friendship. John Clare thought the dark-eyed gypsies far more intelligent
than his own working companions in the fields, and he was attracted to
them, besides, by their fondness for and knowledge of plants and herbs,
as well as their love of music. Expressing a wish to learn to play the
fiddle, the most expert musicians of King Boswell's crew at once began to
teach him the art, in their own wild way, without notes or other
scientific aid, but with the net result that he was able to perform to
his own satisfaction in the course of a few months. He now became a
constant visitor at King Boswell's tent, which he only neglected during
his courtship with Elizabeth Newton. This being broken off, in his grief
of unrequited affection John Clare was seized with a real passion for the
wild life of his gypsy friends, and resolved to join them in their
wanderings. He actually carried out this resolve, and enrolled himself as
a member of Boswell's crew for a few days; but at the end of this period
left them with much internal disgust. The poetry of gypsy life utterly
vanished on close examination, giving way to the most disagreeable prose.
Accustomed as John Clare was to humble fare under a poor roof, his nerves
could not stand the cookery at King Boswell's court. To fish odds and
ends of bones, bits of cabbage, and stray potatoes from a large iron pot,
in partnership with a number of grimy hands, and without so much as a
wooden, spoon, seemed unpleasant work to him, not to be sweetened by all
the charms of black eyes and a tune on the fiddle. He therefore told his
new friends that he could not stop with them; at which they were not very
sorry, seeing in him but a poor hand for making fancy baskets and
stealing young geese. Thus King Boswell and his secular friend parted to
their mutual satisfaction, John Clare returning once more to his
accustomed field and gardening operations. However, the poet, all his
life long, did not forget the gypsies; nor did they forget him. Whenever
any of 'Boswell's crew,' or, in their absence, their first cousins of
'Smith's crew' happened to be near John Clare, on a Saturday evening,