paper, covered with weird characters, than of half-a-dozen "Holes in the Wall," "Blue Bells," or "Parting Pots,"— burnt them all from motives, not, perhaps, very dissimilar to those which prompted Don Quixote's niece to make an auto-da-fé of her uncle's romantic library.
But the way in which Clare met this pretty persecution showed that he had real genius. He did not complain of his hard fate, but determined to instil into his parents' minds a love of poetry. So the next piece he made he read over to his father, who, however, pronounced it all stuff and nonsense, and not at all to be compared to the ballads they were accustomed to troll out at the "Blue Bell." So the next time John composed a poem in the ballad style, and, without saying whose it was, read it to his father as if it was from a printed sheet. Old Mr Clare declared it fine, and told his son if he could write like that it would do. Thus John learnt it was not his poetry, but himself they doubted, and henceforth he read all his effusions anonymously, and afterwards hid them far away from his mother's careful eye in a deep crevice in the wall of his bed-room.
Later on, when the villagers woke up to the idea that the silly beggar boy was likely to prove some one great after all, they began to entertain respect for his scribblings.
The young poet used to sit in the evening in one corner of the kitchen, where there was a little window looking out on the "Blue Bell," and when the neighbours popped their heads in at the door and saw him writing, they would turn away, saying that they were afraid that they should disturb John. But years of effort had so accustomed him to self-concentration that he would invariably reply, "Come in, you won't hinder me." The window is now blocked up, and the nook is used as a cupboard, but the tradition survives to this day in Helpstone.
After awhile John determined to show his poems to another friend, a labouring man much older than himself, but who had the reputation of having been in a better position, and of having had some education. This worthy examined them very carefully, and after a week returned them to Clare, with the significant question, "Do you understand grammar?"
Poor John blushed and felt utterly ashamed of his attempts at
