body, now
more than usually debilitated by insufficient food. In the winter of
1823, Clare found himself almost penniless; yet with inborn loftiness of
mind, he hid the fact from his family, so as not to distress them. His
wife and parents, therefore, lived as well as ever, while he, to save
expenditure, got into the habit of absenting himself at meal-times,
pretending to call upon friends and acquaintances. Instead of doing so,
he went forth into the fields, munching a dry crust of bread, and, when
breaking down under hunger and fatigue, crept to the 'Blue Bell' for a
glass of ale. Such a diet, always fatal, was doubly so after the liberal
style of living to which he had got accustomed in London, and which he
had kept up for some time after, as long as his hope lasted to get
payment for the poems delivered to Mr. Drury, as well as for others
contributed to the 'London Magazine,' When these sources failed, and the
succeeding schemes to acquire 'Bachelors' Hall' broke down one after
another, there was bitter want staring him in the face, to stave off
which he resolved to make an application to one of his first and best
friends, Mr. Gilchrist. It seemed impossible that help, and, what was
almost as precious under the circumstances, good advice, should be
wanting from this quarter.
Mr. Gilchrist had been absent from Stamford for a long time. His illness,
which first seemed slight, and merely due to temporary overwork, had
taken a more serious turn after his journey to London, chiefly in
consequence of a severe cold caught on the outside of the coach. It was
for this reason that he was advised to seek rest and strength at the
house of his brother, living, with some members of his family, at
Richmond. Retired to this new home, it seemed for a while as if he was
getting better; but the old spirit for journalistic controversy stirring
within him, he took pen in hand as soon as he felt sufficient strength,
which brought on a fresh attack of the disease. Hasty and impatient in
all his movements, he now refused to submit any longer to the treatment
prescribed by his medical advisers. He fancied that absolute quiet did
him more harm than good, by weakening his energy of mind, and, expressing
this to his friends, he, notwithstanding their earnest opposition, left
Richmond at the beginning of 1823. It was a severe winter; all the
streams and rivers being thickly frozen, and the roads covered many feet
deep with snow. Under these circumstances, a journey from Surrey into
Lincolnshire was no easy undertaking, particularly to an invalid; and
when Mr. Gilchrist arrived at his own home, he found that his illness was
so much aggravated that he was scarcely able to move. John Clare, on the
first news of his friend's arrival, hurried up to Stamford. He had long
wished to see him and to speak to him, under the impression that if he
could have had his advice, his own circumstances would have taken a very
different turn. At present, it was his intention to lay before Mr.
Gilchrist a clear statement of his affairs, entreating him to act as a
guide in his difficulties, and, as a beginning, to assist him with a
small loan, so as to enable him to pay off the most pressing of his
debts, and purchase a few necessaries for his family. Clare had been ill
for some weeks when, setting out for Stafford; however, he forced himself
from his bed of sickness, and slowly crept along the frozen snow-covered
road. He reached at length the well-known shop in the High Street; but
was surprised, on coming face to face with Mr. Gilchrist to see that he
was far worse than himself. Mr. Gilchrist received Clare with a smile,
yet was scarcely able to speak, lying on his couch in utter prostration,
physical and mental. Clare felt moved by infinite compassion, and,
forgetting all his own sufferings, asked what he could do for his friend.
The patient again smiled; he would soon be better, he said; there was
nothing the matter with him, except a slight rheumatic fever and a little
overwork. Mr. Gilchrist then inquired after his friend's circumstances,
and got replies similar to his own. Clare, too, would have it that he was
quite well, and, on being questioned, accounted for his hollow cheeks and
sunken eyes as due to previous attacks of his old enemy, the ague. Of his
embarrassed circumstances he said nothing; no more than of all the other
matters he had come to discuss, nobly thinking that such a discussion
might do harm to his friend in his feeble state. He even refused some
slight refreshment, in order not to give trouble; but, seeing the waning
day, took his farewell, dragging himself with great difficulty back to
his cottage, along the dark road covered with snow and ice. It was late
when he arrived, his weakness partly owing to want of nourishment, having
compelled him to sit down, every few minutes, on the lonely high road.
Entering his hut, his mind seemed wandering; he muttered incoherent
words, and crept to his bed, from which he did not arise for months to
come.
There was little intercommunication at this time between Stamford,
Helpston, and London. Mr. Gilchrist's literary friends scarcely knew of
the serious turn his illness had taken, and as for Clare, his name was
scarcely ever mentioned. Entirely ignorant of the great art of 'keeping
before the public,' he had no sooner become known than he fell again into
oblivion, from which even his warmest admirers did little to rescue him.
Clare's correspondence with his publishers, too, had lapsed after his
unsuccessful attempt to get the small sum of money for the purchase of a
freehold; and they were entirely ignorant that he was lying ill in his
little hut, and almost dying. For a while, Clare's indisposition seemed
quite as serious, if not more so, than that of Mr. Gilchrist. However,
under the tender care of his wife and his aged mother, the poet rallied
gradually, and in the month of April he was able once more to walk to
Stamford, and inquire after the health of his friend. He was not
admitted, this time; but the servant, in reply to his inquiries, told him
that Mr. Gilchrist was getting better. Clare was still extremely weak,
and could not come back till at the end of a month, when he had the
satisfaction of seeing his friend, and hearing from his own lips that he
was gradually advancing to recovery. Thus reassured, and not willing to
intrude himself more than necessary, he remained quietly for another
month, and, feeling now almost restored to health, walked with brisk step
to Stamford. It was a glorious summer morning--date, the last day of
June, 1823. The green fields glistened in the sunshine, and the
nightingale sang in Burghley Park; more beautiful, the poet fancied, than
he had ever known her sing before. He felt full of joy, in the glow of
newly-recovered health, and, while walking along the sunny path, kept
revelling in golden day-dreams, in none of which the image of his dear
friend Gilchrist was wanting. Thus he got into the old town of Stamford,
and before the familiar shop, which, to his surprise, was closed. He
knocked, and a female servant opened the door. The girl stared Clare full
in the face, and slowly said: 'Mr. Gilchrist died an hour ago.'