he knew; he had done so already, and he felt plenty more within; but
prose he had never yet attempted, and the task was a really grievous
one. This is his own account of his trouble, given in the
introduction to the "Village Minstrel:"--

"I have often dropped down five or six times, to plan an address. In
one of these musings my poor thoughts lost themselves in rhyme.
Taking a view, as I sat beneath the shelter of a woodland hedge, of
my parents' distresses at home, of my labouring so hard and so vainly
to get out of debt, and of my still added perplexities of ill-timed
love, striving to remedy all to no purpose, I burst out into an
exclamation of distress, 'What is life?' and instantly recollecting
that such a subject would be a good one for a poem, I hastily
scratted down the two first verses of it, as it stands, and continued
my journey to work." When he got to the limekiln he could not work
for thinking of the address which he had to write, "so I sat me down
on a lime scuttle," he says, "and out with my pencil, and when I had
finished I started off for Stamford with it." There he posted the
address to Mr. Henson. It ran as follows:--

"Proposals for publishing by subscription a Collection of Original
Trifles on Miscellaneous Subjects, Religious and Moral, in verse, by
John Clare, of Helpstone. The public are requested to observe that
the Trifles humbly offered for their candid perusal can lay no claim
to eloquence of composition: whoever thinks so will be deceived, the
greater part of them being juvenile productions, and those of later
date offsprings of those leisure intervals which the short remittance
from hard and manual labour sparingly afforded to compose them. It is
to be hoped that the humble situation which distinguishes their
author will be some excuse in their favour, and serve to make an