But now fresh troubles came upon Clare in rapid succession. He
quarrelled with Patty and was forbidden the house by her parents. He
was discharged by his master on the probably well-grounded plea that
he was writing poetry and distributing his address when he ought to
be at work, and he was soon without a penny in the world. He returned
to Helpstone and tried to get employment as a day labourer, but
failed; the farmers, who had heard of the publishing project,
considering that "he did not know his place." In this extremity he
was compelled to apply for and accept relief from the parish. This
was in the autumn of 1818, and Clare was twenty-five years old.
Henson declined to begin the printing of the book unless Clare
advanced the sum of L15, and this being impossible the negotiation
fell through. Clare shortly afterwards, with the two-fold object of
finding employment and obtaining relief from mental distraction by
change of scene, was on the point of setting out for Yorkshire, when
a copy of his prospectus fell under the notice of Mr. Edward Drury, a
bookseller, of Stamford. Mr. Drury called upon Clare at his own home,
and with difficulty induced him to show him a few of his manuscript
poems. Having read, among others, "My love, thou art a nosegay
sweet," he was unable to conceal his gratification, and told Clare,
to the poor poet's intense delight, that if he would procure the
return of the poems in the possession of Mr. Henson he would publish
a volume and give Clare the profits after deducting expenses.
On this footing the poet became intimate with Mr. Drury, who
frequently entertained him at his house. His letters to Clare are
cordial, and disclose an honest desire to be of service to him, on
which account it is the more to be regretted that, owing to a dispute
which afterwards took place between Mr. Drury and Mr. Taylor, Clare's
London publisher, Clare rather ungraciously separated himself from
his early friend. He was clearly indebted to Mr. Drury in the first
instance for the opportunity of emerging from obscurity into public
notice, and also for introductions to Mr. Taylor and Mr. Octavius
Gilchrist, both men of influence in literary circles, and both of
whom took an active and genuine interest in the young poet. Mr.
Taylor, as has been already stated, became his editor and publisher,
and remained his faithful friend until after Clare had been lost to
public view within the walls of a lunatic asylum.
Towards the end of 1819 Clare met Mr. Taylor at the house of Mr.
Gilchrist, in Stamford, and the latter gentleman gave the following
account of the interview in a patronizing and not very judicious
article which appeared in the "London Magazine" for January, 1820:--
"Mr. Taylor had seen Clare, for the first time, in the morning; and
he doubted much if our invitation would be accepted by the rustic
poet, who had now just returned from his daily labour, shy, and
reserved, and disarrayed as he was. In a few minutes, however, Clare
announced his arrival by a hesitating knock at the door--'between a
single and a double rap'--and immediately upon his introduction he
dropped into a chair. Nothing could exceed the meekness, simplicity,
and diffidence with which he answered the various enquiries
concerning his life and habits, which we mingled with subjects
calculated or designed to put him much at his ease. Of music he
expressed himself passionately fond, and had learnt to play a little
on the violin, in the humble hope of obtaining a trifle at the annual
feasts in the neighbourhood, and at Christmas. The tear stole
silently down the cheek of the rustic poet as one of our little party
sang 'Auld Robin Gray.'"
Mr. Martin gives a somewhat different account of this interview. He
states that the poet took decidedly too much wine, and that while
under its influence he wrote some doggerel verses which Mr. Gilchrist
had the cruelty to print in the article intended formally to
introduce Clare to the notice of the English public. Mr. Gilchrist
was an accomplished and warm-hearted man, and it was by his desire
that Hilton, the Royal Academical, painted Clare's portrait for
exhibition in London, but he presumed too much upon his social
superiority, and his judgment was at fault in supposing that the poet
was all meekness and diffidence. On one occasion he took him sharply
to task for associating with a Nonconformist minister, and Clare
warmly resented this interference and for a time absented himself
from Mr. Gilchrist's house. A conciliation, however, soon took place,
and the poet and the learned grocer of Stamford were fast friends
until the death of the latter in 1823.
"HEARKEN UNTO A VERSER"
Clare's first volume was brought out by Taylor and Hessey in January,
1820. It was entitled "Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery,"
and contained an introduction from the pen of Mr. Taylor. In this
preface the peculiarities of Clare's genius were described with force
and propriety, his perseverance in the face of great discouragements
was commended, and the sympathy and support of the public were
invited in the following passage:--
"No poet of our country has shown greater ability under circumstances
so hostile to its development. And all this is found here without any
of those distressing and revolting alloys which too often debase the
native worth of genius, and make him who was gifted with powers to
command admiration live to be the object of contempt or pity. The
lower the condition of its possessor the more unfavourable,
generally, has been the effect of genius on his life. That this has
not been the case with Clare may, perhaps, be imputed to the absolute
depression of his fortune. When we hear the consciousness of
possessing talent, and the natural irritability of the poetic
temperament, pleaded in extenuation of the follies and vices of men
in high life, let it be accounted no mean praise to such a man as
Clare that with all the excitements of their sensibility to his
station he has preserved a fair character amid dangers which
presumption did not create and difficulties which discretion could
not avoid. In the real troubles of life, when they are not brought on
by the misconduct of the individual, a strong mind acquires the power
of righting itself after each attack, and this philosophy, not to
call it by a better name, Clare possesses. If the expectations of a
'better life,' which he cannot help indulging, should all be
disappointed by the coldness with which this volume may be received,
he can 'put up with distress, and be content.' In one of his letters
he says, 'If my hopes don't succeed the hazard is not of much
consequence: if I fall, I am advanced at no great distance from my
low condition: if I sink for want of friends my old friend Necessity
is ready to help me as before. It was never my fortune as yet to meet
advancement from friendship: my fate has ever been hard labour among
the most vulgar and lowest conditions of men, and very small is the
pittance hard labour allows me, though I always toiled even beyond my
strength to obtain it.' To see a man of talent struggling under great
adversity with such a spirit must surely excite in every generous
heart the wish to befriend him. But if it be otherwise, and he should
be doomed to remediless misery,
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play,
For some must watch, while some sleep,--
Thus runs the world away."
Towards the end of January 1820, the Rev Mr. Holland of Northborough,
the minister already referred to, called upon Clare with the joyful
news that his poems had been published, and that the volume was a
great success. Next day a messenger arrived from Stamford with an
invitation to the poet to meet Mr. Drury and Mr. Gilchrist. They
confirmed the favourable report made by Mr. Holland, and at length
Clare had an opportunity of seeing the book which had caused him so
many anxious days and sleepless nights. He made no attempt to conceal
the honest pride he felt on receiving the congratulations of his
friends, and acknowledged his obligation to Mr. Taylor for the
editorial pains he had taken to prepare his manuscripts for the
press, but he was deeply mortified at the tone of the "Introduction"
in which Mr. Taylor dwelt, perhaps unconsciously, on Clare's poverty
as constituting his chief claim to public notice.
The success of the "Poems" could scarcely be overstated. The eager
curiosity of the public led to the first edition being exhausted in a
few days, and a second was promptly announced. "The Gentleman's
Magazine," the "New Monthly Magazine," the "Eclectic Review," the
"Anti-Jacobin Review," the "London Magazine," and many other
periodicals, welcomed the new poet with generous laudation. Following
these came the "Quarterly Review," then under the editorship of the
trenchant Gifford. To the astonishment of the reading public, the
"Quarterly," which about this time "killed poor Keats," admitted a
genial article on the rustic bard, and gave him the following
excellent advice:--
"We counsel, we entreat him to continue something of his present
occupations, to attach himself to a few in the sincerity of whose
friendship he can confide, and to suffer no temptations of the idle
and the dissolute to seduce him from the quiet scenes of his youth
(scenes so congenial to his taste) to the hollow and heartless
society of cities, to the haunts of men who would court and flatter
him while his name was new, and who, when they had contributed to
distract his attention and impair his health, would cast him off
unceremoniously to seek some other novelty. Of his again encountering
the difficulties and privations he lately experienced there is no
danger. Report speaks of honourable and noble friends already
secured: with the aid of these, the cultivation of his own excellent
talents, and a meek but firm reliance on that good Power by whom
these were bestowed, he may, without presumption, anticipate a rich
reward in the future for the evils endured in the morning of his
life."
The estimate formed by the writer of the liberality of Clare's
patrons was exaggerated, and instead of there being no danger of his
ever again having to encounter difficulties and privations he was
scarcely ever free from them until the crowning privation had placed
him beyond their influence.