The Life of John Clare

by Frederick Martin

The visit of worthy Monsieur Grill to Helpston had the good result that henceforth Clare's diet and mode of living became greatly improved. Lady Milton, hearing of the illness of the poet, sent him her physician, while, better still, the chef de cuisine at Milton Park continued to supply him with good broth. The physician, a man of sense, soon perceived that his patient required not medicine but food. He told Clare that it was absolutely necessary that he should adopt a most nourishing diet, and even advised him to take some ale, or stout, in moderate quantities. However, Clare refused the latter part of the advice, urging the promise he had given to Dr. Darling. As to his general mode of living, he consented to do as requested, although too proud to state the reasons which had prevented him, and would, probably, continue to prevent him fully adopting the counsel. The physician, being asked by Lady Milton whether Clare seemed in want, stated that there were no signs of poverty in Clare's home. Though but a narrow hut, the many handsome hooks on the shelves, with a few good paintings, gave it the appearance of comfort, and thus the informant of the noble lady, like many of the other acquaintances of Clare, acquired very erroneous notions concerning his real means. This was the more the case, as Clare always managed to let his wife and children, as well as his aged parents, want none of the necessaries of life, and frequently contrived to procure them even a few luxuries. Nobody knew that while Clare's family had a good dinner, he himself was munching dry bread in some corner in the fields. The fact was not discovered till long afterwards—when discovery came too late.

In the autumn of 1825, the sad news reached Clare that his best friend and patron, Lord Radstock, had succumbed to a stroke of apoplexy. Admiral Lord Radstock died on the 20th of August, at his town residence in Portland Place, in a very sudden manner, after but a few days' illness. The loss of his noble patron would have been a deep affliction to Clare at any time, but it was particularly so at this moment. During the whole of the summer, the admiral had been in correspondence with Mr. Taylor, trying to induce him to come to some distinct arrangement with his client, in regard to the payment for his books and poetical contributions to the 'London Magazine.' Hitherto, Mr. Taylor had not treated his 'Northamptonshire Peasant' on the same footing as other authors, but looked upon him more in the light of a child under tutelage than of an independent man, desirous of gaining a living by the exercise of his talents or industry. When, therefore, Lord Radstock urged him to enter into a regular business agreement with Clare, he felt somewhat offended. Replying to his lordship, he stated that he had given much more to the poet than was due to him, without even charging for his own labours as editor, and that he had hitherto acted, not as a mere business agent, but as a real friend to Clare. Lord Radstock was not satisfied with this answer, but rejoined that, admitting Clare had received more than was due to him, it yet would be better to furnish regular accounts to him, and, by paying what was due, and no more, to foster his self-reliance, instead of keeping him in the position of a dependent, living upon alms or friendly gifts. The correspondence continued through several more letters, with a prospect of Mr. Taylor yielding his point, when the death of Lord Radstock brought it to an end. It was a sad misfortune to Clare, affecting his whole life. In Lord Radstock he lost the truest and noblest friend he possessed—the only one of all his patrons who might have been willing as well as able to remove the darkening clouds already visible in the future.

In the autumn of 1825, Clare was fortunate enough to find some employment in harvesting, which continued till the end of October, when he was once more thrown out of work. He now devoted himself with increased ardour to poetry anxious to excel in the new volume which. Mr. Taylor had agreed to publish. The chief poem of the work was to be a pastoral, in twelve cantos, descriptive of the aspects of the months and seasons, tinder the title, 'The Shepherd's Calendar.' The work required lengthened exertion, which, though he devoted himself with the greatest energy to the task, he could not always muster. Again and again the all-absorbing feeling of poverty broke upon and crushed the mind of the poet. Turn as he might, dire want stared him in the face, and his spirit kept chafing and fretting under the constant exertion of making his small income suffice for the ever-growing wants of his family. Some regular work to perform, or the consciousness of being seated on a few acres of his own ground, with the pleasure of growing his corn and vegetables, would have been sufficient to destroy all these petty cares; but the chance of entering upon such happy existence seemed to grow less and less every year. Liberty, the greatest boon which he desired, he was never able to obtain. To spend half the day in hard out-door work, and the other half in wanderings and poetical musings, would have made him completely happy, as well as, in all likelihood, physically strong; yet this simple wish of his heart not all his great and noble patrons were willing to grant him. They gave him alms, sufficient to lift him from the sphere of labour, but not enough for subsistence, and thus left him in a position as false as hopelessly ruinous. Working at intervals, almost beyond his strength, as a farm labourer, and then again remaining for a long time in forced idleness, writing too much, thinking too much, and ever and ever with the grim phantom of poverty before him, was a form of existence necessarily fatal. It was a life too hard, too cold, too angular, too crystallized—a life which would have broken the heart of any poet under the sun.

In the preparation of his new volume, Clare adopted the sensible plan of correcting and revising his writings constantly, so as to reach the greatest perfection in form. The uninterrupted study of the best poets began to have effect upon his mind by more and more developing his taste, and destroying his former notion that his verses came flowing by a sort of inspiration, and, as such, were not liable to further artificial improvement. Mr. Taylor was much pleased with the new verses which Clare sent him, far more polished than most of the previous ones, and encouraged him by many praises to persevere in the new course. Praise, as to all poets, was sweet to Clare, and he kept on writing with great eagerness during the whole of winter and the coming spring. He expected that his new book would be published early in the summer of 1826, but was disappointed in his expectation. There were poems enough in Mr. Taylor's hands to make at least two volumes; but the careful publisher was not over-anxious to print them. A shrewd man of business, he was fully aware that the tide was running strong against pastorals, or, indeed, against any form of good poetry, the fashion being all for jingling rhyme, embodying the least possible amount of sense. It was the period when annuals began to flourish, with all merit concentrated in 'toned' paper, gilded leaves, and morocco bindings. Mr. Taylor liked John Clare, and held his talent in fair estimation from the fact that the 'Poems descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery' had gone through four editions. But against this fact there was the terrible set-off that the 'Village Minstrel' had only risen to the second edition, with the larger part of the second issue still on the shelves in Fleet Street. Mr. Taylor, therefore, like a sound man of business, resolved to manipulate his 'Northamptonshire Peasant' with great caution, for fear of accidents.

John Clare got into a very excited state when he learnt that his new volume was not to be published in the summer of 1826, nor during the remaining part of the same year. He felt the delay as a scorn of his poetical fame; and he felt it, moreover, as a sad ruin of his financial prospects. The money which he expected to receive was anxiously awaited to pay off pressing debts, and its man-arrival involved not only scanty clothing and short rations, but cares of a peculiarly tender nature. 'Patty' brought her husband a third child, a little boy, who was christened John on the 18th of June, 1826; and though there arrived much timely assistance from Milton Park, the baby, as well as his mother; wanted many things not to be met with in the little hut at Helpston. Always a tender and most affectionate father, Clare's heart was ready to break when he found his poor little son suffering from the absence of those comforts which a few pounds might have purchased. He wrote a pathetic letter to Mr. Taylor, entreating him to send his poems to press; but received a cold answer in return. The sound business man of Fleet Street told his client that it was the wrong time for bringing out the 'Shepherds' Calendar.' He informed him, moreover, that the annuals had got the upper hand, and advised him strongly to write for the annuals. Clare answered that he preferred breaking stones at the workhouse.

But when Clare said so, he was in an angry mood. The baby continued crying, in want of milk and a few yards of flannel, and the mother commenced crying, too; and at length things came to such a pass that Clare determined to write for the annuals. He heard that he should get five shillings per poem, and from some publishers even as much as seven and sixpence. In great haste, therefore, he penned as many verses as he could, sitting up night after night, and on getting a bundle ready despatched them to London. But here again there was terrible disappointment. The annuals, it turned out, did not pay annually, but remunerated their contributors at uncertain periods, varying from two years to ten. When Clare found he could get no payment from the proprietors of the splendid morocco-bound volumes, he complained to Mr. Taylor. The busy publisher was vexed at this, as naturally he might be. He answered that he did not, and could not, hold himself responsible for the liabilities of others, and that it was unfair; after having tendered some general advice, to burthen him with the consequences. Here the matter ended, leaving both parties very dissatisfied. For some time to come there was a great coldness between them, and their correspondence almost entirely ceased.

The failure of his attempt to make money by contributing poems to the gold-edged toy-books had the good result of inciting Clare to renewed exertions to return to his old sphere of labour. He was after a while fortunate enough to find employment at Upton, a village on the southern border of Helpston Heath, where he continued at work during the autumn and winter, and far into the spring of 1827. The labour had the most beneficial effect upon his health, and brought on a fresh desire to leave the allurements of writing, or at least of printing, poetry, and devote himself more to out-door occupation. The great difficulty in carrying eat this plan was to find regular employment of a nature suited to his bodily strength, and his somewhat erratic habits. After much pondering on the subject, Clare resolved to try a little farming on his own account, with the help of his friends, and on a very limited scale. A visit to Milton Park settled the matter. The two head servants of Earl Fitzwilliam, the antiquarian and the botanist, were both ready and willing to assist the poet to become a farmer, though they told him frankly that they had small hopes of his success. Like in all agricultural districts, the owners of land at Helpston and throughout the neighbourhood were opposed to small tenants and 'spade husbandry,' and Clare's friends justly feared that even if there were no other obstacles, this cause alone would prevent him prospering. However, sanguine as he was, Clare held these fears to be exaggerated, and having obtained a small loan from his friends, rented several acres of barren soil at a rent four times as high as that paid by the larger farmers for really good land. The result, not for a moment doubtful from the commencement, did much to accelerate Clare's road to ruin.

During the whole spring and summer of 1827, Clare was so busy and excited in attending to his farming operations as almost to forget his new volume of poems. He scarcely expected to see it published, and was somewhat startled on receiving a copy of the book by post, unaccompanied however by a single line from Mr. Taylor. At any other time, he would have keenly felt the neglect; but as it was, the potatoes and cabbages on his farm attracted his attention more than even his printed verses, and the slight put upon him by his publisher. It was only when, the harvest was over—a harvest very poor and unsatisfactory—that he bethought himself again of his poetical doings. Conscious that he had been in the wrong, to a great extent, in his quarrel with Mr. Taylor, he determined to be the first to hold out the hand of friendship. Having made his resolutions to this effect, he sat down to pen a long letter, dated, 'Helpston, November 17, 1827.' It ran:—'My dear Taylor,—I expect you will be surprised when you open this to' see from whence it comes, so scarce has our correspondence made itself. Ere it withers into nothing, I will kindle up the expiring spark that remains, and make up a letter by its light, if I can. When you sent me the poems in summer, you never sent a letter with them; I felt the omission, but murmured not. It was not wont to be thus in days gone by. So I will shake off this ague-warm feeling, and this dead-living lethargy, and ask you how you are, and where you are, and how our friends are.' And much more to the same effect.

Mr. Taylor replied in a bland, dignified manner. The 'friends,' he reported to be well; but said nothing about what the poet was most desirous of knowing, the fate of his new volume. The truth was, the 'Shepherd's Calendar' did not sell; and the volume having come into the world almost unnoticed, was lying in the publisher's shop neglected and forgotten. A few periodicals mentioned the book in terms of faint praise, and one solitary critic, visibly behind his age, spoke of the verses as 'exquisite, and by far the most beautiful that have appeared for a long time'; but the great majority of the representatives of public opinion utterly ignored John Clare's new work. It soon became clear that, though infinitely superior to the 'Poems of Rural Life and Scenery,' which passed through four editions; and far better even than the 'Village Minstrel,' issued twice! the 'Shepherd's Calendar' was entirely overlooked by the public and the press. And it could not well be otherwise. The book, instead of in morocco, was bound, or rather stitched, in coarse blue cardboard; the paper was not only not 'toned,' but rough and inelegant in the extreme; and the edges, which, ought to have been smooth and gilded, were rugged and uneven like a ploughed field. It was hopeless to expect that a most discerning public should pay six shillings for a book of pastorals of such clownish appearance, when the sweetest rhymes, jingling like silver bells, and descriptive of angels and cupids, and the whole heaven of Greek and Roman mythology, were offered for a lesser sum, in settings resplendent with all the colours of the rainbow. There was no room for the 'Shepherd's Calendar' at the side of all the—gorgeously beautiful annuals of the day, of the Souvenir, Keepsake, and Forget-me-not family.

If this was one reason why the 'Village Minstrel' passed entirely unnoticed, another and still more important cause was the negligent manner in which it was published. Books, like all other earthly objects requiring to be bought and sold, must undergo certain preparations, and run through prescribed channels of trade in their way from the producer to the consumer, and it is well known that the regulation and management of this process may either greatly retard or accelerate the sale of a work. It often happened, that really valuable works have met with very little success, owing to want of energy or want of thought on the part of the publishers; while, on the other hand, not a few bad or paltry books, utterly unworthy of public, patronage, have, through active commercial management, met with a considerable demand, and brought both profit and fame to the writers. The truth of this was once more proved in the sale of Clare's works. In the first published volume, the 'Poems descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery,' Mr. Taylor took a very great interest, and devoted the whole of his energy to ensure its success with the public. He looked upon Clare's book as a personal property; for it was he who enjoyed the honour of having discovered the poetical genius of the 'Northamptonshire Peasant;' he who brought him out in society; and he who was not merely the publisher but the 'editor' of his works, and who as such could fairly; claim a share of the renown accruing to the writer. Accordingly, Mr. Taylor took the greatest trouble in ensuring a favourable reception to Clare's works, and being a literary man of some standing, as well as a bookseller—with the additional advantage of gathering, at stated periods, the chieftains in the republic of letters around his bachelor's table, to enjoy the most excellent dinners—he succeeded in doing what perhaps no other London publisher could have accomplished at the time. Long before the 'Poems of Rural Life' were issued from the press their merit was discussed at Mr. Taylor's dinner-table, under the cheering influence of exquisite port and madeira, and the persuasive eloquence of the most charming of hosts. Thus it happened in the most natural manner that the poems at their appearance were received with a perfect storm of applause, in which even such stern critics as William Gifford—carefully guided by Octavius Gilchrist—could not help joining. Mr. Taylor's own periodical, the 'London Magazine,' marched ahead as chief drummer, and behind came a long train of daily, weekly, and monthly 'organs,' with the great 'Quarterly Review' as commander-in-chief. The result proclaimed itself in four editions of the poems of the 'Northamptonshire Peasant.'