The vast majority
of readers of Clare do not seem interested in the least with his prose
output. Thankfully over the past
century, this surprising indifference has not been reflected by Clare scholars. Most of Clare’s Prose that has been published,
was edited by Edmund Blunden, Anne & John Tibble, Margaret Grainger, Mark
Storey, David Powell, P.M.S. Dawson and Eric Robinson - none of it is perfect. Storey’s edition of Clare’s
letters, an invaluable book, is now certainly in need of updating by correction
and addition. Above all, now more than a
decade into the 21st century, we need good texts of Clare’s prose, especially
the large amount which has still not been published, and which shed so much
light upon Clare’s literary capabilities.
Clare’s prose writings are particularly helpful in introducing us to his
political, religious and cultural background.
New discoveries are there to be made at every turn of the manuscript page,
yet few scholars seem to visit the various archives to unearth such gems for
themselves.
For instance, very
few seem to realise that Clare wrote in the novel form, part of which he gave
the title, “Memoirs of Uncle Barnaby”. This
novel may be incomplete, but seems to have been intended to be a completion of
stories, essays and letters. Featured
are country people such as the vicar, the butler and housekeeper of some gentleman
or other, an adventure at a lonely house experienced by two soldiers returning
from the Napoleonic Wars, and the tale of a mother & her daughters, walking
in the country, meeting a gipsey fortune-teller and during a stage coach ride. The links between these sections are tenuous
and may consist of nothing more than a single phrase. Clare’s major influences seem to have been
Oliver Goldsmith’s “The Vicar of Wakefield”, Smollett’s “Peregrine Pickle” and
perhaps Richardson’s “Pamela”. The style
in which the constituent parts are written varies considerably. It is true, as Jonathan Bate tells us that
“Clare found himself unable to sustain or structure his prose tales in such a
way to produce a complete novel”, but the attempt is much less fragmentary than
Bate suggests. In our typescripts alone,
it amount to between 250 and 300 pages.
All the pieces
centre round village life at different levels of society and thus the novel
resembles – to some extent – Clare’s “The Parish”, which also ranges from the
satirical to the eulogistic and sentimental.
Besides the theme of village life, there is also the background to the
great cholera pandemic of 1832. This
section is of particular interest because it shows Clare having fun with
language.
Bate claims that
Clare seldom punned which, if it were true, would be very odd. His friends at John Taylor’s magazine dinners
were mostly inveterate punsters, among whom the leaders were Lamb and Reynolds,
but Cunningham was not enthusiastic about the habit. That is perhaps whey the “Letter to Allan
Cunningham” includes several puns, in friendly mockery of the recipient’s
dislike of them? The range of literary
and natural history lore in the letter is considerable, and the punning
sometimes elaborate.
Other parts of
the novel demonstrate Clare’s religious beliefs and show him to be – as his
letter and some of his political poems confirm – a strong “God and King”
man. The message delivered by the
vicar’s sermon in the novel is that Christ’s message is to all people of all
creeds, colours and social status. We
find here, as elsewhere in the novel, confirmation of Clare’s dedication to the
Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, and evidence of his wide reading in books
of religious commentary (such as George Horne, “On the Psalms”), some of which
were given to him by Lord Radstock.
Above all, the
novel shows Clare’s intense enjoyment of the English language, both spoke and
written, contemporary and historical, and its eventual publication will mean many
new entries into the glossaries of Clare’s dialect vocabulary – trying to
assist the modern reader to understand the subtleties of Clare’s language is
never easy.
A fine example of
‘educated’ English in the novel is the sermon delivered by the village parson,
full of the spirit of religious toleration extended to people of all races and
beliefs. This sermon may have been
partly inspired by clergy that Clare knew – The Rev. Knowles Holland, a
Congregational minister; the Rev. William Paley, longtime vicar of Helpstone,
and the Rev. Thomas Smith, another clergyman in Clare’s village, commemorated
in the parish church, St. Botolph’s. But
it is also influenced by Goldsmith’s “Vicar of Wakefield” and Smollett’s
“Jonathan Andrews”, as well as, perhaps, by the writings of Archbishop
Tillotson and Dean Swift. Personal
observation and evidence from reading often work together for Clare. We believe that this sermon may well become
one of the major anthology pieces of English religious prose.
Clare wrote many prose essays, on religion and games, his advice to his
children, and an essay from “Drakard’s Stamford News” that we believe to have
been written by Clare. Many passages on
religion are not, or may not be, Clare’s own composition, but quotations from
his reading. They vary in length from a
few words to several pages, and if there is an attribution, it is usually
simply in the form of a name at the end of the passage or words such as
‘Moliere says…’, ‘Montaigne says…’, or even ‘A wise man once said…’.
For example,
Clare simply quotes Luther as saying, ‘I could live in Hell with the Word, but
I would not want to live in Paradise without the Word’. The American edition of “Luther’s Works” runs
to 55 volumes. After 15 volumes at a
library I gave up, but on my way home I stopped at a Lutheran seminary. After the kindly Precentor failed to find the
words for me, he referred me to a Lutheran siminary in St.Louis, Missouri. To my delight and astonishment, they turned
up Clare’s quotation. It was in Latin, a
word-for-word translation! It seems
unlikely that Clare had first encountered it in Latin, yet he certainly knew it
-- from an unknown, to us, source.
Clare liked to
read books of proverbs, amusing stories, or wise sayings. We know that Clare possessed – and read – the
Rev. Charles Colton’s “Lacon”, a popular source of laconicisms, thought not
itself always laconic! We also came
across in a newpaper advertisment, “Laconisisms” in three columes, and found
more of Clare’s quotations there. What a
wide range materials Clare somehow managed to obtain and read. Some of his manuscripts seem to be a sort of
ill-organised commonplace book.
Several
quotations probably appeared at first in almanacs or newspapers. Stamford alone had five newspapers at one
time in the early nineteenth century.
Clare was a careful readers of
local and national newspapers, like folk song, newspapers were a central
part of his ‘popular’ culture. Lord
Radstock sent his London newspapers, as did Henry Behnes Burlowe, George Reid,
John Taylor and others. Clare also had
asscess to “Time’s Telescope” and several other almanacs and periodicals, all
of which contained proverbs and aphorisms.
A letter of 11 April 1851 to William Knight, the former suprintendent of
the Northampton Lunatic Asylum who had moved to the Winson Green Asylum in
Birmingham, shows the range of Clare’s reading even late in life:
“… I think the
‘half hours’ with the best authors & old Edens Parnassus to of the best
books I remember -- & Mrs Cowden Clarks I remember too but forget Meg and
Alice – Tant’s Magazine is good also – ‘Household words’ I have not seen –
Eliza Cooks ‘Journal’ is good also -- & the Edingborrough Journal lies
littering about as usual but in such plenty – Stenson left me a Vol. of ‘Poets’
from Moxons press which I have not yet looked into …”
The letter, which
also includes a Clare Acrostic poem in memory of George Main[1],
is worthy of greater study to realise the breadth of his reading, his
frustration at being “… in this d-----d mad house”, and his undimmed lyrical
abilities.
Among the most
interesting essays is his “Letter to Allan Cunningham”, written to Cunningham
when he was the editor of the “Atlas” newspaper. An amusing example of how dangerous it is to
think that Clare ever wrote nonsense is the following quotation from P.M.S.
Dawson’s edition of the letter[2]:
“… you live in
the midst of delicaseys have you got to add on corpulency”
We pondered of
this nonsense, in a very faint manuscript, for some time but could not see how
to read it any differently. First,
should there be a sentence after ‘delicaseys’?
Second, we began to think about the words ‘on corpulency’ which
suggested to us a medical title. If that
was so, then the problem is in the reading ‘to add’ which could be a mis-reading
of an author’s name? Much thought
ensued. Instead of ‘to add’, was it possible
to read ‘Wadd’ or ‘wadd’ ? Was there an
author of that name?
William Wadd was
surgeon to the Prince Regent and published a book in 1829 with the title, “On
Corpulency”[3]. Considering how fat the Prince Regent was,
corpulency might well have been of interest to his medical adviser! It could also have been of great interest to
Clare, since the most famous man in Stamford at the time was Daniel Lambert[4],
who was also the fattest man in England.
Wadd discusses Lambert’s case, thus what at first appears to be
nonsense, turns out to be very meaningful.
Clare also
comments on Cunningham living in Edinburgh at the time of the Burke and Hare
murders, as his being “in the midst of delicaseys”. These murders were fully reported in all
British newspapers at the time that Clare was writing to Cunningham.
To end these
brief remarks on Clare’s prose, we would like to say a few words about Clare’s
“Essay on Grammar”. Clare seems to have
aligned the study of grammer with his discomfort with the Linnaeus system of
sexual classification of plants. Clare
regards both systems as complex and confusing, hindrances to understanding:
“Those who have
made grammer up into a system & cut it into classes & orders as the
student does the animal or vegetable creation
may be a recreation [note the word-play] for schools but it become of no
use towards making any one so far acquainted with it as to find it useful – it
will only serve to puzzle and mislead
to awe & intimidate instead of aiding and encouraging him – therefore
is pays nothing for the study”
Clare also
compared the customary work of an editor to the then fashionable lady’s
occupation of cutting trees and animals out of paper. Neither editors not paper-cutters are
creative artists, and the editor “may be very clever at detecting faults in
composition & yet in the writing of it may be a mere cipher himself…” Cobbett,
however, he praises, “for he plainly comes to this conclusion – that what ever
is intelligible to others is grammer & whatever is common sense is not far
from correctness.”
When he was
corrected by someone for writing “much greater then me”, Clare objected that the only reason offered
for the correction was “that it was so used in latin – mercey on us when will these fooleries have an
end.” He admits to being slovenly in
forgetting to begin his sentences with capital letters, and promises to correct
this mistake in his “pretentions at essays”, but does not seem to have
remembered to do so! One further thing
worth noting about Clare’s remarks on grammar is that he compares grammar to
squad drill and, as we know, he had only too vivid memories of his own
membership of the ‘awkard’ squad in the militia.
© Professor Eric Robinson & Roger Rowe (2016)
[1]
George Main was the artist
responsible for the portrait of Clare sitting in the portico of All Saints Church,
Northampton. He died in 1850.
[2]
John Clare Society Journal,
Number 20 (July 2001), page 21
[3]
“Cursory Remarks on
Corpulence” (London, 1810) reissued as “Comments on Corpulency” (London 1829)
[4]
There is a portrait of Lambert
in the entrance hall of the George Hotel in the centre of Stamford today.
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