DEDICATION. TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE LORD-LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND. MY LORD: Among the papers which John Clare, the "Peasant Poet" of our county, left behind him, was one in which he desired that the Editor of his "Remains" should dedicate them " to Earl Spencer, with the author's last wishes.' That memorandum was written in the year 1825, when the poet was anticipating, to use his own words, a speedy entrance into "the dark porch of eternity, whence none returns to tell the tale of his reception." These melancholy forebodings were not realized, for although in a few years Clare became dead to the world, he lived on in seclusion to a patriarchal age. Meanwhile, |