However tightly twisted the rosebud may be, windy and sunny fingers will unpack it at last. At the very moment when CLARE was reading himself as the peculiar prey of disaster, he was destined to behold the bright back of the cloud which had confronted him with such ominous persistence. By strange approaches the news of _Clare’s_ devotion to and production of poetry arrived at Mr. Drury, a bookseller who was on the point of taking over a business at Stamford from Mr. Thompson, of that town. In company with a friend, Mr. Drury proceeded to Helpstone, interviewed the astonished poet, glanced through some rhymed samples, and finally declared his intention to publish a volume at his own risk, hearing which intelligence CLARE once more rose heavenward in the balloon of hope, forgetting how certain it was that impediments to free flight would make themselves manifest. Owing to the offices of Mr. Drury, CLARE became acquainted with Mr. Gilchrist, of Stamford, a gentlemen with an Oxford education and a grocer’s shop, who played the part of a true friend to the poet, if we except his action in making public some verses of CLARE’S which had more wine than inspiration in them. It has been contended that Mr. Gilchrist filled the post of patron with a want of reserve which made CLARE feel his position acutely; for the eating of humble-pie has never been a really popular amusement. Be this as it may, lovers of “Poems descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery” have a great deal for which to thank Mr. Gilchrist. After promising CLARE to undertake the publication of his first book, Mr. Drury experienced a few bad hours. To begin with, the ill-spelt, rope-tied, unpunctuated mass of manuscript entrusted to him by its author had a most unpromising aspect. He tested it as best he could, but, as the glow of the adventure had already faded a little, found no particular reasons for comfort. In this strait he enlisted the acumen of an acquaintance, a clergyman, whose name was, somewhat appropriately, Twopenny, in order to see how the verses might strike a contemporary. The prophetic Twopenny, with brutal candour, described CLARE’S bundle of reeds to be so much twaddle. When Mr. Drury delivered this oracle, the grief of the poet was such that the bookseller was shocked. Had it not been for the anguish of the singer, it is quite possible that the bookseller of Stamford would have departed, with decent circuity, from his bargain; as it was, he determined to procure yet another opinion. He happened to be a relative of Mr. John Taylor, the London publisher, to whom he despatched the uncouth manuscript in question. Mr. Taylor’s were not as Mr. Twopenny’s eyes. He knew diamonds when he saw them, even though a polisher had not exerted his craft upon them.