Clare visited Charles Lamb, and received from him the following
characteristic letter after his return to Helpstone:--
"India House, 1st Aug. 1822.
Dear Clare,--I thank you heartily for your present. I am an
inveterate old Londoner, but while I am among your choice collections
I seem to be native to them and free of the country. The quantity of
your observation has astonished me. What have most pleased me have
been 'Recollections after a Ramble,' and those 'Grongar Hill' kind of
pieces in eight-syllable lines, my favourite measure, such as 'Cowper
Hill' and 'Solitude.' In some of your story-telling ballads the
provincial phrases sometimes startle me. I think you are too profuse
with them. In poetry, slang of every kind is to be avoided. There is
a rustick Cockneyism as little pleasing as ours of London. Transplant
Arcadia to Helpstone. The true rustic style, the Arcadian English, I
think is to be found in Shenstone. Would his 'Schoolmistress,' the
prettiest of poems, have been better if he had used quite the Goody's
own language? Now and then a home rusticism is fresh and startling,
but where nothing is gained in expression it is out of tenor. It may
make folks smile and stare, but the ungenial coalition of barbarous
with refined phrases will prevent you in the end from being so
generally tasted as you deserve to be. Excuse my freedom, and take
the same liberty with my puns. I send you two little volumes of my
spare hours. They are of all sorts. There's a Methodist hymn for
Sundays, and a farce for Saturday night. Pray give them a place on
your shelf, and accept a little volume of which I have duplicate,
that I may return in equal number to your welcome present. I think I
am indebted to you for a sonnet in the 'London' for August. Since I
saw you I have been in France and have eaten frogs. The nicest little
rabbity things you ever tasted. Do look about for them. Make Mrs.
Clare pick off the hindquarters; boil them plain with parsley and
butter. The fore quarters are not so good. She may let them hop off
by themselves.
Yours sincerely,