The great liberality of the Marquis of Exeter enabled Clare to carry out, without further delay, the wish of his heart, and to make 'Patty' his wife. Her parents, under the circumstances, had given up all their old opposition, and were not only willing, but most anxious, that Clare should cement his unhappy connexion with their daughter by the sacred ties of marriage. The due preparations were made accordingly, and on the 16th of March, 1820, John Clare and Martha Turner became man and wife. The event stands registered as follows in the records of Great Casterton Church:—

'John Clare of the Parish of Helpston Bachelor and Martha Turner of this
Parish Spinster were married in this Church by banns this 16th day of
March in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty by me Richard
Lucas.'

And underneath:—

'This marriage was solemnized between us,

JOHN CLARE

her

MARTHA+TURNER

mark.'

Little more than a month after the wedding, a child was born to Clare; a little girl, baptized Anna Maria. Mrs. Clare for a while remained at her father's house; but as soon as she was able to move, went to live with her husband, at the humble dwelling of his parents at Helpston, which, though scarcely large enough to contain the aged couple, had now to accommodate two families. Yet Clare felt happy in this narrow cottage, for, humble as it was, it presented to him a thousand cherished associations, and now became dearer than ever to his heart, as sheltering not only his beloved parents, but his dear wife and child. All his life long the Helpston cottage was to Clare his 'home of homes.'

Before removing with his young wife to his native village, the poet had to go through some exciting adventures in a journey to London. When one day at the house of Mr. Gilchrist, at Stamford, there arrived a letter from Mr. John Taylor, speaking in high terms of the success of the 'Poems of Rural Life,' which brought about the question, addressed to Clare: 'Should you like to go with me on a short visit to London?' John Clare was delighted at the idea, and eagerly expressed his wish to go; whereupon it was arranged that he and Mr. Gilchrist should set out on the journey at the end of a week. Patty cried when the news was brought to her; and old Parker Clare and his wife cried still more. In a few hours, the report spread like wildfire through Helpston that John Clare was going to London. There was but one man in the village who had ever been to the big town far away, and his account of it had filled the hearts of all the Helpston people with terror. This man, an old farm-labourer called James Burridge, as soon as he heard of Clare's intention to undertake the dreaded journey, hurried up to entreat him to abandon the plan. To enforce his advice, he gave a vivid description of the horrors awaiting the unwary traveller in the great metropolis, and the fearful dangers that beset his path on every side. One half the houses of London, he said, were inhabited by swindlers, thieves, and murderers, and a good part of the other half by their helpers and confederates, all on the look-out for the good people from the country. To catch their victims with the greater certainty, there were trap-doors in the pavement of the most frequented streets, which, when touched, let the wayfarer down into a deep cellar, and into a kettle of boiling water, surrounded by cut-throats who made all escape from the kettle impossible. The assassins, having killed the unhappy victim, and taken all his property, to the very shirt on his back, finally—culmination of horrors!—sold the body to the doctors. Such was the account which James Burridge gave of London, with the effect of striking terror into the hearts of his hearers. Parker Clare and his wife, with bitter tears, entreated their son not to leave them; and John himself, though slightly incredulous about some of the items in the tales of his friend Burridge, began to be seriously alarmed. But he was ashamed to confess his fears to Mr. Gilchrist; the more so, as a mere casual mentioning of the street-traps and the kettles of boiling water produced immoderate laughter. He therefore made his mind up to start on his dangerous journey like a hero. After bidding solemn farewell to wife and parents, and dressing, by the advice of James Burridge, in his worst clothes, to be the less a mark for thieves and cut-throats, John Clare very early one morning in April, 1820, started for Stamford, and having met Mr. Gilchrist took his seat precisely at seven o'clock in the 'Regent,' a famous four-horse coach, warranted to take passengers in thirteen hours to London. There was little talk on the road; John Clare had enough to do to look out of the window, marvelling at all the new sights open to his eyes. Thus the travellers passed through Stilton, Huntingdon, St. Neot's, Temsford, and Biggleswade, until at last, soon after dusk, the fiery glow of the horizon announced the neighbourhood of the big city. On being told that they were about to enter London, Clare became much excited; but there was time for the excitement to cool, for more than two hours elapsed before the heavy coach rumbled from the soft high road up to the hard-paved streets. At last, at nine o'clock in the evening, the 'Regent' stopped in front of the 'George and Blue Boar,' in Holborn, and John Clare alighted, utterly bewildered with all that he had seen during the day in the greatest journey he had ever made in his life.

Mr. Gilchrist took his friend to the house of his brother-in-law, a German named Burkhardt, proprietor of a jeweller's and watchmaker's shop in the Strand. Herr Burkhardt, a well-to-do tradesman, with a rubicund face and an inexhaustible stock of good humour, was excessively fond of showing strangers the sights of London; and his guests had no sooner arrived, than he wanted to take them to Covent Garden theatre. John Clare was very anxious to go, on hearing that Madam Vestris was reciting one of his poems at this place of entertainment; but finding that Octavius Gilchrist was disinclined to rise from his comfortable armchair, and with secret apprehension of the trap-doors and vessels of boiling water, he declared himself likewise in favour of the arm-chair, with hot whiskey and water. Worthy Herr Burkhardt had his full share of satisfaction the next day, when he had the pleasure of taking his brother-in-law and friend to Westminster Abbey, the Tower, Smithfield market, Newgate, and Vauxhall Gardens. John Clare was not so much astonished as disappointed with all that his eyes beheld in the great metropolis. Standing upon Westminster Bridge, he compared the River Thames with Whittlesea Mere, and found it wanting; the sight of the Tower, of Newgate, and of Smithfield, engendered not the least admiration; and as for the Poet's Corner in the Abbey, he loudly declared that he could see no poetry whatever about it. But what hurt the feelings of Herr Burkhardt most of all, was the utter contempt Clare showed for the delights of Vauxhall. The tinsel and the oil-lamps, the wooden bowers and paper flowers, struck Clare as perfectly absurd, and he expressed his astonishment that people should go and stare at such childish things, with a world of wonder and of beauty lying all around it in the green fields. The worthy jeweller of the Strand was amazed, and privately confided to his brother-in-law that he thought his companion, 'a very stupid man from the country.'

John Clare stayed a week in London, and during the whole of this time felt painfully uncomfortable in his threadbare suit of labourer's clothes, patched top and bottom, with leather baffles and gaiters to match. He fancied, when walking along the streets, that everybody was staring and laughing at his smock frock; and the sound of his heavy hob-nailed shoes startled him whenever he entered a house. What made things worse was, that Mr. Gilchrist wanted to draw him into many fine places and among high and wealthy people, for whose company Clare felt an instinctive dislike. He knew that they could not look upon him otherwise than in the light of a rustic curiosity, and being unwilling to play the part of a newly-discovered monkey or hippopotamus, he absolutely refused to go to parties and meetings to which he had been invited. However, a few of the visits were indispensable, such as presentation to Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, and their friends. Mr. John Taylor, on meeting Clare, perceived at once that one reason of his excessive reluctance to show himself was his scant stock of clothing, and mentioning the matter with great frankness, he offered him a suitable dress. But Clare refused to take anything, except an ancient overcoat somewhat too large for him, but useful as hiding his whole figure from the top of the head down to the heels. In this brigand-like mantle he henceforth made all his visits, unwilling to take it off even at dinner, and in rooms hot to suffocation.

It made a deep impression upon Clare that, with all his awkwardness, homely speech, and ragged clothes, he was, for the first time in his life, treated as an equal by Mr. Taylor's friends, and other gentlemen whom he visited at London. The example of his patrons in the country, who, after praising his talents in the drawing-room, sent him down to the kitchen for his dinner, had already pauperized him to such an extent that he was quite startled when Mr. Taylor, on his second visit to the shop in Fleet Street, asked him to meet several men of rank and talent, among them Lord Radstock, at dinner the same evening. He would gladly have declined, but was not allowed to do so, being told that it would be a thorough breach of good manners to refuse to see his friends, the admirers of his poems. Clare went, with much fear and trembling; but came to be at ease before long. He sat next to Lord Radstock, and this gentleman, with an extreme tact and knowledge of character, at once succeeded in gaining his whole confidence. It proved the beginning of a friendship which lasted for years, and spread its influence over Clare's whole life. William Waldegrave, Baron Radstock, Admiral of the Red, was a gentleman much known at this period in the literary and artistic circles of London. A younger son of the third Earl of Waldegrave, born in 1758, he was bred to the naval profession, became a captain at the age of eighteen, and commander of a fine frigate soon after, so that the way to fame and distinction was marked out for him clearly and forcibly. But not content to be lifted in the world solely by reason of birth, he, from an early age, devoted himself to independent pursuits, and became a scholar and a poet even before he was a captain in the Royal Navy. The scientific and literary tastes of the young nobleman were greatly fostered by his marriage, in 1785, with the second daughter of David Van Lennep, chief of the Dutch factory at Smyrna, a lady of most genial disposition and an education very superior to her age. William Waldegrave was appointed admiral in 1794; distinguishing himself at the naval fight off Cape Lagos, in 1797; and having been advanced, three years after, to the dignity of Baron Radstock, of Castletown, Queen's County, quietly settled with his family in London, to give himself entirely up to his favourite studies and pursuits. On the appearance of Clare's poems, he at once felt greatly interested in the author, and being acquainted with Mr. John Taylor, heard of his arrival in London, and arranged to meet him at dinner. So it came that John Clare, in his smock frock, leather gaiters, and brigand mantle, found himself sitting at the right hand of the Right Honourable Lord Radstock, son of an earl, and admiral in the Royal Navy.

Lord Radstock's simple, sailor-like speech, distant alike from condescension and studious politeness, had the effect of at once opening the pent-up affections of John Clare. For the first time since his arrival in London, he found somebody to whom he could speak in full confidence, and he did so to his heart's desire, prattling like a child about trees and flowers, fields and meadows, birds and sunshine, and not at all disguising his dislike to the big town in which he now found himself. As the dinner went on, Clare became still more communicative, tenderly encouraged by the sympathising friend at his side. He spoke of his struggles, his aims, and aspirations; his burning desire to soar upward on the wings of poetry, and his constant battling for the barest necessities of life, the mere daily bread. Lord Radstock was deeply touched; he had seen many authors, writers of prose and of verse, in the course of his life, but never such a poet as this. Clare did not in the least complain of his existence; he merely described it, in simple, graphic utterance, the truth of which was stamped on every word and look. The admiral, before meeting John Clare, had admired him as a poet; he now began to feel far deeper admiration for him as a man. He told him in a few kind and affectionate words, speaking as a father would to his son, that he intended to be his friend, and Clare warmly shook the hand offered to him. It was late at night when the party broke up at Mr. Taylor's, and Lord Radstock and John Clare were the last to leave the house together.

During the few days that Clare remained in London, he was almost constantly in Lord Radstock's company. The latter, anxious to introduce his young friend to persons who he thought might be useful to him in life, led him to a great number of places, one more uncomfortable than the other. Clare suffered much, but had not the courage to confess it to his noble patron, whose good intentions he fully understood. So he kept on trotting from one drawing-room to the other, with his heavy mud-bespattered shoes, his immense coat, a world too large for his thin, short body, and his long unkempt hair, hanging down in wild confusion over the shoulders. His friends soon got accustomed to the sight, and thought no more of it, and strangers willingly excused the garb as born of the 'eccentricity of genius;' but Clare himself, with his extreme sensibility, felt daily mortification on contrasting his own appearance with that of the people he met, and suffered tortures in thinking himself an object of general ridicule. The feeling was aggravated by the fact that he met but few persons he liked, and in whose conversation he took an interest. Among these few was Mrs. Emmerson, an authoress of some talent, and contributor to the 'London Magazine,' to whom he was introduced by Lord Radstock. John Clare at the first interview was not at all favourably impressed by this lady; for she assumed what he fancied to be a theatrical air; burst out in bitter laments about what she termed the 'desolate appearance' of her visitor, and wept that 'so much genius and so much poverty' should go together. All this was very unpleasant to Clare; particularly the 'desolate appearance,' which he took to be an unmerited allusion to his great coat. In return, the poet, stung to the quick, replied in a few cold and sarcastic words, which irritated Lord Radstock so much that, on leaving the place, he reproached his companion for his apparent want of feeling. Subsequent interviews greatly modified Clare's first impression, for he found Mrs. Emmerson not only a most amiable, kind-hearted lady, but a true and faithful friend, whose advice and assistance often proved of the greatest service to him.

Having stayed a week in London, in a continual round of visits to dinner parties, soirees, and theatrical entertainments—which latter did not impress him very much—John Clare again went, in the company of Mr. Gilchrist, to the 'George and Blue Boar,' Holborn, and took seat for the return journey to Stamford. He was heartily glad to get away from the big town, yearning for his old haunts, the quiet woods, streams, and meadows, and the little cottage among the fields with his wife and darling baby. It seemed to him an immense time since he had left these everyday scenes of his existence; it was as if his whole life had changed in the interval. He felt like one in a dream when the coach went rolling northward along the high road, through fields in which labourers were busy with plough and spade. It was not so very long ago that he had been just such a labourer: how strange that he should now loll upon soft cushions, in a coach drawn by four horses, while others like him kept on digging and ploughing in the sweat of their brow. And would he be ever content to dig and plough again, after having tasted the sweets of a more genial existence, treading upon carpeted floors and dining with lords? Such were the thoughts and questions that arose tumultuously in his mind, in the long ride from London to Stamford. He had not the courage to face them and think them out, feeling his brain begin to ache, and his heart to throb in wild excitement. Then there flickered before his eye the vision of wife and babe in the little cottage at home, and the tumult of his soul changed into bliss. He determined to be happy, as of yore, in the green fields among his former friends, and to dismiss all thoughts of changing his old course of life. It was late at night when the coach rattled into Stamford; but John Clare would not hear of stopping at his friend's house, even for a few minutes. The clouds were dark overhead, and no lights visible anywhere; yet through night and darkness he groped his way home, and bursting into his little hut, clasped wife and babe in his arms.