John Clare, son of Parker and Ann Clare, commonly called "the
Northamptonshire Peasant Poet," was born at Helpstone, near
Peterborough, on the 13th of July, 1793. The lowliness of his lot
lends some countenance to the saying of "Melancholy" Burton, that
"poverty is the Muses' patrimony." He was the elder of twins, and was
so small an infant that his mother used to say of him that "John
might have been put into a pint pot." Privation and toil disabled his
father at a comparatively early age, and he became a pauper,
receiving from the parish an allowance of five shillings a week. His
mother was of feeble constitution and was afflicted with dropsy.
Clare inherited the low vitality of his parents, and until he reached
middle age was subject to depressing ailments which more than once
threatened his life, but after that time the failure of his mental
powers caused him to be placed in circumstances favourable to bodily
health, and in his old age he presented the outward aspect of a
sturdy yeoman.
Having endowed Clare with high poetic sensibility, Nature
capriciously placed him amid scenes but little calculated to call
forth rapturous praises of her charms. "Helpstone," wrote an old
friend of the poet, lately deceased, "lies between six and seven
miles NNW of Peterborough, on the Syston and Peterborough branch of
the Midland Railway, the station being about half a mile from the
town. A not unpicturesque country lies about it, though its beauty is
somewhat of the Dutch character; far-stretching distances, level
meadows, intersected with grey willows and sedgy dikes, frequent
spires, substantial watermills, and farm houses of white stone, and
cottages of white stone also. Southward, a belt of wood, with a
gentle rise beyond, redeems it from absolute flatness. Entering the
town by the road from the east you come to a cross, standing in the
midst of four ways. Before you, and to the left, stretches the town,
consisting of wide streets or roadways, with irregular buildings on
either side, interspersed with gardens now lovely with profuse blooms
of laburnum and lilac."
The cottage in which John Clare was born is in the main street
running south. The views of it which illustrate his poems are not
very accurate. They represent it as standing alone, when it is in
fact, and evidently always has been, a cluster of two if not of three
tenements. There are three occupations now. It is on the west side of
the street, and is thatched. In the illustration to the second volume
of "The Village Minstrel" (1821), an open stream runs before the door
which is crossed by a plank. Modern sanitary regulations have done
away with this, if it ever existed and was not a fancy of the artist.