5th January 1825

Jiliflowers Polyanthuses Marigolds & the yellow yarrow are in flower & the double scarlet Anemone nearly out crocuses peeping out above ground swelling with flower the authoress Miss Kent of the Flora Domestica says the snowdrop is the first spring flower she is mistaken the yellow winter aconite is always earlier & the first on the list of spring.

To James Montgomery

Helpstone.
Jan. 5, 1825.

MY DEAR SIR
I copied the following verses from a MS on the flye-leaves of an old book entitled the Worlds Best Wealth, a Collection of choice Counsils in Verse & Prose printed for A. Bettesworth at the Red Lion in Paternoster Row 1720 they seem to have been written after the perusal of the book & are in the manner of the Company in which I found them, I think they are as good as a many old poems that have been preserved with more care & under that feeling I was tempted to send them thinking they might find a corner from Oblivion in your entertaining literary paper the 'Iris' but if my judgment has misled me to over-rate their merit you will excuse the freedom I have taken & the trouble I have given you in the perusal — for after all it is but an erring opinion that may have little else than the love of poesy to reccommend it

I am
Yours sincerely
JOHN CLARE