Enclosure...

"... vile invasions of encroaching men"

Pet MS A29 p64

Better than an almanac?

"This curiosity often made him forget the corns which he was constantly troubled with & which he considered better than an almanack to tell the changes of the weather"

Pet MS A45 R14
In 'The Vicar's Sermon' from Clare's aborted novel "Memoirs of Uncle Barnaby" (Arbour Editions, 2017)

Avarice...


Image "Ignorance is bliss" by George Cruikshank

"Avarice is never without cunning      & that cunning that is never at a loss to invent a plausibility for every trick she causes      to make trumps so that she can pocket the money"

Pet MS A53 p17r

Our rulers...

A timely warning...

"To live by one mans will would be the cause of many mens misery"
Pet MS A45 p38

"Mount such on horseback & theyll ride to hell"
(The Parish, line 1295)


Beauty...

The beauty thro my life hath been
The muse of many a theme

Fragment EP II p531

A boy agen

"Lord might I be a king of men
Id sooner be a boy agen"

Pet MS A59 p49

Slavery...

Clare wrote this passage as part of his novel "Memoirs of Uncle Barnaby" in the mid-1820s.  The Slave-Trade was of course, abolished in 1807, but it was 1833 when slavery itself was abolished in the UK and Colonies.  Clare, of course, was ahead of his time.  Written, as is always our practice, exactly as Clare wrote in his manuscript.

"Talk not of distinction – look at the poor affrican     does the color of his skin forbid us to treat him with mercy     is his complextion the liscence for our inhumanity – is it a discontinuance of that link that enacts us to be humane to our fellow creatures in what ever grade or station we find them     is color & complextion any insult to our feelings     no"

"Memoirs of Uncle Barnaby" is planned to be published in the Spring of 2017 by Arbour Editions