JOHN CLARE BY HIMSELF

'Autobiograhical fragments' that supplement the 'Sketches' in important ways. First of all they continue Clare's story fragmentarily down to the year 1828. Secondly, they provide pen-portraits of his literary acquaintances in London and describe his visits to the metropolis. They also include much additional material.

Clare wrote to H.F. Cary, the translator of Dante and biographer of Chatterton (one of Clare's heroes), on 30 December 1824 asking him to read his memoirs and to give his opinion of them.29 Cary replied on 19 February 1825, saying that he would 'read the memoirs of yourself which you propose sending me; & not fail to tell you, if I think you have spoken of others with more acrimony than you ought.'30 Clare, who was becoming increasingly disenchanted with John Taylor at this time, may have written some critical comments about him, but as The Shepherd's Calendar was in progress, Clare would not have wanted to imperil its publication. What were these memoirs: a more or less finished version drawn from the 'Autobiographic fragments', or the fragments themselves? If Clare were going to submit them to Cary, they would have had to be in a more finished form than they are in now, in the surviving manuscripts. The Tibbles suggest that Clare never sent anything to Cary,31 and certainly we hear no more about them in Cary's surviving correspondence. Yet even if they were never sent, the fact that many of them are crossed through or marked 'done for' suggests that Clare was following his usual practice of writing up a fair copy from his scattered notes. When Clare wrote to Cary, he spoke of having 'gotten 8 chapters done' and having 'carried it [the Memoirs] up to the publication of the "Poems on rural life &c." '32 This is clearly a reference to Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery. Northampton MS 14, on which Blunden' s edition of the 'Sketches' is based, shows no chapter divisions. Is Clare therefore referring to an expanded memoir - already planned when he wrote to Taylor back in 1821 -divided by December 1824 into eight chapters? Clare's Journal shows him at work on the life on 12 and 28September1824, and 20 November has the entry: 'finishd the 8th Chapter of my life'. 33

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