One of the earliest went to a journalist who was, in those days, connected with the _Daily Mail_. He read it at once and recognized that though there were crudities and even doggerel in it, there was also in it some of the freshest and most magical poetry to be found in modern books. Mingled with grimly realistic pictures of life and character in the doss-house were songs of the field and the wayside written with all Clare’s minute knowledge of nature and with something of the imagination and music of Blake. Being a journalist, he did not miss the significance of this book issuing from a common lodging-house (and one, by the way, that is described in a sketch of Dickens’), could easily read a good deal of the poet’s story between the lines of his poems, promptly forwarded his remittance and asked Davies to meet him. Not sure that he would be welcome at the doss-house, he suggested a rendezvous on the north of London Bridge, and a few evenings later the meeting came about at Finch’s a tavern in Bishopsgate Street Within. “To help you to identify me,” Davies had written, “I will have a copy of my book sticking out of my pocket”; and there he was--a short, sturdy young man, uncommunicative at first, as shy as a squirrel, bright-eyed, soft of speech, and with a general air about him of some woodland creature lost and uneasy in a place of crowds. By degrees his shyness diminished, and in the course of a two hours’ session in that bar he unfolded the whole of his story without reserve. Then said the journalist, “If I merely review your book it will not sell a dozen copies, but if you will let me combine with a review an absolutely frank narrative of your career I have an idea we can rouse public interest to some purpose.” This permission being given, such an article duly appeared in the news columns of the _Daily Mail_, and the results were more astonishing than any one could have foreseen. Not only did the gentle reader begin to send in money for copies, but ladies called at the doss-house and left At Home cards which their recipient was much too reticent to act upon. Editors who had ignored and probably lost their review copies sent postal orders for the book and lauded it in print; illustrated papers sent photographers and interviewers; a party of critics, having now bought and read the poems, made a pilgrimage to the Farmhouse, and departed to write of the man and his poetry. After a second article in the _Mail_ had recounted these and other astonishing happenings, a literary agent wrote urging Davies to entrust him with all his remaining copies and he could sell them for him at half-a-guinea and a guinea apiece.