CLARE, JOHN English poet, known as "the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet," was born at Helpstone, near Peterborough. He was the son of a farm-labourer, and when he was 12 or 13 began to work on a farm himself, attending a school in the evenings. At 16 he fell deeply in love with Mary Joyce, the daughter of a prosperous farmer, who forbade her to meet her lover. Clare never forgot this first love, and in his periods of in sanity, long after Mary's death, he used to hold conversations with her, under the delusion that she still lived and was his wife. He tried his hand at many trades, was gardener at Burghley park, enlisted in the militia, and in 1817 worked as a lime-burner; from his last place he was discharged for spending his working hours in distributing copies of a prospectus of a book of his poems, and he was obliged to accept parish relief. The prospectus failed to attract subscribers, but luckily in 1817 a bookseller at Stamford, named Drury, noticed one of Clare's poems, "The Setting Sun," by chance, and befriended the author, introducing him to John Taylor, the publisher of Keats and Shelley. Taylor published Clare's Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820), which attracted great attention, and his Village Minstrel and other Poems (1821). The poet was now comparatively prosper ous with an annuity of £45. obtained by the patronage of Lord Exeter and other subscribers; but in 1820 he had married Patty Turner, and a growing family made his income inadequate. The Shepherd's Calendar (182 7) met with little success, and Clare started farm labour again. Worry and overwork made him seri ously ill. Earl Fitzwilliam gave him a new cottage and a piece of ground in 1832 but Clare could not settle down; gradually his mind gave way. He was still writing verse, but his last work, the Rural Muse (1835), was noticed by "Christopher North" alone. For some time he had shown signs of insanity; and in 1837, in spite of the efforts of his wife to prevent outside inter ference, he was removed to a private asylum. He seemed happy there, but after a time decided to go home, and set out to walk all the way. Then he was taken to the Northampton general luna tic asylum, where he remained, amusing himself by writing poetry, until his death.