him. This thrilled him with a delight of which he often afterwards
spoke, but though he distinctly recollected the vivid pleasure which
the recital gave him he could never recall either the incidents or
the language. It may almost be taken for granted that so soon as
Clare could write he began to rhyme. The Editor of this volume has
before him the book in which the boy set down his arithmetical and
geometrical exercises while a pupil of Mr. Merrishaw, and in this
book are scribbled in pencil a few undecipherable lines commencing,
"Good morning to ye, ballad-singing thrush." He was thirteen years
old when an incident occurred which gave a powerful impulse to his
dawning genius. A companion had shown him Thomson's "Seasons," and he
was seized with an irrepressible desire to possess a copy. He
ascertained that the book might be bought at Stamford for
eighteenpence, and he entreated his father to give him the money. The
poor man pleaded all too truthfully his poverty, but his mother, by
great exertions, contrived to scrape together sevenpence, and the
deficiency was made up by loans from friends in the village. Next
Sunday, John rose long before the dawn and walked to Stamford, a
distance of seven miles, to buy a copy of the "Seasons," ignorant or
forgetful of the fact that business was suspended on that day. After
waiting for three or four hours before the shop to which he had been
directed, he learnt from a passer-by that it would not be re-opened
until the following morning, and he returned to Helpstone with a
heavy heart. Next day he repeated his journey and bore off the
much-coveted volume in triumph. He read as he walked back to
Helpstone, but meeting with many interruptions clambered over the
wall surrounding Burghley Park, and throwing himself on the grass
read the volume through twice over before rising. It was a fine
spring morning, and under the influence of the poems, the singing of
birds, and the bright sunshine, he composed "The Morning Walk." This