It is worth noticing that his first patron, Lord Exeter, had really entertained the design of so assisting the rustic poet that he should be able to unite his favourite pursuit with his early, healthy, invigorating occupations of husbandry. Surely there is nothing incompatible between them. "Lord Exeter," we are told, "sent for him to Burleigh, and hearing that he earned thirty pounds per annum by field-labour, settled an annuity of fifteen pounds upon him, with a view to his devoting half his time to agricultural pursuits, and half to literary pursuits." We like this idea of his noble patron; it bespeaks, we think, a very reflective as well as a generous mind. But there were patrons of a very different stamp, or rather, according to the account we have here, a number of officious, vulgar admirers of poor John Clare, who rendered the design abortive; who had nothing to offer to the village poet, but who disturbed his quiet, intelligent, safe, unostentatious, and healthy existence, by their absurd and idle curiosity. He was called away from his fields—to be looked at! "He was frequently interrupted, as often as three times a-day, during his labours in the harvest-field, to gratify the curiosity of admiring visitors." We cannot blame poor John Clare for leaving his labours in the harvest-field; it has always been the weakness of the poet to love praise too much; without this weakness he would hardly have been a poet, at least he would have been a very careless one; but we think those "admiring visitors" showed their taste and their love of poetry in a most extraordinary manner. Whatever else they felt, they felt no respect for the dignity of the man. They ought to have understood that visits of such a kind, for such an idle purpose, whatever flattering shape they may have assumed, were insults.
Miss Mitford terminates the painful history by the following singular account:—
"A few years ago he was visited by a friend of mine, who gave me a most interesting account of the then state of his intellect. His delusions were at that time very singular in their character: whatever he read, whatever recurred to him from his former reading, or happened to be mentioned in conversation, became impressed on his mind as a thing that he had witnessed and acted in. My friend was struck with a narrative of the execution of Charles the Fist, recounted by Clare as a transaction that had occurred yesterday, and of which he was an eye-witness—a narrative the most graphic and minute, with an accuracy as to costume and manners far exceeding what would probably have been at his command if sane. It is such a lucidity as the disciples of Mesmer claim for clairvoyance. Or he would relate the battle of the Nile and the death of Lord Nelson with the same perfect keeping, especially as to seamanship, fancying himself one of the sailors who had been in the action, and dealing out nautical phrases with admirable exactness and accuracy, although it is doubtful if he ever saw the sea in his life."
As might have been expected, and is both graceful and natural, the poets of her own sex occupy a considerable space in Miss Mitford's selections. In some cases the names were new to us, but the extracts given made us feel that they ought not to have been so. An Englishman may be very proud, we think, when he reflects how many highly cultivated minds there are amongst his countrywomen, minds so gentle and so intelligent, whose cultivation goes hand in hand with the truest refinement of character. Here in one chapter we have four names strung together, most of which, we suspect, will be new to the majority of readers—"Mrs Clive, Mrs Acton Tindal, Miss Day, Mrs Robert Dering"—yet the extracts in this chapter will bear comparison with those of any other part of the work. A little poem called "The Infant Bridal," is, as Miss Mitford describes it to be, one of the most perfect paintings we ever read. Its subject is the marriage of Richard Duke of York, second son of Edward IV., with Anne Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk. The bridegroom was not five years old, and the bride scarcely three. The procession, where, at the head of "belted barons" and courtly dames,
"Two blooming children led the way
With short and doubtful tread;"
the ceremony, where the venerable prelate gives his blessing to this infant bride and bridegroom, and
"Their steady gaze these children meek
Upon the old man bent,
As earnestly they seemed to seek
The solemn words intent."
Every part of the narrative is so charmingly told that we cannot consent to mar the effect by any broken quotation. It is too long to be extracted entirely.
From the poem which follows, of Miss Day's, it will be easier to break off a fragment.