While Clare was amusing himself by rhyming in the manner of the poets
of the seventeenth century, he had the following correspondence with
James Montgomery:--
"Helpstone, January 5, 1825.
"My dear Sir,--
I copied the following verses from a MS. on the fly-leaves of an old
book entitled 'The World's Best Wealth, a Collection of Choice
Counsels in Verse and Prose, printed for A. Bettesworth, at the Red
Lion in Paternoster Row, 1720:' they seem to have been written after
the perusal of the book, and are in the manner of the company in
which I found [them]. I think they are as good as many old poems that
have been preserved with more care; and, under that feeling, I was
tempted to send them, thinking they might find a corner from oblivion
in your entertaining literary paper, the 'Iris;' but if my judgment
has misled me to overrate their merit, you will excuse the freedom I
have taken, and the trouble I have given you in the perusal; for,
after all, it is but an erring opinion, that may have little less
than the love of poesy to recommend it.