238 JOHN CLARE. 



had written anything lately, he said, " No, I haven't written a 

 line for a hundred and fifty years ; and I won't write any 

 more. It has brought me into bondage, and I want my liberty. 



I can plough, and sow, 

 And reap, and mow ; 



and I want to be a farmer's boy. I want to go into Northamp- 

 ton." Pitiful indeed was the tone in which the poor fellow 

 spoke; and soon he wandered away into the wildest extra- 

 vagances of his being a son of George III., and of his not being a 

 man at all, but a spirit, that could stand fire and water ; and of 

 dragons that came and flopped down in the yard with their 

 great wings about them ; and into still wilder and more painful 

 extravagances, till the surgeon stopped him by a touch on the 

 shoulder, and, " Ah ! Mr. Clare, that will do." It appears that 

 until within the last six or seven years he was frequently allowed to 

 leave the asylum and to go into Northampton, where, under the 

 walls of All Saints church, he used to sit giving out verses of 

 his own composition for beer and tobacco. These unwise indul- 

 gences, however, were at length discontinued, and he now remains 

 constantly within the grounds of the asylum, dead to the world 

 outside, and almost forgotten. 



But all this is beside the mark ; and as poor Clare has led us 

 away from our subject, he shall also bring us back. It is evening 

 then, good reader, and now 



" The owl mopes out, and scouting bats 



Begin their giddy round ; 

 While countless swarms of dancing gnats 

 Each water-pudge surround." 



Gnats, Bats, and Owls ! They are very properly associates 

 together ; for they are not only alike, things of the evening, but 

 they stand to each other in the relation of food and feeders the 

 Gnats in the first place helping to fatten the Bats, and these in 

 their turn falling a prey to the Owls. 



There are few animals perhaps which, so familiarly know 

 as the Bat, have at the same time been the subject of such 

 general misconception. Possessing certain obvious character- 

 istics in common with ordinary quadrupeds, and yet organized 

 for flight like birds, it has alternately been ranked with both 



