Life and Remains of John Clare Part 7

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM."

GEORGE DARLEY

George Darley, another member of the "London" brotherhood, conceived a sincere regard for Clare, and frequently wrote to him. He was author of several dramatic poems, and of numerous works on mathematics, and was besides a candidate for the Professors.h.i.+p of English Literature at the founding of the London University. The following are among the more entertaining of the letters which he addressed to the poet:--

"Friday, March 2 1827,

5, Upper Eaton Street, Grosvenor Place.

My dear Clare,--

You see in what a brotherly way I commence my letter: not with the frigid 'Sir' as if I were addressing one of a totally unkindred clay, one of the drossy children of earth, with whom I have no relations.h.i.+p and feel I could never have any familiarity. Have you ever felt that the presence of a man without feeling made you a fool? I am always dumb, or pusillanimous or (if I speak) ridiculous, in the company of such a person. I love a reasoner, and do not by any means wish to be flas.h.i.+ng lightning, cloud-riding, or playing with stars. But a marble-hearted companion, who, if you should by chance give way to an impetuous fancy, or an extravagant imagination, looks at you with a dead fish's eye, and asks you to write the name under your picture--I would as soon ride in a post chaise with a lunatic, or sleep with a corse. Never let me see the sign of such a man over an alehouse! It would fright me away sooner than the report of a mad dog or a scolding landlady. I would as soon enter the house if it hung out a pestle and mortar. The fear of a drug in my posset would not repel me so inevitably as the horror with which I should contemplate the frost-bitten face of a portrait such as I have described. But perhaps with all your feeling you will think my heart somewhat less sound than a ripe medlar, if it be so unhealthily sensitive as what I have said appears to indicate. There is, I grant, as in all other things, a mean which ought to be observed. Recollect, however, I am not an Englishman [Darley was an Irishman.] I should have answered your letter long since, without waiting for your poems, in order to say something handsome upon them, but have been so occupied with a myriad of affairs that I have scarcely had a moment to sleep in. It is now long, long past midnight, and all is as silent around my habitation as if it were in the midst of a forest, or the plague had depopulated London. After a day's hard labour at mathematical operations and corrections I sit down to write to you these hasty and, I fear, almost unreadable lines. Will you excuse them for the promise of something better when I have more leisure to be point-device? Your opinion of my geometry was very grateful, chiefly as it confirmed my own--that there has been a great deal too much baby-making of the English people by those who pretend to instruct them in science.

These persons write upon the Goody-two-shoes plan, and seem to look upon their readers as infants who have not yet done drivelling. To improve the reason is quite beside their purpose; they merely design to t.i.tillate the fancy or provide talking matter for village oracles.

In not one of their systems do I perceive a regular progression of reasoning whereby the mind may be led, from truth to truth, to knowledge, as we ride step by step up to a fair temple on a goodly hill of prospect. They jumble together heaps of facts, the most wonder-striking they can get, which may indeed be said to confound the imagination by their variety; but there is no ratiocinative dependence between them, nor are they referred to demonstrative principles, which would render people knowledgeable, as well as knowing, of them. Each is a syllabus indeed, but not a science. It tells many things but teaches none. There is little merit due to me for perceiving this error, and none for avoiding it. Algebra is the only true arithmetic. The latter is founded on the former in almost all its rules, and one is just as easily learned as the other. If arithmetic is to be taught rationally it must be taught algebraically. With half the pains that a learner takes to make himself master of the rule of three and fractions, he would acquire as much algebra as would render every rule in arithmetic as easy as chalking to an inn-keeper. I am apt to speak in the King Cambyses'

vein, but you understand what I wish to convey. As to the continuation of the "Lives of the Poets," it is a work sadly wanting, but I am not the person to supply the desideratum, even were my power equal to the deed. Criticism is abomination in my sight. It is fit only for the headsmen and hangmen of literature, fellows who live by the agonies and death of others. You will say this is not the criticism you mean, and that there is a different species (the only genuine and estimable species) which has an eye to beauty rather than defect, and which delights in glorifying true poetry rather than debating it. Aye, but have you ever considered how much harder it is to praise than to censure piquantly? I should ever be running into the contemptuous or abusive style, as I did in the "Letters to Dramatists." Besides, even in the best of poets, Shakspeare and Milton, how much is there justly condemnable? On the inferior luminaries, I should have to be continually pointing out spots and blemishes. In short, as a vocation I detest criticism. It is a species of fratricide with me, for I never can help cutting, slas.h.i.+ng, pinking, and carbonadoing--a most unnatural office for one of the brotherhood, one who presumes to enrol himself among those whom he conspires with the Jeffreys and Jerdans to mangle and destroy. It is a Cain-like profession, and I deserve to be branded, and condemned to wander houseless over the world, if ever I indulge the murderous propensity to criticism. I was sorry to hear from Taylor yesterday that you were not in good health. What can be the matter with you, so healthfully situated and employed? Methinks you should live the life of an oak-tree or a st.u.r.dy elm, that groans in a storm, but only for pleasure. Do you meditate too much or sit too immovably? Poetry, I mean the composition of it, does not always sweeten the mind as much as the reading of it. There is always an anxiety, a fervour, an impatience, a vaingloriousness attending it which untranquillizes even in the sweetest-seeming moods of the poet.

Like the bee, he is restless and uneasy even in collecting his sweets. Farewell, my dear Clare, and when you have leisure and inclination, write to me again.

Sincerely yours,

GEORGE DARLEY."

"London, 5 Upper Eaton Street, Grosvenor Place,

March 14th, 1829.

My dear Clare,--

You have been reproaching me, I dare say, for my long neglect of your last letter, but you might have saved yourself that trouble, as my own conscience has scourged me repeatedly these two months about it.

The truth is I have been a good deal hara.s.sed in several ways, and now sit down, in the midst of a headache, to write, when I can hardly tell which end of my pen is paper-wards. I will attempt, however, to return your questions legible if not intelligible answers. There have been so many 'Pleasures' of so-and-so that I should almost counsel you against baptizing your poem on Spring the 'Pleasures' of anything. Besides, when a poem is so designated it is almost a.s.suredly prejudged as deficient in action (about which you appear solicitous). 'The Pleasures of Spring' from you, identified as you are with descriptive poesy, would almost without doubt sound in the public ear as an announcement of a series of literary scene paintings. Beautiful as these may be, and certainly would be from your pencil, there is a deadness about them which tends to chill the reader: he must be animated with something of a livelier prospect, or, as Hamlet says of Polonius, 'he sleeps'. It may be affirmed without hesitation that, however independent of description a drama may be, no descriptive poem is independent of something like dramatic spirit to give it interest with human beings. How dull a thing would even the great descriptive poem of the Creation be without Adam and Eve, their history and hapless fall, to enliven it! But I cannot see why you should not infuse a dramatic spirit into your poem on Spring, which is only the development of the living principle in Nature. See how full of life those descriptive scenes in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream' and the 'Winter's Tale' are. Characters may describe the beauties or qualities of Spring just as well as the author, and nothing prevents a story going through the season, so as to gather up flowers and point out every beautiful feature in the landscape on its way. Thomson has a little of this, but not enough. Imagine his 'Lavinia' spread out into a longer story, incidents and descriptions perpetually relieving each other! Imagine this, and you have a model for your poem. Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd' would be still better, only that his poem is cast into actual dramatic characters.

Besides, though with plenty of feeling and a good deal of homestead poetry, he wants imagination, elegance, and a certain scorn of mere earth, which is essential to the const.i.tution of a true poet. You want none of these, but you want his vivacity, character, and action: I mean to say you have not as yet exhibited these qualities. The hooks with which you have fished for praise in the ocean of literature have not been garnished with live bait, and none of us can get a bite without it. How few read 'Comus' who have the 'Corsair' by heart! Why? Because the former, which is almost dark with the excessive bright of its own glory, is deficient in human pa.s.sions and emotions, while the latter possesses these although little else.

Your sincere friend and brother poet,

GEORGE DARLEY."

CLARE'S DIARY

It was on the occasion of his third visit to London that Dr. Darling exacted from Clare the promise, already referred to, that he would observe the strictest moderation in drinking, and if possible abstain altogether. Clare kept his word, but his domestic difficulties remaining unabated he suffered much, not only from physical weakness but from melancholy forebodings which were destined to be only too completely realized. He made many ineffectual attempts to obtain employment in the neighbourhood of Helpstone, and it is especially to be regretted that his applications, first to the Marquis of Exeter's steward and then to Earl Fitzwilliam's, for the situation of gardener were unsuccessful, because the employment would have been congenial to his tastes, and the wages, added to his annuities, would have been to him a competence.

During the years 1824-23 Clare kept a diary, which, for those who desire to know the man as well as the poet, is full of interest, on account of the side-lights which it throws upon his character, and also upon his pursuits during this period of involuntary leisure. The following extracts are selected:--

September 7, 1824.--

I have read "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" and finished it to-day, and the sum of my opinion is, that tyranny and cruelty appear to be the inseparable companions of religious power, and the aphorism is not far from truth that says "all priests are the same."

September 11.--

Wrote an essay to-day on the s.e.xual system of plants, and began one on the fungus tribe, and on mildew, blight, &c., intended for "A Natural History of Helpstone," in a series of letters to Hessey, who will publish it when finished. Received a kind letter from C.A.

Elton.

September 12.--

Finished another page of my life. I have read the first chapter of Genesis, the beginning of which is very fine, but the sacred historian took a great deal upon credit for this world when he imagined that G.o.d created the sun, moon, and stars, those mysterious hosts of heaven, for no other purpose than its use. It is a harmless and universal propensity to magnify consequences that pertain to ourselves, and it would be a foolish thing to test Scripture upon these groundless a.s.sertions, for it contains the best poetry and the best morality in the world.

September 19.--

Read s.n.a.t.c.hes of several poets and the Song of Solomon: thought the supposed allusions in that luscious poem to our Saviour very overstrained, far-fetched, and conjectural. It appears to me an Eastern love poem, and nothing further, but an over-heated religious fancy is strong enough to fancy anything. I think the Bible is not ill.u.s.trated by that supposition: though it is a very beautiful poem it seems nothing like a prophetic one, as it is represented to be.

September 22.--

Very ill, and did nothing but ponder over a future existence, and often brought up the lines to my memory said to have been uttered by an unfortunate n.o.bleman when on the brink of it, ready to take the plunge:--

In doubt I lived, in doubt I die, Nor shrink the dark abyss to try, But undismayed I meet eternity.

The first line is natural enough, but the rest is a rash courage in such a situation.

September 23.--

A wet day: did nothing but nurse my illness: could not have walked out had it been fine. Very disturbed in conscience about the troubles of being forced to endure life and die by inches, and the anguish of leaving my children, and the dark porch of eternity, whence none return to tell the tale of their reception.

September 24.--

Tried to walk out and could not: have read nothing this week, my mind almost overweighting me with its upbraidings and miseries: my children very ill, night and morning, with a fever, makes me disconsolate, and yet how happy must be the death of a child! It bears its sufferings with an innocent patience that maketh man ashamed, and with it the future is nothing but returning to sleep, with the thought, no doubt, of waking to be with its playthings again.

September 29.--

Took a walk in the fields: saw an old wood stile taken away from a familiar spot which it had occupied all my life. The posts were overgrown with ivy, and it seemed akin to nature and the spot where it stood, as though it had taken it on lease for an undisturbed existence. It hurt me to see it was gone, for my affections claim a friends.h.i.+p with such things; but nothing is lasting in this world.

Last year Langley Bush was destroyed--an old white-thorn that had stood for more than a century, full of fame. The gipsies, shepherds, and herdsmen all had their tales of its history, and it will be long ere its memory is forgotten.

October 8.--