so hostile to its development. And all this is found here without any
of those distressing and revolting alloys which too often debase the
native worth of genius, and make him who was gifted with powers to
command admiration live to be the object of contempt or pity. The
lower the condition of its possessor the more unfavourable,
generally, has been the effect of genius on his life. That this has
not been the case with Clare may, perhaps, be imputed to the absolute
depression of his fortune. When we hear the consciousness of
possessing talent, and the natural irritability of the poetic
temperament, pleaded in extenuation of the follies and vices of men
in high life, let it be accounted no mean praise to such a man as
Clare that with all the excitements of their sensibility to his
station he has preserved a fair character amid dangers which
presumption did not create and difficulties which discretion could
not avoid. In the real troubles of life, when they are not brought on
by the misconduct of the individual, a strong mind acquires the power
of righting itself after each attack, and this philosophy, not to
call it by a better name, Clare possesses. If the expectations of a
'better life,' which he cannot help indulging, should all be
disappointed by the coldness with which this volume may be received,
he can 'put up with distress, and be content.' In one of his letters
he says, 'If my hopes don't succeed the hazard is not of much
consequence: if I fall, I am advanced at no great distance from my
low condition: if I sink for want of friends my old friend Necessity
is ready to help me as before. It was never my fortune as yet to meet
advancement from friendship: my fate has ever been hard labour among
the most vulgar and lowest conditions of men, and very small is the
pittance hard labour allows me, though I always toiled even beyond my
strength to obtain it.' To see a man of talent struggling under great
adversity with such a spirit must surely excite in every generous