July 12.—
Went to-day to see Artis: found him busy over his antiquities and fossils. He told me a curious thing about the manner in which the golden-crested wren builds her nest: he says it is the only English bird that suspends its nest, which it hangs on three twigs of the fir branch, and it glues the eggs at the bottom of the nest, with the gum out of the tree, to keep them from being thrown out by the wind, which often turns them upside down without injury.
August 21.—
Received a letter from Mr. Emmerson which tells me that Lord Radstock died yesterday. He was the best friend I have met with. Though he possessed too much simple-heartedness to be a fashionable friend or hypocrite, yet it often led him to take hypocrites for honest friends and to take an honest man for a hypocrite.
September 11.—
Went to meet Mr. and Mrs. Emmerson at the New Inn at Deeping, and spent three days with them.
From "No. 5 in the Appendix."—
I will set down before I forget it a memorandum to say that I desire Mrs. Emmerson will do just as she pleases with any MSS. of mine which she may have in her possession, to publish them or not as she chooses; but I desire that any living names mentioned in my letters may be filled up by * * * and all objectionable passages omitted—a wish which I hope will be invariably complied with by all. I also intend to make Mr. Emmerson one of the new executors in my new will. I wish to lie on the north side of the churchyard, about the middle of the ground, where the morning and evening sun can linger the longest on my grave. I wish to have a rough unhewn stone, something in the form of a mile stone, [sketched in the margin] so that the playing boys may not break it in their heedless pastimes, with nothing more on it than this inscription:—"Here rest the hopes and ashes of John Clare." I desire that no date be inserted thereon, as I wish it to live or die with my poems and other writings, which if they have merit with posterity it will, and if they have not it is not worth preserving. October 8th, 1824. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
The "Artis" and "Henderson" referred to in the Diary were respectively butler and head gardener at Milton Park. Artis made a name for himself as the discoverer of extensive Roman remains at Castor, the ancient Durobrivae, of which he published a description, and Henderson was an accomplished botanist and entomologist. Their uniform kindness to the poor poet did them great honour.