A letter was despatched to acquaint his wife with his decease, and that his body would be brought to Helpstone to be buried on the 24th. But the letter was opened by another Mrs John Clare at Helpstone, so that the widowed woman at Northborough remained in ignorance of what had happened.
Tragic, then, was the last return of John Clare to the dear native spot to which he had hoped to come back to die.
The coffin arrived with its precious remains, but there were none to meet it; not a soul, led by Christian, or even by relative or literary ties, to perform the last obsequies of an English poet. The bearers took it to the churchyard, and called upon the sexton to dig a grave. He was away from home that afternoon, so with some reluctance they carried the corpse into the tap-room of "The Hexter's Arms," and laid it on the table.
On the evening of the next day, when the body was committed to the ground, his old cottage was sold, but it did not disturb John Clare now. He was gathered to his fathers, and had reached "the Home of Homes."
Thus did his
"Weary spirit sail away,
That long, long-looked-for 'better place' to gain."
John Clare is the poet of English peasant life. He, if any one can, may claim to be a representative man. Bloomfield has not depicted that life with more sympathy, nor Crabbe with a truer touch. Crabbe looked down upon it from above; Clare lived it, felt its joys, and endured all its woes.
I have tried to give some idea of the sordid suffering of his childhood and youth, but only those who have read his works can know how the iron entered into his soul. He was one with his brethren in that bitter, long-fought fight with grim Poverty; one with them in his content and discontent; contented to do as his fathers did, yet discontented, profoundly discontented with his lot.
With a love for his native scenes, capable of being developed into the intensest patriotism, with a love of old customs and old institutions—in fact, a Conservative by nature—he is driven to cry—
"O England! boasted land of liberty,
With strangers still thou may'st the title own,
