met his old friend Mrs. Marsh, the wife of the Bishop of Peterborough.
A few nights later as her guest he sat in the Peterborough theatre
watching the "Merchant of Venice." So vivid was his imagination--for
doubtless the strolling players were not in themselves convincing--that
he at last began to shout at Shylock and try to attack him on the stage.
When Clare returned to Helpston, the change in him terrified his wife.
And yet, he rallied and walked the fields, and sitting on the window-seat
taught his sons to trim the two yew-trees in his garden into old-fashioned
circles and cones. The positive signs of derangement which he had given so
far were not after all conclusive. He had seen Mary Joyce pass by, he had
spoken to her, occasionally he as a third person had watched and discussed
the doings of John Clare and this lost sweetheart. He had surprised one or
two people by calling mole-hills mountains. One day, too, at Parson
Mossop's house he had suddenly pointed to figures moving up and down.
Under these circumstances, a Market Deeping doctor named Skrimshaw
certified him mad; and on similar grounds almost any one in the world
might be clapped into an asylum.

Hallucinations ceased for a few months, but Mrs. Clare had difficulty
in keeping outside interference at bay. Earl Fitzwilliam, in his
position of landlord, proposed to send the man who called mole-hills
mountains at once to the Northampton Asylum. When the summer came,
unfortunately, Clare's mind seemed suddenly to give way, and
preparations were being made for his admission to the county Asylum
when letters came from Taylor and other old friends in London,
proposing to place him in private hands. Clare was taken accordingly
on the 16th of July, 1837, to Fair Mead House, Highbeach, in Epping
Forest.

Dr. Allen, the mild broad-minded founder of this excellent asylum, had