The Life of John Clare | Page 2

impress of many emperors, from Trajan to
Valens, are found everywhere below ground, while above the Romans
left a yet nobler memento of their sojourn in the shape of good roads.
Except the modern iron highways, these old Roman roads form still the
chief means of intercommunication at this border of the fen regions.
For many generations after Durobrivae had been deserted by the
imperial legions, the country went downward in the scale of civilization.
Stipendiary and other unhappy knights came in shoals; monks and nuns
settled in swarms, like crows, upon the fertile marsh lands; but the
number of labouring hands began to decrease as acre after acre got into
the possession of mail-clad barons and mitred abbots. The monks, too,
vanished in time, as well as the fighting knights; yet the face of the land
remained silent and deserted, and has remained so to the present
moment. The traveller from the north can see, for thirty miles over the
bleak and desolate fen regions, the stately towers of Burleigh Hall--but

can see little else beside. All the country, as far as eye can reach, is the
property of two or three noble families, dwelling in turreted halls; while
the bulk of the population, the wretched tillers of the soil, live, as of old,
in mud hovels, in the depth of human ignorance and misery. An
aggregate of about a hundred of these hovels, each containing, on the
average, some four living beings, forms the village of Helpston. The
place, in all probability, is still very much of the same outer aspect
which it bore in the time of Helpo, the mystic stipendiary knight.
Helpston consists of two streets, meeting at right angles, the main
thoroughfare being formed by the old Roman road from Durobrivae to
the north, now full of English mud, and passing by the name of Long
Ditch, or High Street. At the meeting of the two streets stands an
ancient cross, of octangular form, with crocketed pinnacles, and not far
from it, on slightly rising ground, is the parish church, a somewhat
unsightly structure, of all styles of architecture, dedicated to St.
Botolph. Further down stretch, in unbroken line, the low huts of the
farm labourers, in one of which, lying on the High Street, John Clare
was born, on the 13th July, 1793. John Clare's parents were among the
poorest of the village, as their little cottage was among the narrowest
and most wretched of the hundred mud hovels. Originally, at the time
when the race of peasant-proprietors had not become quite extinct, a
rather roomy tenement, it was broken up into meaner quarters by
subsequent landlords, until at last the one house formed a rookery of
not less than four human dwellings. In this fourth part of a hut lived the
father and mother of John, old Parker Clare and his wife. Poor as were
their neighbours, they were poorer than the rest, being both weak and in
ill health, and partly dependent upon charity. The very origin of Parker
Clare's family was founded in misery and wretchedness. Some thirty
years previous to the birth of John, there came into Helpston a big,
swaggering fellow, of no particular home, and, as far as could be
ascertained, of no particular name: a wanderer over the earth, passing
himself off, now for an Irishman, and now for a Scotchman. He had
tramped over the greater part of Europe, alternately fighting and
playing the fiddle; and being tired awhile of tramping, and footsore and
thirsty withal, he resolved to settle for a few weeks, or months, at the
quiet little village. The place of schoolmaster happened to be vacant,
perhaps had been vacant for years; and the villagers were overjoyed

when they heard that this noble stranger, able to play the fiddle, and to
drink a gallon of beer at a sitting, would condescend to teach the A B C
to their children. So 'Master Parker,' as the great unknown called
himself for the nonce, was duly installed schoolmaster of Helpston:
The event, taking place sometime about the commencement of the
reign of King George the Third, marks the first dawn of the family
history of John Clare.
The tramping schoolmaster had not been many days in the village
before he made the acquaintance of a pretty young damsel, daughter of
the parish-clerk. She came daily to wind the church clock, and for this
purpose had to pass through the schoolroom, where sat Master Parker,
teaching the A B C and playing the fiddle at intervals. He was as clever
with his tongue as with his fiddlestick, the big schoolmaster; and while
helping the sweet little maiden to wind the clock in the belfry, he told
her wonderful tales of his doings in foreign lands, and of his