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:--