And now we are arrived at a fresh, and, as far as matrimony is concerned, a final love. CLARE being now twenty-four years of age, it was high time for him to nurse an established affection, and he was lucky to win the heart of Martha Turner, the “Patty” of several poems to be found in the collected works of the poet. To him Martha was another waif from the skies, even though she tortured her poetical admirer by the time-honoured practice of appearing to waver between two suitors. The conduct of this episode was made up of petty events prosaic enough to the onlooker, but sufficiently lethal for the parties most interested. Tiffs, sour looks from parents, despairs, showers, rainbows, were the constituents of CLARE’S courtship. A flat and always fortunate wooing would doubtless have been hostile to poetry. Because of his longing to supply two mouths with the necessaries of life, and because it was clearly proved that Cupid would not even be able to munch a satisfactory portion of crust if the lovers founded their faith solely on the wage of a lime-burner, CLARE conceived the idea of publishing a volume of song, his mind appointing Mr. Henson, of Market Deeping, a comrade for his project. A month devoted to the base uses of the treadmill would not have cost the poet more labour than did the composition of his prospectus, three hundred copies of which the bookseller agreed to print, as well as a specimen sonnet, for one pound. But this trap for subscribers was baited with too much candour. If ever a poet met with a crushing response to his first appeal for a hearing, surely JOHN CLARE was that man. Seven patrons came forward, more, we may guess, in kindness than in hope of literary luxury. CLARE, of course, experienced the superlatives of disgust; and when the printer of the artless prospectus wrote to inform him that the adventure must drop unless fifteen pounds appeared to back it up, he could not withhold himself from replying in a strain to the last degree impolitic. To add to his griefs, a rather wide gulf was at this time yawning between Martha Turner and himself, the bridging of which was a feat of engineering extremely hard to accomplish. Moreover, and here is an illustration of the proverb that it never rains but it pours, the owner of the limekilns discharged his lyrical servant on the score of his inattention to business. The whole neighbourhood being somewhat scandalised at what was considered presumption, for labourers of CLARE’S type were not required to assert themselves in prose, much less in poetry, the disappointed lime-burner, with a heart given up to aching, returned once more to Helpstone, where he would have starved but for parochial relief. So genius sat down to eat the parish loaf.