The sale of the 'Village Minstrel and other Poems,' was not large at the commencement, and the book was scarcely noticed by the literary periodicals of the day. Though containing verses far surpassing in beauty anything previously published by Clare, the work passed over the heads of critics and public alike as unworthy of consideration. It drew passing notes of praise from a few genuine admirers of poetry; but which resulted in nothing but a couple of letters to the author, and the present of some cheap books. From one of these letters, it appears that the ballad commencing 'I love thee, sweet Mary,' printed in the first volume of the 'Village Minstrel,' was read one evening at the house of a nobleman at the West End of London, before the assembled guests. All were in raptures about the sweetness of the softly-flowing stream of verse, and all inquired eagerly after the author. But there was but one person in the room who knew anything about him; and his whole knowledge consisted in the fact, told somewhere by somebody, that Clare was a young 'peasant,' formerly very poor, but now in a state of affluence through a most liberal subscription fund, amounting to some twenty thousand pounds, which had been collected for him and invested in the Funds. The news gave universal satisfaction to the distinguished company; and though none had contributed a penny to the wonderful subscription list, every guest felt an inward pride of living in a land offering the bountiful reward of 'the Funds' to poetic genius, born in obscurity. After the applause had subsided, the portrait of Clare, prefixed to the 'Village Minstrel,' passed round the circle of noble West End visitors. All pronounced the face to be highly _distingué_, and one young lady enthusiastically declared that John Clare looked 'like a nobleman in disguise.' In which saying there was a certain amount of truth.
Notwithstanding many unfavourable circumstances, and the ill-considered zeal of his patrons, who continued to importune the public with demands for charitable contributions, the coldness with which Clare's new work was received at its appearance, was really very extraordinary. The greatest share of it, in all probability, was due to the period of publication, which could not well have been more ill-timed. Besides the natural anxiety of a civilized community to read, in preference to cheap rural poetry, verses paid for at the rate of 'a guinea a word,' or at the least 'five shillings a syllable,' there were many notable matters directing public attention away from village minstrelsy to other things. The book was brought out in the same month that the 'injured Queen of England' died; that the populace fought for the honour of participating in the funeral; and that royal lifeguardsmen killed the loyal people like rabbits in the streets of London. Political passions soared high, and public indignation was running still higher in newspapers and pamphlets. It was not to be expected that, at such a moment of universal excitement, there should be many people willing to withdraw to rural poetry. Thus Clare, 'piping low, in shade of lowly grove,' was condemned to pipe unheard, or very nearly so.