ABSTRACT
Clare told Harry Stoe Van Dyk, a friend of whom had written this review, ‘tho I feel highly pleased with it I cannot dare to take all the praise to myself which you & some friend of yours has kindly given me’ (LJC, pp. 206–7). Van Dyk, a minor versifier, had helped to edit The Shepherd’s Calendar; he had told Clare on 19 October that ‘your new poems please me exceedingly—some of the thoughts are beautiful & their beauty is heightened by the simplicity & nature with which you have expressed them. I like thoughts as I like pretty women—the less dress upon them the better’ (PMS. F1, p. 82).
