Did Clare write nonsense?

[Image: Nicholas Parry]

An amusing example of how dangerous it is to think that Clare ever wrote nonsense is the following quotation from P.M.S. Dawson’s edition of the prose:

“… you live in the midst of delicaseys have you got to add on corpulency”

We pondered this nonsense, in a very faint manuscript, for some time but could not see how to read it any differently.  

First, should there be a sentence after ‘delicaseys’?  

Second, we began to think about the words ‘on corpulency’ which suggested to us a medical title?

If the latter was so, then the problem is in the reading ‘to add’ which could be a mis-reading of an author’s name?  Much examination of the manuscript and thought ensued.  Instead of ‘to add’, was it possible to read ‘Wadd’ or ‘wadd’ ?  Was there an author of that name?

Don’t you know it there was!  William Wadd was surgeon to the Prince Regent and published a book in 1829 with the title, “On Corpulency”.  Considering how fat the Prince Regent was, corpulency might well have been of interest to his medical adviser!  

But could it also have been of great interest to Clare, since the most famous man in Stamford at the time was Daniel Lambert, who was also the fattest man in England. Wadd discusses Lambert’s case, thus what at first appears to be nonsense, turns out to be very meaningful indeed.

Clare also comments to Alan Cunningham living in Edinburgh at the time of the Burke and Hare murders, as his being “in the midst of delicaseys”.  These murders were fully reported in all British newspapers at the time that Clare was writing to AC.

(Eric R & Roger R)