"John Clare."

This review of The Poems of John Clare (edited by J.W. Tibble, London: Dent, 1935) touches on some of the themes addressed in Bates's first published essay, in 1921, "Northamptonshire Men of Letters, No. 1, John Clare; The Peasant Poet (1793-1864)."

Bates praises the "spirituality which was the most touching and impressive characteristic of Clare's years of lunacy: a characteristic which sets him eternally side by side with Blake and Vaughan."

In the London Mercury (May 1935, xxxii: 187, pp. 73-74, attached).