as an apprentice, on condition that Clare found his own tools, but
the youth's aversion to the trade was too great to be overcome.
After that his father applied to the head gardener at Burghley Park,
who engaged Clare on the terms of a three years' apprenticeship,
with eight shillings per week for the first year and an advance of
one shilling per week in each succeeding year. The engagement was
considered by Clare's father and mother to be a very fortunate and
promising one, but it proved to be in a high degree prejudicial to
his welfare. He was thrown into the society of a set of coarse-
minded, intemperate fellows who insisted on his accompanying them in
their frequent and forbidden visits to public houses in the
neighbourhood. Mr. Martin informs us that it was the custom at
Burghley to lock up at night all the workmen and apprentices
employed under the head gardener, to prevent them from robbing the
orchards, and that they regularly made their escape through a
window. On several occasions Clare was overcome by drink and slept
in the open air, with consequences to his delicate frame which may
easily be imagined. It would appear that the head gardener set the
example of habitual drunkenness to his subordinates, and that he
was, moreover, of brutal disposition, which will account for the
circumstance of the flight of Clare from Burghley Park, after he had
been there nearly a year. Accompanied by a fellow-apprentice he
walked to Grantham, a distance of twenty-two miles, and thence to
Newark, where the youths obtained employment under a nurseryman. But
Clare very shortly became homesick, and he returned to his parents
in a state of complete destitution.

The most lamentable consequence of the roystering life which Clare
led with the gardeners at Burghley was, that he acquired a fondness
for strong drink with which he had to struggle, not always