how it should be presented to the public. Clare grew up in a time of massive changes in town and countryside as the Industrial Revolution swept Europe. Many former agricultural and craft workers, including children, moved from the countryside to crowded cities, as factory work mechanized. The Agricultural Revolution saw pastures ploughed up, trees and hedges uprooted, fens drained and commons enclosed. This destruction of an ancient way of life distressed Clare. His political and social views were mainly conservative. ("I am as far as my politics reaches 'King and Country' – no Innovations in Religion and Government say I.") He refused even to complain of the subordinate position to which English society had placed him, swearing that "with the old dish that was served to my forefathers I am content." His early work expresses delight in nature and the cycle of the rural year. Poems such as "Winter Evening", "Haymaking" and "Wood Pictures in Summer" mark the beauty of the world and the certainties of rural life, where animals must be fed and crops harvested. Poems such as "Little Trotty Wagtail" show his sharp observation of wildlife, though "The Badger" shows a lack of sentiment about the place of animals in the countryside. At this time he often used poetic forms such as the sonnet and the rhyming couplet. His later poetry tends to be more meditative and use forms similar to the folk songs and ballads of his youth. An example of this is "Evening". Clare's knowledge of the natural world went far beyond that of the major Romantic poets. However, poems such as "I Am" show a metaphysical depth parallel with his contemporary poets and many of his pre-asylum poems deal with intricate play on the nature of linguistics. His "bird's nest poems", it can be argued, display the self-awareness and obsession with the creative process that captivated the romantics. Clare was the most influential poet, apart from Wordsworth, to prefer an older style. In a foreword to the 2011 anthology The Poetry of Birds, the broadcaster and bird-watcher Tim Dee notes that Clare wrote about 147 species of British wild birds "without any technical kit whatsoever". Essays The only Clare essay to appear in his lifetime was "Popularity of Authorship", which described anonymously his predicament in 1824. Other essays by Clare to appear posthumously were "Essays on Landscape", "Essays on Criticism and Fashion", "Recollections on a