took of himself and his powers, and it helped to give him immense
confidence. Timid hitherto and entirely distrustful of his own abilities,
he now felt himself imbued with strength never known, and under the
impulse of this feeling determined to make another attempt to rise from
his low condition. The idea occurred to him of printing his verses, and
of coming openly before the world as a poet. Each time he had written a
new verse with which he was pleased, his confidence grew; though his
hopes fell again when he set himself thinking the matter over, and
dwelling upon the difficulties in his way. This inward struggle lasted
nearly a year, in the course of which there occurred another notable
event, which in its consequences grew to be one of the most important of
his whole life.

Every Sunday afternoon, the labourers at Mr. Wilder's lime-kiln were in
the habit of visiting a small public-house, at the hamlet of Tickencote,
called 'the Flower Pot.' Thirsty, like all of their tribe, they spent
hours in carousing; while John Clare, after having had his glass or two,
went into the fields, and, sitting by a hedge, or lying down under a
tree, surveyed the glories of nature, feasting his eyes upon the
thousandfold beauties of earth and sky. It was on one of these Sunday
afternoons, in the autumn of 1817--Clare now past twenty-four--that he
saw for the first time 'Patty,' his future wife. She was walking on a
footpath across the fields, while he was lying in the grass not far off,
dreaming worlds of beauty and ethereal bliss. Patty stepped right into
his ideal realm, and thus, unknown to herself, became part and parcel of
it. She was a fair girl of eighteen, slender, with regular features, and
pretty blue eyes; but to Clare, at the moment, she seemed far more than
fair, slender, and pretty. He watched her across the field, and when she
disappeared from sight, John Clare, almost instinctively, climbed to the
top of a tree, to discover the direction in which she was going. His