Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends
by John Keats · English · Gutenberg #35698 · 809,015 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends
Author: John Keats
Editor: Sidney Colvin
Release date: March 28, 2011 [eBook #35698]
Language: English
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[Illustration: JOHN KEATS.
Portrait by Joseph Severn in the National Portrait Gallery.]
LETTERS OF JOHN KEATS TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS
Edited by Sidney Colvin
With Frontispiece
Macmillan and Co., Limited
St. Martin's Street, London
1925
Copyright
First Edition (Globe 8vo) June 1891
Reprinted October 1891, 1918, 1921
Reprinted (Crown 8vo) 1925
Printed in Great Britain
CONTENTS
LETTER DATE PAGE
PREFACE xi
1. TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE Oct. 13, 1816 1
2. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Nov. 20, 1816 1
3. " " Nov. 20, 1816 2
4. TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE Dec. 17, 1816 2
5. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Mar. 2, 1817? 3
6. " " Mar. 17, 1817 4
7. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS April 15, 1817 4
8. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS April 17, 1817 6
9. TO LEIGH HUNT May 10, 1817 10
10. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON May 10, 1817 13
11. TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY May 16, 1817 17
12. " " July 8, 1817 19
13. TO MARIANE AND JANE REYNOLDS Sept. 5, 1817 19
14. TO FANNY KEATS Sept. 10, 1817 21
15. TO JANE REYNOLDS Sept. 14, 1817 24
16. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Sept. 21, 1817 28
17. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Sept. 28, 1817 32
18. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Oct. 8, 1817 33
19. " " About Nov. 1, 1817 36
20. " " Nov. 5, 1817 39
21. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Nov. 1817 40
22. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Nov. 22, 1817 40
23. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Nov. 22, 1817 44
24. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Dec. 22, 1817 46
25. " " Jan. 5, 1818 48
26. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Jan. 10, 1818 53
27. TO JOHN TAYLOR Jan. 10, 1818 53
28. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Jan. 13-20, 1818 54
29. TO JOHN TAYLOR Jan. 23, 1818 56
30. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Jan. 23, 1818 57
31. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Jan. 23, 1818 61
32. TO JOHN TAYLOR Jan. 30, 1818 64
33. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Jan. 31, 1818 65
34. " " Feb. 3, 1818 67
35. TO JOHN TAYLOR Feb. 5, 1818 71
36. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Feb. 14, 1818 71
37. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Feb. 19, 1818 73
38. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Feb. 21, 1818 75
39. TO JOHN TAYLOR Feb. 27, 1818 77
40. TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY Mar. 1818? 78
41. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Mar. 13, 1818 78
42. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Mar. 14, 1818 82
43. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Mar. 21, 1818 85
44. TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY Mar. 21, 1818 88
45. TO JAMES RICE Mar. 24, 1818 88
46. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Mar. 25, 1818 90
47. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON April 8, 1818 94
48. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS April 9, 1818 96
49. " " April 10, 1818 98
50. TO JOHN TAYLOR April 24, 1818 99
51. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS April 27, 1818 100
52. " " May 3, 1818 103
53. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY May 28, 1818 109
54. " " June 10, 1818 111
55. TO JOHN TAYLOR June 21, 1818 114
56. TO THOMAS KEATS June 29-July 2, 1818 114
57. TO FANNY KEATS July 2-4, 1818 118
58. TO THOMAS KEATS July 2-9, 1818 123
59. " " July 10-14, 1818 127
60. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS July 11-13, 1818 132
61. TO THOMAS KEATS July 17-21, 1818 136
62. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY July 18-22, 1818 142
63. TO THOMAS KEATS July 23-26, 1818 147
64. " " Aug. 3, 1818 153
65. TO MRS. WYLIE Aug. 6, 1818 158
66. TO FANNY KEATS Aug. 18, 1818 161
67. " " Aug. 25, 1818 162
68. TO JANE REYNOLDS Sept. 1, 1818 162
69. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Sept. 21, 1818 163
70. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS About Sept. 22, 1818 165
71. TO FANNY KEATS Oct. 9, 1818 166
72. TO JAMES AUGUSTUS HESSEY Oct. 9, 1818 167
73. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS Oct. 13-31, 1818 168
74. TO FANNY KEATS Oct. 16, 1818 182
75. " " Oct. 26, 1818 183
76. TO RICHARD WOODHOUSE Oct. 27, 1818 183
77. TO FANNY KEATS Nov. 5, 1818 185
78. TO JAMES RICE Nov. 24, 1818 186
79. TO FANNY KEATS Dec. 1, 1818 187
80. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS {About Dec. 18,
{1818-Jan. 4, 1819 187
81. TO RICHARD WOODHOUSE Dec. 18, 1818 210
82. TO MRS. REYNOLDS Dec. 22, 1818 211
83. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Dec. 22, 1818 211
84. TO JOHN TAYLOR Dec. 24, 1818 212
85. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Dec. 27, 1818 213
86. TO FANNY KEATS Dec. 30, 1818 213
87. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Jan. 4, 1819 214
88. " " {Between Jan. 7
{and 14, 1819 214
89. " " Jan. 1819 215
90. TO FANNY KEATS Jan. 1819 215
91. " " Feb. 11, 1819 216
92. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS Feb. 14-May 3, 1819 217
93. TO FANNY KEATS Feb. 27, 1819 262
94. " " Mar. 13, 1819 263
95. " " Mar. 24, 1819 264
96. TO JOSEPH SEVERN Mar. 29? 1819 265
97. TO FANNY KEATS April 13, 1819 265
98. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON April 13, 1819 267
99. TO FANNY KEATS April 17, 1819? 268
100. " " May 13, 1819 270
101. " " May 26, 1819 270
102. " " June 9, 1819 271
103. TO JAMES ELMES June 12, 1819 272
104. TO FANNY KEATS June 14, 1819 272
105. " " June 16, 1819 273
106. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON June 17, 1819 274
107. TO FANNY KEATS July 6, 1819 275
108. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS July 11, 1819 276
109. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE July 31, 1819 277
110. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Aug. 15, 1819 280
111. TO JOHN TAYLOR Aug. 23, 1819 281
112. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Aug. 25, 1819 282
113. TO FANNY KEATS Aug. 28, 1819 283
114. TO JOHN TAYLOR Sept. 1, 1819 286
115. " " Sept. 5, 1819 286
116. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS Sept. 17-27, 1819 290
117. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Sept. 22, 1819 319
118. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Sept. 22, 1819 322
119. TO CHARLES BROWN Sept. 23, 1819 325
120. " " Sept. 23, 1819 327
121. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Oct. 1, 1819 328
122. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Oct. 3, 1819 328
123. TO FANNY KEATS Oct. 16, 1819 331
124. TO JOSEPH SEVERN Oct. 27? 1819 332
125. TO JOHN TAYLOR Nov. 17, 1819 333
126. TO FANNY KEATS Nov. 17, 1819 334
127. TO JOSEPH SEVERN Dec. 6? 1819 334
128. TO JAMES RICE Dec. 1819 335
129. TO FANNY KEATS Dec. 20, 1819 335
130. " " Dec. 22, 1819 337
131. TO GEORGIANA KEATS Jan. 13-28, 1820 338
132. TO FANNY KEATS Feb. 6, 1820 347
133. " " Feb. 8, 1820 348
134. " " Feb. 11, 1820 350
135. " " Feb. 14, 1820 350
136. TO JAMES RICE Feb. 16, 1820 350
137. TO FANNY KEATS Feb. 19, 1820 352
138. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Feb. 23 or 25, 1820 352
139. TO FANNY KEATS Feb. 24, 1820 353
140. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Mar. 4, 1820 354
141. TO FANNY KEATS Mar. 20, 1820 355
142. " " April 1, 1820 356
143. " " April 1820 357
144. " " April 12, 1820 357
145. " " April 21, 1820 357
146. " " May 4, 1820 358
147. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE May 1820 359
148. TO JOHN TAYLOR June 11, 1820 360
149. TO CHARLES BROWN June 1820 360
150. TO FANNY KEATS June 26, 1820 362
151. " " July 5, 1820 363
152. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON July 1820 363
153. TO FANNY KEATS July 22, 1820 364
154. " " Aug. 14, 1820 364
155. TO PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Aug. 1820 365
156. TO JOHN TAYLOR Aug. 14, 1820 367
157. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Aug. 1820 367
158. TO CHARLES BROWN Aug. 1820 368
159. TO FANNY KEATS Aug. 23, 1820 368
160. TO CHARLES BROWN Aug. 1820 370
161. " " Sept. 28, 1820 370
162. TO MRS. BRAWNE Oct. 24, 1820 372
163. TO CHARLES BROWN Nov. 1, 2, 1820 374
164. " " Nov. 30, 1820 376
PREFACE
The object of the present volume is to supply the want, which many readers
must have felt, of a separate and convenient edition of the letters of
Keats to his family and friends. He is one of those poets whose genius
makes itself felt in prose-writing almost as decisively as in verse, and
at their best these letters are among the most beautiful in our language.
Portions of them lent an especial charm to a book charming at any
rate--the biography of the poet first published more than forty years ago
by Lord Houghton. But the correspondence as given by Lord Houghton is
neither accurate nor complete. He had in few cases the originals before
him, but made use of copies, some of them quite fragmentary, especially
those supplied him from America; and moreover, working while many of the
poet's friends were still alive, he thought it right to exercise a degree
of editorial freedom for which there would now be neither occasion nor
excuse. While I was engaged in preparing the life of Keats for Mr.
Morley's series some years since, the following materials for an improved
edition of his letters came into my hands:--
(1) The copies made by Richard Woodhouse, a few years after Keats's death,
of the poet's correspondence with his principal friends, viz. the
publishers, Messrs. Taylor and Hessey; the transcriber, Woodhouse himself,
who was a young barrister of literary tastes in the confidence of those
gentlemen; John Hamilton Reynolds, solicitor, poet, humourist, and critic
(born 1796, died 1852); Jane and Mariane Reynolds, sisters of the
last-named, the former afterwards Mrs. Tom Hood; James Rice, the bosom
friend of Reynolds, and like him a young solicitor; Benjamin Bailey,
undergraduate of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, afterwards Archdeacon of Colombo
(1794?-1852), and one or two more.
(2) The imperfect copies of the poet's letters to his brother and
sister-in-law in America, which were made by the sister-in-law's second
husband, Mr. Jeffrey of Louisville, and sent by him to Lord Houghton, who
published them with further omissions and alterations of his own.
(3) Somewhat later, after the publication of my book, the autograph
originals of some of these same letters to America were put into my hands,
including almost the entire text of Nos. lxiii. lxxiii. lxxx. and xcii. in
the present edition. The three last are the long and famous
journal-letters written in the autumn of 1818 and spring of 1819, and
between them occupy nearly a quarter of the whole volume. I have shown
elsewhere[1] how much of their value and interest was sacrificed by Mr.
Jeffrey's omissions.
Besides these manuscript sources, I have drawn largely on Mr. Buxton
Forman's elaborate edition of Keats's works in four volumes (1883),[2] and
to a much less extent on the edition published by the poet's American
grand nephew, Mr. Speed (1884)[3]. Even thus, the correspondence is still
probably not quite complete. In some of the voluminous journal-letters
there may still be gaps, where a sheet of the autograph has gone astray;
and since the following pages have been in print, I have heard of the
existence in private collections of one or two letters which I have not
been able to include. But it is not a case in which absolute completeness
is of much importance.
In matters of the date and sequence of the letters, I have taken pains to
be more exact than previous editors, especially in tracing the daily
progress and different halting-places of the poet on his Scotch tour
(which it takes some knowledge of the ground to do), and in dating the
successive parts, written at intervals sometimes during two or three
months, of the long journal-letters to America. On these particulars Keats
himself is very vague, and his manuscript sometimes runs on without a
break at points where the sense shows that he has dropped and taken it up
again after a pause of days or weeks.[4] Again, I have in all cases given
in full the verse and other quotations contained in the correspondence,
where other editors have only indicated them by their first lines. It is
indeed from these that the letters derive a great part of their character.
Writing to his nearest relatives or most intimate friends, he is always
quoting for their pleasure poems of his own now classical, then warm from
his brain, sent forth uncertain whether to live or die, or snatches of
doggrel nonsense as the humour of the moment takes him. The former,
familiar as we may be with them, gain a new interest and freshness from
the context: the latter are nothing apart from it, and to print them
gravely, as has been done, among the Poetical Works, is to punish the
levities of genius too hard.
As to the text, I have followed the autograph wherever it was possible,
and in other cases the manuscript or printed version which I judged
nearest the autograph; with this exception, that I have not thought it
worth while to preserve mere slips of the pen or tricks of spelling. The
curious in such matters will find them religiously reproduced by Mr.
Buxton Forman wherever he has had the opportunity. The poet's punctuation,
on the other hand, and his use of capitals, which is odd and full of
character, I have preserved. As is well known, his handwriting is as a
rule clear and beautiful, quite free from unsteadiness or sign of fatigue;
and as mere specimens for the collector, few autographs can compare with
these close-written quarto (or sometimes extra folio) sheets, in which the
young poet has poured out to those he loved his whole self
indiscriminately, generosity and fretfulness, ardour and despondency,
boyish petulance side by side with manful good sense, the tattle of
suburban parlours with the speculations of a spirit unsurpassed for native
poetic gift and insight.
The editor of familiar correspondence has at all times a difficult task
before him in the choice what to give and what to withhold. In the case of
Keats the difficulty is greater than in most, from the ferment of opposing
elements and impulses in his nature, and from the extreme unreserve with
which he lays himself open alike in his weakness and his strength. The
other great letter-writers in English are men to some degree on their
guard: men, if not of the world, at least of some worldly training and
experience, and of characters in some degree formed and set. The phase of
unlimited youthful expansiveness, of enthusiastic or fretful outcry, they
have either escaped or left behind, and never give themselves away
completely. Gray is of course an extreme case in point. With a masterly
breadth of mind he unites an even finicking degree of academic
fastidiousness and personal reserve, and his correspondence charms, not
by impulse or openness, but by urbanity and irony, by ripeness of judgment
and knowledge, by his playful kindliness towards the few intimates he has,
and the sober wistfulness with which he looks out, from his Pisgah-height
of universal culture, over regions of imaginative delight into which it
was not given to him nor his contemporaries to enter fully. To take others
differing most widely both as men and poets: Cowper, whether
affectionately "chatting and chirping" to his cousin Lady Hesketh, or
confiding his spiritual terrors to the Rev. John Newton, that unwise
monitor who would not let them sleep,--Cowper is a letter-writer the most
unaffected and sincere, but has nevertheless the degree of reticence
natural to his breeding, as well as a touch of staidness and formality
proper to his age. Byron offers an extreme contrast; unrestrained he is,
but far indeed from being unaffected; the greatest attitudinist in
literature as in life, and the most brilliant of all letter-writers after
his fashion, with his wit, his wilfulness, his flash, his extraordinary
unscrupulousness and resource, his vulgar pride of caste, his everlasting
restlessness and egotism, his occasional true irradiations of the divine
fire. Shelley, again--but he, as has been justly said, must have his
singing robes about him to be quite truly Shelley, and in his
correspondence is little more than any other amiable and enthusiastic
gentleman and scholar on his travels. To the case of Keats, at any rate,
none of these other distinguished letter-writers affords any close
parallel. That admirable genius was from the social point of view an
unformed lad in the flush and rawness of youth. His passion for beauty,
his instinctive insight into the vital sources of imaginative delight in
nature, in romance, and in antiquity, went along with perceptions
painfully acute in matters of daily life, and nerves high-strung in the
extreme. He was moreover almost incapable of artifice or disguise. Writing
to his brothers and sister or to friends as dear, he is secret with them
on one thing only, and that is his unlucky love-passion after he became a
prey to it: for the rest he is open as the day, and keeps back nothing of
what crosses his mind, nothing that vexes or jars on him or tries his
patience. His character, as thus laid bare, contains elements of rare
nobility and attraction--modesty, humour, sweetness, courage, impulsive
disinterestedness, strong and tender family affection, the gift of
righteous indignation, the gift of sober and strict self-knowledge. But it
is only a character in the making. A strain of hereditary disease, lurking
in his constitution from the first, was developed by over-exertion and
aggravated by mischance, so that he never lived to be himself; and from
about his twenty-fourth birthday his utterances are those of one
struggling in vain against a hopeless distemper both of body and mind.
If a selection could be made from those parts only of Keats's
correspondence which show him at his best, we should have an anthology
full of intuitions of beauty, even of wisdom, and breathing the very
spirit of generous youth; one unrivalled for zest, whim, fancy, and
amiability, and written in an English which by its peculiar alert and
varied movement sometimes recalls, perhaps more closely than that of any
other writer (for the young Cockney has Shakspeare in his blood), the
prose passages of _Hamlet_ and _Much Ado about Nothing_. Had the
correspondence never been printed before, were it there to be dealt with
for the first time, this method of selection would no doubt be the
tempting one to apply to it. But such a treatment is now hardly possible,
and in any case would hardly be quite fair; since the object, or at all
events the effect, of publishing a man's correspondence is not merely to
give literary pleasure--it is to make the man himself known; and the
revelation, though it need not be wholly without reserve, is bound to be
just and proportionate as far as it goes. Even as an artist, in the work
which he himself published to the world, Keats was not one of those of
whom it could be said, "his worst he kept, his best he gave." Rather he
gave promiscuously, in the just confidence that among the failures and
half-successes of his inexperienced youth would be found enough of the
best to establish his place among the poets after his death. Considering
all things, the nature of the man, the difficulty of separating the
exquisite from the common, the healthful from the diseased, in his mind
and work, considering also the use that has already been made of the
materials, I have decided in this edition to give the correspondence
almost unpruned; omitting a few passages of mere crudity, hardly more than
two pages in all, but not attempting to suppress those which betray the
weak places in the writer's nature, his flaws of taste and training, his
movements of waywardness, irritability, and morbid suspicion. Only the
biographer without tact, the critic without balance, will insist on these.
A truer as well as more charitable judgment will recognise that what was
best in Keats was also what was most real, and will be fortified by
remembering that to those who knew him his faults were almost unapparent,
and that no man was ever held by his friends in more devoted or more
unanimous affection while he lived and afterwards.
There is one thing, however, which I have not chosen to do, and that is to
include in this collection the poet's love-letters to Fanny Brawne. As it
is, the intimate nature of the correspondence must sometimes give the
reader a sense of eavesdropping, of being admitted into petty private
matters with which he has no concern. If this is to some extent
inevitable, it is by no means inevitable that the public should be farther
asked to look over the shoulder of the sick and presently dying youth
while he declares the impatience and torment of his passion to the object,
careless and unresponsive as she seems to have been, who inspired it.
These letters too have been printed. As a matter of feeling I cannot put
myself in the place of the reader who desires to possess them; while as a
matter of literature they are in a different key from the rest,--not
lacking passages of beauty, but constrained and painful in the main, and
quite without the genial ease and play of mind which make the letters to
his family and friends so attractive. Therefore in this, which I hope may
become the standard edition of his correspondence, they shall find no
place.
As to the persons, other than those already mentioned, to whom the letters
here given are addressed:--Shelley of course needs no words; nor should
any be needed for the painter Haydon (1786-1846), or the poet and critic
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). Theirs were the chief inspiring influences which
determined the young medical student, about his twentieth year, at the
time when this correspondence opens, to give up his intended profession
for poetry. Both were men of remarkable gifts and strong intellectual
enthusiasm, hampered in either case by foibles of character which their
young friend and follower, who has left so far more illustrious a name,
was only too quick to detect. Charles Cowden Clarke (1787-1877), the son
of Keats's schoolmaster at Enfield, had exercised a still earlier
influence on the lad's opening mind, and was himself afterwards long and
justly distinguished as a Shakspearean student and lecturer and essayist
on English literature. Charles Wentworth Dilke (1789-1864), having begun
life in the Civil Service, early abandoned that calling for letters, and
lived to be one of the most influential of English critics and
journalists; he is chiefly known from his connection with the _Athenaeum_,
and through the memoir published by his grandson. Charles Brown,
afterwards styling himself Charles Armitage Brown (1786-1842), who became
known to Keats through Dilke in the summer of 1817, and was his most
intimate companion during the two years June 1818 to June 1820, had begun
life as a merchant in St. Petersburg, and failing, came home, and took, he
also, to literature, chiefly as a contributor to the various periodicals
edited by Leigh Hunt. He lived mostly in Italy from 1822 to 1834, then
for six years at Plymouth, and in 1841 emigrated to New Zealand, where he
died the following year. Joseph Severn (1793-1879) was the son of a
musician, himself beginning to practise as a painter when Keats knew him.
His devoted tendance of the poet during the last sad months in Italy was
the determining event of Severn's career, earning him the permanent regard
and gratitude of all lovers of genius. He established himself for good in
Rome, where he continued to practise his art, and was for many years
English consul, and one of the most familiar figures in the society of the
city.
Lastly, of the poet's own relations, George Keats (1799-1842) after his
brother's death continued to live at Louisville in America, where he made
and lost a fortune in business before he died. His widow (born Georgiana
Augusta Wylie), so often and affectionately addressed in these letters, by
and by took a second husband, a Mr. Jeffrey, already mentioned as the
correspondent of Lord Houghton. Frances Mary Keats (1803-1889), always
called Fanny in the delightful series of letters which her brother
addressed to her as a young girl,[5] in course of time married a Spanish
gentleman, Senor Llanos, and lived in Madrid to a great old age. Several
other members of the poet's circle enjoyed unusual length of days--Mr.
William Dilke, for instance, dying a few years ago at ninety, and Mr.
Gleig, long Chaplain-General of the Forces, at ninety-two. But with the
death of his sister a year and a half ago, passed away probably the last
survivor of those who could bear in memory the voice and features of
Adonais.
S. C.
_May 1891._
LETTERS OF JOHN KEATS TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS
I.--TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE.
[London, October 31, 1816.]
MY DAINTIE DAVIE--I will be as punctual as the Bee to the Clover. Very
glad am I at the thoughts of seeing so soon this glorious Haydon and all
his creation. I pray thee let me know when you go to Ollier's and where he
resides--this I forgot to ask you--and tell me also when you will help me
waste a sullen day--God 'ield you[6]--
J. K.
II.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
[London,] November 20, 1816.
My dear Sir--Last evening wrought me up, and I cannot forbear sending you
the following--
Yours unfeignedly,
JOHN KEATS.
Removed to 76 Cheapside.
Great spirits now on earth are sojourning;
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake,
Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing:
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,
The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:
And lo!--whose stedfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.
And other spirits there are standing apart
Upon the forehead of the age to come;
These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings in the human mart?
Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb.[7]
III.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
[London,] Thursday afternoon, November 20, 1816.
My dear Sir--Your letter has filled me with a proud pleasure, and shall be
kept by me as a stimulus to exertion--I begin to fix my eye upon one
horizon. My feelings entirely fall in with yours in regard to the
Ellipsis, and I glory in it. The Idea of your sending it to Wordsworth put
me out of breath--you know with what Reverence I would send my Well-wishes
to him.
Yours sincerely
JOHN KEATS.
IV.--TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE.
[London,] Tuesday [December 17, 1816].
My dear Charles--You may now look at Minerva's Aegis with impunity, seeing
that my awful Visage[8] did not turn you into a John Doree. You have
accordingly a legitimate title to a Copy--I will use my interest to
procure it for you. I'll tell you what--I met Reynolds at Haydon's a few
mornings since--he promised to be with me this Evening and Yesterday I had
the same promise from Severn and I must put you in mind that on last All
hallowmas' day you gave me your word that you would spend this Evening
with me--so no putting off. I have done little to Endymion lately[9]--I
hope to finish it in one more attack. I believe you I went to
Richards's--it was so whoreson a Night that I stopped there all the next
day. His Remembrances to you. (Ext. from the common place Book of my
Mind--Mem.--Wednesday--Hampstead--call in Warner Street--a sketch of Mr.
Hunt.)--I will ever consider you my sincere and affectionate friend--you
will not doubt that I am yours.
God bless you--
JOHN KEATS.
V.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[London,] Sunday Evening [March 2, 1817?].[10]
My dear Reynolds--Your kindness affects me so sensibly that I can merely
put down a few mono-sentences. Your Criticism only makes me extremely
anxious that I should not deceive you.
It's the finest thing by God as Hazlitt would say. However I hope I may
not deceive you. There are some acquaintances of mine who will scratch
their Beards and although I have, I hope, some Charity, I wish their Nails
may be long. I will be ready at the time you mention in all Happiness.
There is a report that a young Lady of 16 has written the new Tragedy, God
bless her--I will know her by Hook or by Crook in less than a week. My
Brothers' and my Remembrances to your kind Sisters.
Yours most sincerely
JOHN KEATS.
VI.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[London, March 17, 1817.]
My dear Reynolds--My Brothers are anxious that I should go by myself into
the country--they have always been extremely fond of me, and now that
Haydon has pointed out how necessary it is that I should be alone to
improve myself, they give up the temporary pleasure of living with me
continually for a great good which I hope will follow. So I shall soon be
out of Town. You must soon bring all your present troubles to a close, and
so must I, but we must, like the Fox, prepare for a fresh swarm of flies.
Banish money--Banish sofas--Banish Wine--Banish Music; but right Jack
Health, honest Jack Health, true Jack Health--Banish health and banish all
the world. I must ... if I come this evening, I shall horribly commit
myself elsewhere. So I will send my excuses to them and Mrs. Dilke by my
brothers.
Your sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
VII.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
[Southampton,] Tuesday Morn [April 15, 1817].
My dear Brothers--I am safe at Southampton--after having ridden three
stages outside and the rest in for it began to be very cold. I did not
know the Names of any of the Towns I passed through--all I can tell you is
that sometimes I saw dusty Hedges--sometimes Ponds--then nothing--then a
little Wood with trees look you like Launce's Sister "as white as a Lily
and as small as a Wand"--then came houses which died away into a few
straggling Barns--then came hedge trees aforesaid again. As the Lamplight
crept along the following things were discovered--"long heath broom
furze"--Hurdles here and there half a Mile--Park palings when the Windows
of a House were always discovered by reflection--One Nymph of
Fountain--_N.B. Stone_--lopped Trees--Cow ruminating--ditto Donkey--Man
and Woman going gingerly along--William seeing his Sisters over the
Heath--John waiting with a Lanthorn for his Mistress--Barber's
Pole--Doctor's Shop--However after having had my fill of these I popped my
Head out just as it began to Dawn--_N.B. this Tuesday Morn saw the Sun
rise_--of which I shall say nothing at present. I felt rather lonely this
Morning at Breakfast so I went and unbox'd a Shakspeare--"There's my
Comfort."[11] I went immediately after Breakfast to Southampton Water
where I enquired for the Boat to the Isle of Wight as I intend seeing that
place before I settle--it will go at 3, so shall I after having taken a
Chop. I know nothing of this place but that it is long--tolerably
broad--has bye streets--two or three Churches--a very respectable old Gate
with two Lions to guard it. The Men and Women do not materially differ
from those I have been in the Habit of seeing. I forgot to say that from
dawn till half-past six I went through a most delightful Country--some
open Down but for the most part thickly wooded. What surprised me most was
an immense quantity of blooming Furze on each side the road cutting a most
rural dash. The Southampton water when I saw it just now was no better
than a low Water Water which did no more than answer my expectations--it
will have mended its Manners by 3. From the Wharf are seen the shores on
each side stretching to the Isle of Wight. You, Haydon, Reynolds, etc.
have been pushing each other out of my Brain by turns. I have conned over
every Head in Haydon's Picture--you must warn them not to be afraid should
my Ghost visit them on Wednesday--tell Haydon to Kiss his Hand at Betty
over the Way for me yea and to spy at her for me. I hope one of you will
be competent to take part in a Trio while I am away--you need only
aggravate your voices a little and mind not to speak Cues and all--when
you have said Rum-ti-ti--you must not be rum any more or else another will
take up the ti-ti alone and then he might be taken God shield us for
little better than a Titmouse. By the by talking of Titmouse Remember me
particularly to all my Friends--give my Love to the Miss Reynoldses and to
Fanny who I hope you will soon see. Write to me soon about them all--and
you George particularly how you get on with Wilkinson's plan. What could I
have done without my Plaid? I don't feel inclined to write any more at
present for I feel rather muzzy--you must be content with this fac simile
of the rough plan of Aunt Dinah's Counterpane.
Your most affectionate Brother
JOHN KEATS.
Reynolds shall hear from me soon.
VIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Carisbrooke, April 17th [1817].
My dear Reynolds--Ever since I wrote to my Brothers from Southampton I
have been in a taking--and at this moment I am about to become
settled--for I have unpacked my books, put them into a snug corner, pinned
up Haydon, Mary Queen of Scots, and Milton with his daughters in a row. In
the passage I found a head of Shakspeare which I had not before seen. It
is most likely the same that George spoke so well of, for I like it
extremely. Well--this head I have hung over my Books, just above the three
in a row, having first discarded a French Ambassador--now this alone is a
good morning's work. Yesterday I went to Shanklin, which occasioned a
great debate in my mind whether I should live there or at Carisbrooke.
Shanklin is a most beautiful place--Sloping wood and meadow ground reach
round the Chine, which is a cleft between the Cliffs of the depth of
nearly 300 feet at least. This cleft is filled with trees and bushes in
the narrow part, and as it widens becomes bare, if it were not for
primroses on one side, which spread to the very verge of the Sea, and some
fishermen's huts on the other, perched midway in the Balustrades of
beautiful green Hedges along their steps down to the sands. But the sea,
Jack, the sea--the little waterfall--then the white cliff--then St.
Catherine's Hill--"the sheep in the meadows, the cows in the corn." Then,
why are you at Carisbrooke? say you. Because, in the first place, I should
be at twice the Expense, and three times the inconvenience--next that from
here I can see your continent--from a little hill close by the whole north
Angle of the Isle of Wight, with the water between us. In the 3rd place, I
see Carisbrooke Castle from my window, and have found several delightful
wood-alleys, and copses, and quick freshes.[12] As for primroses--the
Island ought to be called Primrose Island--that is, if the nation of
Cowslips agree thereto, of which there are divers Clans just beginning to
lift up their heads. Another reason of my fixing is, that I am more in
reach of the places around me. I intend to walk over the Island
east--West--North--South. I have not seen many specimens of Ruins--I don't
think however I shall ever see one to surpass Carisbrooke Castle. The
trench is overgrown with the smoothest turf, and the Walls with ivy. The
Keep within side is one Bower of ivy--a colony of Jackdaws have been there
for many years. I dare say I have seen many a descendant of some old cawer
who peeped through the Bars at Charles the first, when he was there in
Confinement. On the road from Cowes to Newport I saw some extensive
Barracks, which disgusted me extremely with the Government for placing
such a Nest of Debauchery in so beautiful a place. I asked a man on the
Coach about this--and he said that the people had been spoiled. In the
room where I slept at Newport, I found this on the Window--"O Isle spoilt
by the mil_a_tary!..."
The wind is in a sulky fit, and I feel that it would be no bad thing to be
the favourite of some Fairy, who would give one the power of seeing how
our Friends got on at a Distance. I should like, of all Loves, a sketch of
you and Tom and George in ink which Haydon will do if you tell him how I
want them. From want of regular rest I have been rather _narvus_--and the
passage in _Lear_--"Do you not hear the sea?"--has haunted me intensely.
ON THE SEA
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be mov'd for days from where it sometime fell,
When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.
O ye! who have your eye-balls vex'd and tir'd,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
O ye! whose Ears are dinn'd with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody--
Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth, and brood
Until ye start as if the sea Nymphs quired--[13]
April 18th.
Will you have the goodness to do this? Borrow a Botanical Dictionary--turn
to the words Laurel and Prunus, show the explanations to your sisters and
Mrs. Dilke and without more ado let them send me the Cups Basket and Books
they trifled and put off and off while I was in town. Ask them what they
can say for themselves--ask Mrs. Dilke wherefore she does so distress
me--let me know how Jane has her health--the Weather is unfavourable for
her. Tell George and Tom to write. I'll tell you what--on the 23d was
Shakspeare born. Now if I should receive a letter from you and another
from my Brothers on that day 'twould be a parlous good thing. Whenever you
write say a word or two on some Passage in Shakspeare that may have come
rather new to you, which must be continually happening, notwithstanding
that we read the same Play forty times--for instance, the following from
the Tempest never struck me so forcibly as at present,
"Urchins
_Shall, for the vast of night that they may work_,
All exercise on thee--"
How can I help bringing to your mind the line--
_In the dark backward and abysm of time_--
I find I cannot exist without Poetry--without eternal Poetry--half the day
will not do--the whole of it--I began with a little, but habit has made me
a Leviathan. I had become all in a Tremble from not having written
anything of late--the Sonnet overleaf did me good. I slept the better last
night for it--this Morning, however, I am nearly as bad again. Just now I
opened Spenser, and the first Lines I saw were these--
"The noble heart that harbours virtuous thought,
And is with child of glorious great intent,
Can never rest until it forth have brought
Th' eternal brood of glory excellent--"
Let me know particularly about Haydon, ask him to write to me about Hunt,
if it be only ten lines--I hope all is well--I shall forthwith begin my
Endymion, which I hope I shall have got some way with by the time you
come, when we will read our verses in a delightful place I have set my
heart upon, near the Castle. Give my Love to your Sisters severally--to
George and Tom. Remember me to Rice, Mr. and Mrs. Dilke and all we know.
Your sincere Friend
JOHN KEATS.
Direct J. Keats, Mrs. Cook's, New Village, Carisbrooke.
IX.--TO LEIGH HUNT.
Margate, May 10, 1817.
My dear Hunt--The little gentleman that sometimes lurks in a gossip's
bowl, ought to have come in the very likeness of a _roasted_ crab, and
choaked me outright for not answering your letter ere this: however, you
must not suppose that I was in town to receive it: no, it followed me to
the Isle of Wight, and I got it just as I was going to pack up for
Margate, for reasons which you anon shall hear. On arriving at this
treeless affair, I wrote to my brother George to request C. C. C.[14] to
do the thing you wot of respecting Rimini; and George tells me he has
undertaken it with great pleasure; so I hope there has been an
understanding between you for many proofs: C. C. C. is well acquainted
with Bensley. Now why did you not send the key of your cupboard, which, I
know, was full of papers? We would have locked them all in a trunk,
together with those you told me to destroy, which indeed I did not do, for
fear of demolishing receipts, there not being a more unpleasant thing in
the world (saving a thousand and one others) than to pay a bill twice.
Mind you, old Wood's a "very varmint," shrouded in covetousness:--and now
I am upon a horrid subject--what a horrid one you were upon last Sunday,
and well you handled it. The last Examiner[15] was a battering-ram against
Christianity, blasphemy, Tertullian, Erasmus, Sir Philip Sidney; and then
the dreadful Petzelians and their expiation by blood; and do Christians
shudder at the same thing in a newspaper which they attribute to their God
in its most aggravated form? What is to be the end of this? I must mention
Hazlitt's Southey.[16] O that he had left out the grey hairs; or that
they had been in any other paper not concluding with such a thunderclap!
That sentence about making a page of the feeling of a whole life, appears
to me like a whale's back in the sea of prose. I ought to have said a word
on Shakspeare's Christianity. There are two which I have not looked over
with you, touching the thing: the one for, the other against: that in
favour is in Measure for Measure, Act II. Scene ii.--
_Isab._ Alas, alas!
Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the 'vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy.
That against is in Twelfth Night, Act III. Scene ii.--
_Maria._ For there is no Christian that means to be saved by
believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of
grossness.
Before I come to the Nymphs,[17] I must get through all disagreeables. I
went to the Isle of Wight, thought so much about poetry, so long together,
that I could not get to sleep at night; and, moreover, I know not how it
was, I could not get wholesome food. By this means, in a week or so, I
became not over capable in my upper stories, and set off pell-mell for
Margate, at least a hundred and fifty miles, because, forsooth, I fancied
that I should like my old lodging here, and could contrive to do without
trees. Another thing, I was too much in solitude, and consequently was
obliged to be in continual burning of thought, as an only resource.
However, Tom is with me at present, and we are very comfortable. We
intend, though, to get among some trees. How have you got on among them?
How are the Nymphs? I suppose they have led you a fine dance. Where are
you now?--in Judea, Cappadocia, or the parts of Libya about Cyrene?
Stranger from "Heaven, Hues, and Prototypes," I wager you have given
several new turns to the old saying, "Now the maid was fair and pleasant
to look on," as well as made a little variation in "Once upon a time."
Perhaps, too, you have rather varied, "Here endeth the first lesson." Thus
I hope you have made a horseshoe business of "unsuperfluous life," "faint
bowers," and fibrous roots. I vow that I have been down in the mouth
lately at this work. These last two days, however, I have felt more
confident--I have asked myself so often why I should be a poet more than
other men, seeing how great a thing it is,--how great things are to be
gained by it, what a thing to be in the mouth of Fame,--that at last the
idea has grown so monstrously beyond my seeming power of attainment, that
the other day I nearly consented with myself to drop into a Phaethon. Yet
'tis a disgrace to fail, even in a huge attempt; and at this moment I
drive the thought from me. I began my poem about a fortnight since, and
have done some every day, except travelling ones. Perhaps I may have done
a good deal for the time, but it appears such a pin's point to me, that I
will not copy any out. When I consider that so many of these pin-points go
to form a bodkin-point (God send I end not my life with a bare bodkin, in
its modern sense!), and that it requires a thousand bodkins to make a
spear bright enough to throw any light to posterity, I see nothing but
continual uphill journeying. Now is there anything more unpleasant (it may
come among the thousand and one) than to be so journeying and to miss the
goal at last? But I intend to whistle all these cogitations into the sea,
where I hope they will breed storms violent enough to block up all exit
from Russia. Does Shelley go on telling strange stories of the deaths of
kings?[18] Tell him, there are strange stories of the deaths of poets.
Some have died before they were conceived. "How do you make that out,
Master Vellum?" Does Mrs. S. cut bread and butter as neatly as ever? Tell
her to procure some fatal scissors, and cut the thread of life of all
to-be-disappointed poets. Does Mrs. Hunt tear linen as straight as ever?
Tell her to tear from the book of life all blank leaves. Remember me to
them all; to Miss Kent and the little ones all.
Your sincere Friend
JOHN KEATS _alias_ JUNKETS.
You shall hear where we move.
X.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Margate, Saturday Eve [May 10, 1817].
My dear Haydon,
"Let Fame, that all pant after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,
And so grace us in the disgrace of death:
When spite of cormorant devouring Time
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That Honour which shall bate his Scythe's keen edge
And make us heirs of all eternity."[19]
To think that I have no right to couple myself with you in this speech
would be death to me, so I have e'en written it, and I pray God that our
"brazen tombs" be nigh neighbours. It cannot be long first; the "endeavour
of this present breath" will soon be over, and yet it is as well to
breathe freely during our sojourn--it is as well as if you have not been
teased with that Money affair, that bill-pestilence. However, I must think
that difficulties nerve the Spirit of a Man--they make our Prime Objects a
Refuge as well as a Passion. The Trumpet of Fame is as a tower of
Strength, the ambitious bloweth it and is safe. I suppose, by your telling
me not to give way to forebodings, George has mentioned to you what I have
lately said in my Letters to him--truth is I have been in such a state of
Mind as to read over my Lines and hate them. I am one that "gathers
Samphire, dreadful trade"--the Cliff of Poesy towers above me--yet when
Tom who meets with some of Pope's Homer in Plutarch's Lives reads some of
those to me they seem like Mice to mine. I read and write about eight
hours a day. There is an old saying "well begun is half done"--'tis a bad
one. I would use instead, "Not begun at all till half done;" so according
to that I have not begun my Poem and consequently (a priori) can say
nothing about it. Thank God! I do begin arduously where I leave off,
notwithstanding occasional depressions; and I hope for the support of a
High Power while I climb this little eminence, and especially in my Years
of more momentous Labour. I remember your saying that you had notions of a
good Genius presiding over you. I have of late had the same thought, for
things which I do half at Random are afterwards confirmed by my judgment
in a dozen features of Propriety. Is it too daring to fancy Shakspeare
this Presider? When in the Isle of Wight I met with a Shakspeare in the
Passage of the House at which I lodged--it comes nearer to my idea of him
than any I have seen--I was but there a Week, yet the old woman made me
take it with me though I went off in a hurry. Do you not think this is
ominous of good? I am glad you say every man of great views is at times
tormented as I am.
Sunday after [May 11].
This Morning I received a letter from George by which it appears that
Money Troubles are to follow us up for some time to come--perhaps for
always--these vexations are a great hindrance to one--they are not like
Envy and detraction stimulants to further exertion as being immediately
relative and reflected on at the same time with the prime object--but
rather like a nettle leaf or two in your bed. So now I revoke my Promise
of finishing my Poem by the Autumn which I should have done had I gone on
as I have done--but I cannot write while my spirit is fevered in a
contrary direction and I am now sure of having plenty of it this Summer.
At this moment I am in no enviable Situation--I feel that I am not in a
Mood to write any to-day; and it appears that the loss of it is the
beginning of all sorts of irregularities. I am extremely glad that a time
must come when everything will leave not a wrack behind. You tell me never
to despair--I wish it was as easy for me to observe the saying--truth is I
have a horrid Morbidity of Temperament which has shown itself at
intervals--it is I have no doubt the greatest Enemy and stumbling-block I
have to fear--I may even say that it is likely to be the cause of my
disappointment. However every ill has its share of good--this very bane
would at any time enable me to look with an obstinate eye on the Devil
Himself--aye to be as proud of being the lowest of the human race as
Alfred could be in being of the highest. I feel confident I should have
been a rebel angel had the opportunity been mine. I am very sure that you
do love me as your very Brother--I have seen it in your continual anxiety
for me--and I assure you that your welfare and fame is and will be a chief
pleasure to me all my Life. I know no one but you who can be fully
sensible of the turmoil and anxiety, the sacrifice of all what is called
comfort, the readiness to measure time by what is done and to die in six
hours could plans be brought to conclusions--the looking upon the Sun, the
Moon, the Stars, the Earth and its contents, as materials to form greater
things--that is to say ethereal things--but here I am talking like a
Madman,--greater things than our Creator himself made!!
I wrote to Hunt yesterday--scarcely know what I said in it. I could not
talk about Poetry in the way I should have liked for I was not in humor
with either his or mine. His self-delusions are very lamentable--they have
enticed him into a Situation which I should be less eager after than that
of a galley Slave--what you observe thereon is very true must be in time.
Perhaps it is a self-delusion to say so--but I think I could not be
deceived in the manner that Hunt is--may I die to-morrow if I am to be.
There is no greater Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself
into an idea of being a great Poet--or one of those beings who are
privileged to wear out their Lives in the pursuit of Honor--how
comfortable a feel it is to feel that such a Crime must bring its heavy
Penalty? That if one be a Self-deluder accounts must be balanced? I am
glad you are hard at Work--'t will now soon be done--I long to see
Wordsworth's as well as to have mine in:[20] but I would rather not show
my face in Town till the end of the Year--if that will be time enough--if
not I shall be disappointed if you do not write for me even when you think
best. I never quite despair and I read Shakspeare--indeed I shall I think
never read any other Book much. Now this might lead me into a long Confab
but I desist. I am very near agreeing with Hazlitt that Shakspeare is
enough for us. By the by what a tremendous Southean article his last
was--I wish he had left out "grey hairs." It was very gratifying to meet
your remarks on the manuscript--I was reading Anthony and Cleopatra when I
got the Paper and there are several Passages applicable to the events you
commentate. You say that he arrived by degrees and not by any single
struggle to the height of his ambition--and that his Life had been as
common in particulars as other Men's. Shakspeare makes Enobarb say--
Where's Antony?
_Eros._--He's walking in the garden, and _spurns
The rush that lies_ before him; cries, Fool, Lepidus!
In the same scene we find--
Let determined things
To destiny hold unbewailed their way.
Dolabella says of Anthony's Messenger,
An argument that he is pluck'd when hither
He sends so poor a pinion of his wing.
Then again--
_Eno._--I see Men's Judgments are
A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike.
The following applies well to Bertrand[21]--
Yet he that can endure
To follow with allegiance a fallen Lord,
Does conquer him that did his Master conquer,
And earns a place i' the story.
But how differently does Buonaparte bear his fate from Anthony!
'Tis good, too, that the Duke of Wellington has a good Word or so in the
Examiner. A Man ought to have the Fame he deserves--and I begin to think
that detracting from him as well as from Wordsworth is the same thing. I
wish he had a little more taste--and did not in that respect "deal in
Lieutenantry." You should have heard from me before this--but in the first
place I did not like to do so before I had got a little way in the First
Book, and in the next as G. told me you were going to write I delayed till
I had heard from you. Give my Respects the next time you write to the
North and also to John Hunt. Remember me to Reynolds and tell him to
write. Ay, and when you send Westward tell your Sister that I mentioned
her in this. So now in the name of Shakspeare, Raphael and all our Saints,
I commend you to the care of heaven!
Your everlasting Friend
JOHN KEATS.
XI.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.
Margate, May 16, 1817.
My dear Sirs--I am extremely indebted to you for your liberality in the
shape of manufactured rag, value L20, and shall immediately proceed to
destroy some of the minor heads of that hydra the dun; to conquer which
the knight need have no Sword Shield Cuirass, Cuisses Herbadgeon Spear
Casque Greaves Paldrons spurs Chevron or any other scaly commodity, but
he need only take the Bank-note of Faith and Cash of Salvation, and set
out against the monster, invoking the aid of no Archimago or Urganda, but
finger me the paper, light as the Sibyl's leaves in Virgil, whereat the
fiend skulks off with his tail between his legs. Touch him with this
enchanted paper, and he whips you his head away as fast as a snail's
horn--but then the horrid propensity he has to put it up again has
discouraged many very valiant Knights. He is such a never-ending
still-beginning sort of a body--like my landlady of the Bell. I should
conjecture that the very spright that "the green sour ringlets makes
Whereof the ewe not bites" had manufactured it of the dew fallen on said
sour ringlets. I think I could make a nice little allegorical poem, called
"The Dun," where we would have the Castle of Carelessness, the drawbridge
of credit, Sir Novelty Fashion's expedition against the City of Tailors,
etc. etc. I went day by day at my poem for a Month--at the end of which
time the other day I found my Brain so over-wrought that I had neither
rhyme nor reason in it--so was obliged to give up for a few days. I hope
soon to be able to resume my work--I have endeavoured to do so once or
twice; but to no purpose. Instead of Poetry, I have a swimming in my head
and feel all the effects of a Mental debauch, lowness of Spirits, anxiety
to go on without the power to do so, which does not at all tend to my
ultimate progression. However to-morrow I will begin my next month. This
evening I go to Canterbury, having got tired of Margate. I was not right
in my head when I came--At Canterbury I hope the remembrance of Chaucer
will set me forward like a Billiard Ball. I am glad to hear of Mr. T.'s
health, and of the welfare of the "In-town-stayers." And think Reynolds
will like his Trip--I have some idea of seeing the Continent some time
this summer. In repeating how sensible I am of your kindness, I remain
Y{r} obed{t} serv{t} and friend
JOHN KEATS.
I shall be happy to hear any little intelligence in the literary or
friendly way when you have time to scribble.
XII.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.
[London] Tuesday Morn [July 8, 1817].
My dear Sirs--I must endeavour to lose my maidenhead with respect to money
Matters as soon as possible--And I will too--So, here goes! A couple of
Duns that I thought would be silent till the beginning, at least, of next
month (when I am certain to be on my legs, for certain sure), have opened
upon me with a cry most "untuneable"; never did you hear such
_un-_"gallant chiding." Now you must know, I am not desolate, but have,
thank God, 25 good notes in my fob. But then, you know, I laid them by to
write with and would stand at bay a fortnight ere they should grab me. In
a month's time I must pay, but it would relieve my mind if I owed you,
instead of these Pelican duns.
I am afraid you will say I have "wound about with circumstance," when I
should have asked plainly--however as I said I am a little maidenish or
so, and I feel my virginity come strong upon me, the while I request the
loan of a L20 and a L10, which, if you would enclose to me, I would
acknowledge and save myself a hot forehead. I am sure you are confident of
my responsibility, and in the sense of squareness that is always in me.
Your obliged friend
JOHN KEATS.
XIII.--TO MARIANE AND JANE REYNOLDS.
[Oxford,[22] September 5, 1817].
My dear Friends--You are I am glad to hear comfortable at Hampton,[23]
where I hope you will receive the Biscuits we ate the other night at
Little Britain.[24] I hope you found them good. There you are among
sands, stones, Pebbles, Beeches, Cliffs, Rocks, Deeps, Shallows, weeds,
ships, Boats (at a distance), Carrots, Turnips, sun, moon, and stars and
all those sort of things--here am I among Colleges, halls, Stalls, Plenty
of Trees, thank God--Plenty of water, thank heaven--Plenty of Books, thank
the Muses--Plenty of Snuff, thank Sir Walter Raleigh--Plenty of
segars,--Ditto--Plenty of flat country, thank Tellus's rolling-pin. I'm on
the sofa--Buonaparte is on the snuff-box--But you are by the
seaside--argal, you bathe--you walk--you say "how beautiful"--find out
resemblances between waves and camels--rocks and dancing-masters--
fireshovels and telescopes--Dolphins and Madonas--which word, by the way,
I must acquaint you was derived from the Syriac, and came down in a way
which neither of you I am sorry to say are at all capable of comprehending.
But as a time may come when by your occasional converse with me you may
arrive at "something like prophetic strain," I will unbar the gates of my
pride and let my condescension stalk forth like a ghost at the
Circus.--The word Ma-don-a, my dear Ladies--or--the word Mad--Ona--so I
say! I am not mad--Howsumever when that aged Tamer Kewthon sold a certain
camel called Peter to the overseer of the Babel Sky-works, he thus spake,
adjusting his cravat round the tip of his chin--"My dear
Ten-story-up-in-air! this here Beast, though I say it as shouldn't say't,
not only has the power of subsisting 40 days and 40 nights without fire
and candle but he can sing.--Here I have in my Pocket a Certificate from
Signor Nicolini of the King's Theatre; a Certificate to this effect----" I
have had dinner since I left that effect upon you, and feel too heavy in
mentibus to display all the Profundity of the Polygon--so you had better
each of you take a glass of cherry Brandy and drink to the health of
Archimedes, who was of so benign a disposition that he never would leave
Syracuse in his life--So kept himself out of all Knight-Errantry.--This I
know to be a fact; for it is written in the 45th book of Winkine's
treatise on garden-rollers, that he trod on a fishwoman's toe in
Liverpool, and never begged her pardon. Now the long and short is
this--that is by comparison--for a long day may be a short year--A long
Pole may be a very stupid fellow as a man. But let us refresh ourself from
this depth of thinking, and turn to some innocent jocularity--the Bow
cannot always be bent--nor the gun always loaded, if you ever let it
off--and the life of man is like a great Mountain--his breath is like a
Shrewsbury cake--he comes into the world like a shoeblack, and goes out of
it like a cobbler--he eats like a chimney-sweeper, drinks like a
gingerbread baker--and breathes like Achilles--so it being that we are
such sublunary creatures, let us endeavour to correct all our bad
spelling--all our most delightful abominations, and let us wish health to
Marian and Jane, whoever they be and wherever.
Yours truly
JOHN KEATS.
XIV--TO FANNY KEATS.
Oxford, September 10 [1817].
My dear Fanny--Let us now begin a regular question and answer--a little
pro and con; letting it interfere as a pleasant method of my coming at
your favorite little wants and enjoyments, that I may meet them in a way
befitting a brother.
We have been so little together since you have been able to reflect on
things that I know not whether you prefer the History of King Pepin to
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress--or Cinderella and her glass slipper to
Moore's Almanack. However in a few Letters I hope I shall be able to come
at that and adapt my scribblings to your Pleasure. You must tell me about
all you read if it be only six Pages in a Week and this transmitted to me
every now and then will procure you full sheets of Writing from me pretty
frequently.--This I feel as a necessity for we ought to become intimately
acquainted, in order that I may not only, as you grow up love you as my
only Sister, but confide in you as my dearest friend. When I saw you last
I told you of my intention of going to Oxford and 'tis now a Week since I
disembark'd from his Whipship's Coach the Defiance in this place. I am
living in Magdalen Hall on a visit to a young Man with whom I have not
been long acquainted, but whom I like very much--we lead very industrious
lives--he in general Studies and I in proceeding at a pretty good rate
with a Poem which I hope you will see early in the next year.--Perhaps you
might like to know what I am writing about. I will tell you. Many Years
ago there was a young handsome Shepherd who fed his flocks on a Mountain's
Side called Latmus--he was a very contemplative sort of a Person and lived
solitary among the trees and Plains little thinking that such a beautiful
Creature as the Moon was growing mad in Love with him.--However so it was;
and when he was asleep on the Grass she used to come down from heaven and
admire him excessively for a long time; and at last could not refrain from
carrying him away in her arms to the top of that high Mountain Latmus
while he was a dreaming--but I daresay you have read this and all the
other beautiful Tales which have come down from the ancient times of that
beautiful Greece. If you have not let me know and I will tell you more at
large of others quite as delightful. This Oxford I have no doubt is the
finest City in the world--it is full of old Gothic buildings--Spires--
towers--Quadrangles--Cloisters--Groves, etc., and is surrounded with more
clear streams than ever I saw together. I take a Walk by the Side of one
of them every Evening and, thank God, we have not had a drop of rain these
many days. I had a long and interesting Letter from George, cross lines by
a short one from Tom yesterday dated Paris. They both send their loves to
you. Like most Englishmen they feel a mighty preference for everything
English--the French Meadows, the trees, the People, the Towns, the
Churches, the Books, the everything--although they may be in themselves
good: yet when put in comparison with our green Island they all vanish
like Swallows in October. They have seen Cathedrals, Manuscripts,
Fountains, Pictures, Tragedy, Comedy,--with other things you may by chance
meet with in this Country such as Washerwomen, Lamplighters, Turnpikemen,
Fishkettles, Dancing Masters, Kettle drums, Sentry Boxes, Rocking Horses,
etc.--and, now they have taken them over a set of boxing-gloves.
I have written to George and requested him, as you wish I should, to write
to you. I have been writing very hard lately, even till an utter
incapacity came on, and I feel it now about my head: so you must not mind
a little out-of-the-way sayings--though by the bye were my brain as clear
as a bell I think I should have a little propensity thereto. I shall stop
here till I have finished the 3d Book of my Story; which I hope will be
accomplish'd in at most three Weeks from to-day--about which time you
shall see me. How do you like Miss Taylor's essays in Rhyme--I just look'd
into the Book and it appeared to me suitable to you--especially since I
remember your liking for those pleasant little things the Original
Poems--the essays are the more mature production of the same hand. While I
was speaking about France it occurred to me to speak a few Words on their
Language--it is perhaps the poorest one ever spoken since the jabbering in
the Tower of Babel, and when you come to know that the real use and
greatness of a Tongue is to be referred to its Literature--you will be
astonished to find how very inferior it is to our native Speech.--I wish
the Italian would supersede French in every school throughout the Country,
for that is full of real Poetry and Romance of a kind more fitted for the
Pleasure of Ladies than perhaps our own.--It seems that the only end to be
gained in acquiring French is the immense accomplishment of speaking
it--it is none at all--a most lamentable mistake indeed. Italian indeed
would sound most musically from Lips which had began to pronounce it as
early as French is crammed down our Mouths, as if we were young Jackdaws
at the mercy of an overfeeding Schoolboy. Now Fanny you must write
soon--and write all you think about, never mind what--only let me have a
good deal of your writing--You need not do it all at once--be two or three
or four days about it, and let it be a diary of your little Life. You will
preserve all my Letters and I will secure yours--and thus in the course of
time we shall each of us have a good Bundle--which, hereafter, when things
may have strangely altered and God knows what happened, we may read over
together and look with pleasure on times past--that now are to come. Give
my Respects to the Ladies--and so my dear Fanny I am ever
Your most affectionate Brother
JOHN.
If you direct--Post Office, Oxford--your Letter will be brought to me.
XV.--TO JANE REYNOLDS.
Oxford, Sunday Evg. [September 14, 1817].
My dear Jane--You are such a literal translator, that I shall some day
amuse myself with looking over some foreign sentences, and imagining how
you would render them into English. This is an age for typical
Curiosities; and I would advise you, as a good speculation, to study
Hebrew, and astonish the world with a figurative version in our native
tongue. The Mountains skipping like rams, and the little hills like lambs,
you will leave as far behind as the hare did the tortoise. It must be so
or you would never have thought that I really meant you would like to pro
and con about those Honeycombs--no, I had no such idea, or, if I had,
'twould be only to tease you a little for love. So now let me put down in
black and white briefly my sentiments thereon.--Imprimis--I sincerely
believe that Imogen is the finest creature, and that I should have been
disappointed at hearing you prefer Juliet--Item--Yet I feel such a
yearning towards Juliet that I would rather follow her into Pandemonium
than Imogen into Paradise--heartily wishing myself a Romeo to be worthy of
her, and to hear the Devils quote the old proverb, "Birds of a feather
flock together"--Amen.--
Now let us turn to the Seashore. Believe me, my dear Jane, it is a great
happiness to see that you are in this finest part of the year winning a
little enjoyment from the hard world. In truth, the great Elements we know
of, are no mean comforters: the open sky sits upon our senses like a
sapphire crown--the Air is our robe of state--the Earth is our throne, and
the Sea a mighty minstrel playing before it--able, like David's harp, to
make such a one as you forget almost the tempest cares of life. I have
found in the ocean's music,--varying (tho self-same) more than the passion
of Timotheus, an enjoyment not to be put into words; and, "though inland
far I be," I now hear the voice most audibly while pleasing myself in the
idea of your sensations.
---- is getting well apace, and if you have a few trees, and a little
harvesting about you, I'll snap my fingers in Lucifer's eye. I hope you
bathe too--if you do not, I earnestly recommend it. Bathe thrice a week,
and let us have no more sitting up next winter. Which is the best of
Shakspeare's plays? I mean in what mood and with what accompaniment do you
like the sea best? It is very fine in the morning, when the sun,
"Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt sea streams,"
and superb when
"The sun from meridian height
Illumines the depth of the sea,
And the fishes, beginning to sweat,
Cry d---- it! how hot we shall be,"
and gorgeous, when the fair planet hastens
"To his home
Within the Western foam."
But don't you think there is something extremely fine after sunset, when
there are a few white clouds about and a few stars blinking--when the
waters are ebbing, and the horizon a mystery? This state of things has
been so fulfilling to me that I am anxious to hear whether it is a
favourite with you. So when you and Marianne club your letter to me put in
a word or two about it. Tell Dilke that it would be perhaps as well if he
left a Pheasant or Partridge alive here and there to keep up a supply of
game for next season--tell him to rein in if Possible all the Nimrod of
his disposition, he being a mighty hunter before the Lord--of the Manor.
Tell him to shoot fair, and not to have at the Poor devils in a
furrow--when they are flying, he may fire, and nobody will be the wiser.
Give my sincerest respects to Mrs. Dilke, saying that I have not forgiven
myself for not having got her the little box of medicine I promised, and
that, had I remained at Hampstead I would have made precious havoc with
her house and furniture--drawn a great harrow over her garden--poisoned
Boxer--eaten her clothes-pegs--fried her cabbages--fricaseed (how is it
spelt?) her radishes--ragout'd her Onions--belaboured her
_beat_-root--outstripped her scarlet-runners--parlez-vous'd with her
french-beans--devoured her mignon or mignionette--metamorphosed her
bell-handles--splintered her looking-glasses--bullocked at her cups and
saucers--agonised her decanters--put old Phillips to pickle in the
brine-tub--dis_organ_ised her piano--dislocated her candlesticks--emptied
her wine-bins in a fit of despair--turned out her maid to grass--and
astonished Brown; whose letter to her on these events I would rather see
than the original Copy of the Book of Genesis. Should you see Mr. W.
D.[25] remember me to him, and to little Robinson Crusoe, and to Mr.
Snook. Poor Bailey, scarcely ever well, has gone to bed, pleased that I
am writing to you. To your brother John (whom henceforth I shall consider
as mine) and to you, my dear friends, Marianne and Jane, I shall ever feel
grateful for having made known to me so real a fellow as Bailey. He
delights me in the selfish and (please God) the disinterested part of my
disposition. If the old Poets have any pleasure in looking down at the
enjoyers of their works, their eyes must bend with a double satisfaction
upon him. I sit as at a feast when he is over them, and pray that if,
after my death, any of my labours should be worth saving, they may have so
"honest a chronicler" as Bailey. Out of this, his enthusiasm in his own
pursuit and for all good things is of an exalted kind--worthy a more
healthful frame and an untorn spirit. He must have happy years to
come--"he shall not die by God."
A letter from John the other day was a chief happiness to me. I made a
little mistake when, just now, I talked of being far inland. How can that
be when Endymion and I are at the bottom of the sea? whence I hope to
bring him in safety before you leave the seaside; and, if I can so
contrive it, you shall be greeted by him upon the sea-sands, and he shall
tell you all his adventures, which having finished, he shall thus
proceed--"My dear Ladies, favourites of my gentle mistress, however my
friend Keats may have teased and vexed you, believe me he loves you not
the less--for instance, I am deep in his favour, and yet he has been
hauling me through the earth and sea with unrelenting perseverance. I know
for all this that he is mighty fond of me, by his contriving me all sorts
of pleasures. Nor is this the least, fair ladies, this one of meeting you
on the desert shore, and greeting you in his name. He sends you moreover
this little scroll--" My dear Girls, I send you, per favour of Endymion,
the assurance of my esteem for you, and my utmost wishes for your health
and pleasure, being ever,
Your affectionate Brother
JOHN KEATS.
XVI.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Oxford, Sunday Morn [September 21, 1817].
My dear Reynolds--So you are determined to be my mortal foe--draw a Sword
at me, and I will forgive--Put a Bullet in my Brain, and I will shake it
out as a dew-drop from the Lion's Mane--put me on a Gridiron, and I will
fry with great complacency--but--oh, horror! to come upon me in the shape
of a Dun! Send me bills! as I say to my Tailor, send me Bills and I'll
never employ you more. However, needs must, when the devil drives: and for
fear of "before and behind Mr. Honeycomb" I'll proceed. I have not time to
elucidate the forms and shapes of the grass and trees; for, rot it! I
forgot to bring my mathematical case with me, which unfortunately
contained my triangular Prism so that the hues of the grass cannot be
dissected for you--
For these last five or six days, we have had regularly a Boat on the Isis,
and explored all the streams about, which are more in number than your
eye-lashes. We sometimes skim into a Bed of rushes, and there become
naturalised river-folks,--there is one particularly nice nest, which we
have christened "Reynolds's Cove," in which we have read Wordsworth and
talked as may be. I think I see you and Hunt meeting in the Pit.--What a
very pleasant fellow he is, if he would give up the sovereignty of a Room
pro bono. What Evenings we might pass with him, could we have him from
Mrs. H. Failings I am always rather rejoiced to find in a man than sorry
for; they bring us to a Level. He has them, but then his makes-up are very
good. He agrees with the Northern Poet in this, "He is not one of those
who much delight to season their fireside with personal talk"--I must
confess however having a little itch that way, and at this present moment
I have a few neighbourly remarks to make. The world, and especially our
England, has, within the last thirty years, been vexed and teased by a
set of Devils, whom I detest so much that I almost hunger after an
Acherontic promotion to a Torturer, purposely for their accommodation.
These devils are a set of women, who having taken a snack or Luncheon of
Literary scraps, set themselves up for towers of Babel in languages,
Sapphos in Poetry, Euclids in Geometry, and everything in nothing. Among
such the name of Montague has been pre-eminent. The thing has made a very
uncomfortable impression on me. I had longed for some real feminine
Modesty in these things, and was therefore gladdened in the extreme on
opening the other day, one of Bailey's Books--a book of poetry written by
one beautiful Mrs. Philips, a friend of Jeremy Taylor's, and called "The
Matchless Orinda--" You must have heard of her, and most likely read her
Poetry--I wish you have not, that I may have the pleasure of treating you
with a few stanzas--I do it at a venture--You will not regret reading them
once more. The following, to her friend Mrs. M. A. at parting, you will
judge of.
1
I have examin'd and do find,
Of all that favour me
There's none I grieve to leave behind
But only, only thee.
To part with thee I needs must die,
Could parting sep'rate thee and I.
2
But neither Chance nor Complement
Did element our Love;
'Twas sacred sympathy was lent
Us from the Quire above.
That Friendship Fortune did create,
Still fears a wound from Time or Fate.
3
Our chang'd and mingled Souls are grown
To such acquaintance now,
That if each would resume their own,
Alas! we know not how.
We have each other so engrost,
That each is in the Union lost.
4
And thus we can no Absence know,
Nor shall we be confin'd;
Our active Souls will daily go
To learn each others mind.
Nay, should we never meet to Sense,
Our Souls would hold Intelligence.
5
Inspired with a Flame Divine
I scorn to court a stay;
For from that noble Soul of thine
I ne're can be away.
But I shall weep when thou dost grieve;
Nor can I die whil'st thou dost live.
6
By my own temper I shall guess
At thy felicity,
And only like my happiness
Because it pleaseth thee.
Our hearts at any time will tell
If thou, or I, be sick, or well.
7
All Honour sure I must pretend,
All that is good or great;
She that would be _Rosania's_ Friend,
Must be at least compleat.[A]
If I have any bravery,
'Tis cause I have so much of thee.
8
Thy Leiger Soul in me shall lie,
And all thy thoughts reveal;
Then back again with mine shall flie,
And thence to me shall steal.
Thus still to one another tend;
Such is the sacred name of _Friend_.
9
Thus our twin-Souls in one shall grow,
And teach the World new Love,
Redeem the Age and Sex, and show
A Flame Fate dares not move:
And courting Death to be our friend,
Our Lives together too shall end.
10
A Dew shall dwell upon our Tomb
Of such a quality,
That fighting Armies, thither come,
Shall reconciled be.
We'll ask no Epitaph, but say
Orinda and Rosania.
In other of her poems there is a most delicate fancy of the Fletcher
kind--which we will con over together. So Haydon is in Town. I had a
letter from him yesterday. We will contrive as the winter comes on--but
that is neither here nor there. Have you heard from Rice? Has Martin met
with the Cumberland Beggar, or been wondering at the old Leech-gatherer?
Has he a turn for fossils? that is, is he capable of sinking up to his
Middle in a Morass? How is Hazlitt? We were reading his Table[26] last
night. I know he thinks him self not estimated by ten people in the
world--I wish he knew he is. I am getting on famous with my third
Book--have written 800 lines thereof, and hope to finish it next Week.
Bailey likes what I have done very much. Believe me, my dear Reynolds, one
of my chief layings-up is the pleasure I shall have in showing it to you,
I may now say, in a few days. I have heard twice from my Brothers, they
are going on very well, and send their Remembrances to you. We expected to
have had notices from little-Hampton this morning--we must wait till
Tuesday. I am glad of their Days with the Dilkes. You are, I know, very
much teased in that precious London, and want all the rest possible; so I
shall be contented with as brief a scrawl--a Word or two, till there comes
a pat hour.
Send us a few of your stanzas to read in "Reynolds's Cove." Give my Love
and respects to your Mother, and remember me kindly to all at home.
Yours faithfully
JOHN KEATS.
I have left the doublings for Bailey, who is going to say that he will
write to you to-morrow.
XVII.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Oxford, September 28 [1817].
My dear Haydon--I read your letter to the young Man, whose Name is Cripps.
He seemed more than ever anxious to avail himself of your offer. I think I
told you we asked him to ascertain his Means. He does not possess the
Philosopher's stone--nor Fortunatus's purse, nor Gyges's ring--but at
Bailey's suggestion, whom I assure you is a very capital fellow, we have
stummed up a kind of contrivance whereby he will be enabled to do himself
the benefits you will lay in his Path. I have a great Idea that he will be
a tolerable neat brush. 'Tis perhaps the finest thing that will befal him
this many a year: for he is just of an age to get grounded in bad habits
from which you will pluck him. He brought a copy of Mary Queen of Scots:
it appears to me that he has copied the bad style of the painting, as well
as coloured the eyeballs yellow like the original. He has also the fault
that you pointed out to me in Hazlitt on the constringing and diffusing of
substance. However I really believe that he will take fire at the sight of
your Picture--and set about things. If he can get ready in time to return
to town with me, which will be in a few days--I will bring him to you. You
will be glad to hear that within these last three weeks I have written
1000 lines--which are the third Book of my Poem. My Ideas with respect to
it I assure you are very low--and I would write the subject thoroughly
again--but I am tired of it and think the time would be better spent in
writing a new Romance which I have in my eye for next summer--Rome was not
built in a Day--and all the good I expect from my employment this summer
is the fruit of Experience which I hope to gather in my next Poem.
Bailey's kindest wishes, and my vow of being
Yours eternally
JOHN KEATS.
XVIII.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.
Hampstead, Wednesday [October 8, 1817].
My dear Bailey--After a tolerable journey, I went from Coach to Coach as
far as Hampstead where I found my Brothers--the next Morning finding
myself tolerably well I went to Lamb's Conduit Street and delivered your
parcel. Jane and Marianne were greatly improved. Marianne especially, she
has no unhealthy plumpness in the face, but she comes me healthy and
angular to the chin--I did not see John--I was extremely sorry to hear
that poor Rice, after having had capital health during his tour, was very
ill. I daresay you have heard from him. From No. 19 I went to Hunt's and
Haydon's who live now neighbours.--Shelley was there--I know nothing about
anything in this part of the world--every Body seems at Loggerheads.
There's Hunt infatuated--there's Haydon's picture in statu quo--There's
Hunt walks up and down his painting room criticising every head most
unmercifully. There's Horace Smith tired of Hunt. "The web of our life is
of mingled yarn."[27] Haydon having removed entirely from Marlborough
Street, Cripps must direct his letter to Lisson Grove, North Paddington.
Yesterday Morning while I was at Brown's, in came Reynolds, he was pretty
bobbish, we had a pleasant day--he would walk home at night that cursed
cold distance. Mrs. Bentley's children are making a horrid
row[28]--whereby I regret I cannot be transported to your Room to write to
you. I am quite disgusted with literary men and will never know another
except Wordsworth--no not even Byron. Here is an instance of the
friendship of such. Haydon and Hunt have known each other many years--now
they live, pour ainsi dire, jealous neighbours--Haydon says to me, Keats,
don't show your lines to Hunt on any Account, or he will have done half
for you--so it appears Hunt wishes it to be thought. When he met Reynolds
in the Theatre, John told him that I was getting on to the completion of
4000 lines--Ah! says Hunt, had it not been for me they would have been
7000! If he will say this to Reynolds, what would he to other people?
Haydon received a Letter a little while back on this subject from some
Lady--which contains a caution to me, through him, on the subject--now is
not all this a most paltry thing to think about? You may see the whole of
the case by the following Extract from a Letter I wrote to George in the
Spring--"As to what you say about my being a Poet, I can return no Answer
but by saying that the high Idea I have of poetical fame makes me think I
see it towering too high above me. At any rate, I have no right to talk
until Endymion is finished--it will be a test, a trial of my Powers of
Imagination, and chiefly of my invention, which is a rare thing indeed--by
which I must make 4000 lines of one bare circumstance, and fill them with
poetry: and when I consider that this is a great task, and that when done
it will take me but a dozen paces towards the temple of fame--it makes me
say--God forbid that I should be without such a task! I have heard Hunt
say, and I may be asked--_why endeavour after a long Poem?_ To which I
should answer, Do not the Lovers of Poetry like to have a little Region to
wander in, where they may pick and choose, and in which the images are so
numerous that many are forgotten and found new in a second Reading: which
may be food for a Week's stroll in the Summer? Do not they like this
better than what they can read through before Mrs. Williams comes down
stairs? a Morning work at most.
"Besides, a long poem is a test of invention, which I take to be the Polar
star of Poetry, as Fancy is the Sails--and Imagination the rudder. Did our
great Poets ever write short Pieces? I mean in the shape of Tales--this
same invention seems indeed of late years to have been forgotten as a
Poetical excellence--But enough of this, I put on no Laurels till I shall
have finished Endymion, and I hope Apollo is not angered at my having made
a Mockery at him at Hunt's"----
You see, Bailey, how independent my Writing has been. Hunt's dissuasion
was of no avail--I refused to visit Shelley that I might have my own
unfettered scope;--and after all, I shall have the Reputation of Hunt's
eleve. His corrections and amputations will by the knowing ones be traced
in the Poem. This is, to be sure, the vexation of a day, nor would I say
so many words about it to any but those whom I know to have my welfare and
reputation at heart. Haydon promised to give directions for those Casts,
and you may expect to see them soon, with as many Letters--You will soon
hear the dinning of Bells--never mind! you and Gleig[29] will defy the
foul fiend--But do not sacrifice your health to Books: do take it kindly
and not so voraciously. I am certain if you are your own Physician, your
Stomach will resume its proper strength and then what great benefits will
follow.--My sister wrote a Letter to me, which I think must be at the
post-office--Ax Will to see. My Brother's kindest remembrances to you--we
are going to dine at Brown's where I have some hopes of meeting Reynolds.
The little Mercury I have taken has corrected the poison and improved my
health--though I feel from my employment that I shall never be again
secure in Robustness. Would that you were as well as
Your Sincere friend and brother
JOHN KEATS.
XIX.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.
[Hampstead: about November 1, 1817.]
My dear Bailey--So you have got a Curacy--good, but I suppose you will be
obliged to stop among your Oxford favourites during Term time. Never mind.
When do you preach your first sermon?--tell me, for I shall propose to the
two R.'s[30] to hear it,--so don't look into any of the old corner oaken
pews, for fear of being put out by us. Poor Johnny Moultrie can't be
there. He is ill, I expect--but that's neither here nor there. All I can
say, I wish him as well through it as I am like to be. For this fortnight
I have been confined at Hampstead. Saturday evening was my first day in
town, when I went to Rice's--as we intend to do every Saturday till we
know not when. We hit upon an old gent we had known some few years ago,
and had a _veiry pleasante daye_. In this world there is no
quiet,--nothing but teasing and snubbing and vexation. My brother Tom
looked very unwell yesterday, and I am for shipping him off to Lisbon.
Perhaps I ship there with him. I have not seen Mrs. Reynolds since I left
you, wherefore my conscience smites me. I think of seeing her to-morrow;
have you any message? I hope Gleig came soon after I left. I don't suppose
I've written as many lines as you have read volumes, or at least chapters,
since I saw you. However, I am in a fair way now to come to a conclusion
in at least three weeks, when I assure you I shall be glad to dismount for
a month or two; although I'll keep as tight a rein as possible till then,
nor suffer myself to sleep. I will copy for you the opening of the Fourth
Book, in which you will see from the manner I had not an opportunity of
mentioning any poets, for fear of spoiling the effect of the passage by
particularising them.
Thus far had I written when I received your last, which made me at the
sight of the direction caper for despair; but for one thing I am glad
that I have been neglectful, and that is, therefrom I have received a
proof of your utmost kindness, which at this present I feel very much, and
I wish I had a heart always open to such sensations; but there is no
altering a man's nature, and mine must be radically wrong, for it will lie
dormant a whole month. This leads me to suppose that there are no men
thoroughly wicked, so as never to be self-spiritualised into a kind of
sublime misery; but, alas! 'tis but for an hour. He is the only Man "who
has kept watch on man's mortality," who has philanthropy enough to
overcome the disposition to an indolent enjoyment of intellect, who is
brave enough to volunteer for uncomfortable hours. You remember in
Hazlitt's essay on commonplace people he says, "they read the Edinburgh
and Quarterly, and think as they do." Now, with respect to Wordsworth's
"Gipsy," I think he is right, and yet I think Hazlitt is right, and yet I
think Wordsworth is rightest. If Wordsworth had not been idle, he had not
been without his task; nor had the "Gipsies"--they in the visible world
had been as picturesque an object as he in the invisible. The smoke of
their fire, their attitudes, their voices, were all in harmony with the
evenings. It is a bold thing to say--and I would not say it in print--but
it seems to me that if Wordsworth had thought a little deeper at that
moment, he would not have written the poem at all. I should judge it to
have been written in one of the most comfortable moods of his life--it is
a kind of sketchy intellectual landscape, not a search after truth, nor is
it fair to attack him on such a subject; for it is with the critic as with
the poet; had Hazlitt thought a little deeper, and been in a good temper,
he would never have spied out imaginary faults there. The Sunday before
last I asked Haydon to dine with me, when I thought of settling all
matters with him in regard to Cripps, and let you know about it. Now,
although I engaged him a fortnight before, he sent illness as an excuse.
He never will come. I have not been well enough to stand the chance of a
wet night, and so have not seen him, nor been able to expurgatorise more
masks for you; but I will not speak--your speakers are never doers. Then
Reynolds,--every time I see him and mention you, he puts his hand to his
head and looks like a son of Niobe's; but he'll write soon.
Rome, you know, was not built in a day. I shall be able, by a little
perseverance, to read your letters off-hand. I am afraid your health will
suffer from over study before your examination. I think you might regulate
the thing according to your own pleasure,--and I would too. They were
talking of your being up at Christmas. Will it be before you have passed?
There is nothing, my dear Bailey, I should rejoice at more than to see you
comfortable with a little Peona wife; an affectionate wife, I have a sort
of confidence, would do you a great happiness. May that be one of the many
blessings I wish you. Let me be but the one-tenth of one to you, and I
shall think it great. My brother George's kindest wishes to you. My dear
Bailey, I am,
Your affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
I should not like to be pages in your way; when in a tolerable hungry mood
you have no mercy. Your teeth are the Rock Tarpeian down which you capsize
epic poems like mad. I would not for forty shillings be Coleridge's Lays
in your way. I hope you will soon get through this abominable writing in
the schools, and be able to keep the terms with more comfort in the hope
of retiring to a comfortable and quiet home out of the way of all
Hopkinses and black beetles. When you are settled, I will come and take a
peep at your church, your house; try whether I shall have grown too lusty
for my chair by the fireside, and take a peep at my earliest bower. A
question is the best beacon towards a little speculation. Then ask me
after my health and spirits. This question ratifies in my mind what I have
said above. Health and spirits can only belong unalloyed to the selfish
man--the man who thinks much of his fellows can never be in spirits. You
must forgive, although I have only written three hundred lines; they would
have been five, but I have been obliged to go to town. Yesterday I called
at Lamb's. St. Jane looked very flush when I first looked in, but was much
better before I left.
XX.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.
[_Fragment from an outside sheet: postmark_ London, November 5, 1817.]
... I will speak of something else, or my spleen will get higher and
higher--and I am a bearer of the two-edged sword.--I hope you will receive
an answer from Haydon soon--if not, Pride! Pride! Pride! I have received
no more subscription--but shall soon have a full health, Liberty and
leisure to give a good part of my time to him. I will certainly be in time
for him. We have promised him one year: let that have elapsed, then do as
we think proper. If I did not know how impossible it is, I should say--"do
not at this time of disappointments, disturb yourself about others."
There has been a flaming attack upon Hunt in the E_n_dinburgh Magazine. I
never read anything so virulent--accusing him of the greatest Crimes,
depreciating his Wife, his Poetry, his Habits, his Company, his
Conversation. These Philippics are to come out in numbers--called "the
Cockney School of Poetry." There has been but one number published--that
on Hunt--to which they have prefixed a motto from one Cornelius Webb
Poetaster--who unfortunately was of our party occasionally at Hampstead
and took it into his head to write the following,--something about "we'll
talk on Wordsworth, Byron, a theme we never tire on;" and so forth till he
comes to Hunt and Keats. In the Motto they have put Hunt and Keats in
large letters--I have no doubt that the second number was intended for me:
but have hopes of its non-appearance, from the following Advertisement in
last Sunday's Examiner:--"To Z.--The Writer of the Article signed Z., in
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for October 1817 is invited to send his
address to the printer of the Examiner, in order that Justice may be
Executed on the proper person." I don't mind the thing much--but if he
should go to such lengths with me as he has done with Hunt, I must
infallibly call him to an Account if he be a human being, and appears in
Squares and Theatres, where we might possibly meet--I don't relish his
abuse....
XXI.--TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE.
[Hampstead, November 1817.]
My dear Dilke--Mrs. Dilke or Mr. Wm. Dilke, whoever of you shall receive
this present, have the kindness to send pr. bearer Sibylline Leaves, and
your petitioner shall ever pray as in duty bound.
Given under my hand this Wednesday morning of Novr. 1817.
JOHN KEATS.
Vivant Rex et Regina--amen.
XXII.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.
[Burford Bridge, November 22, 1817.]
My dear Bailey--I will get over the first part of this (_un_said[31])
Letter as soon as possible, for it relates to the affairs of poor
Cripps.--To a Man of your nature such a Letter as Haydon's must have been
extremely cutting--What occasions the greater part of the World's
Quarrels?--simply this--two Minds meet, and do not understand each other
time enough to prevent any shock or surprise at the conduct of either
party--As soon as I had known Haydon three days, I had got enough of his
Character not to have been surprised at such a Letter as he has hurt you
with. Nor, when I knew it, was it a principle with me to drop his
acquaintance; although with you it would have been an imperious feeling. I
wish you knew all that I think about Genius and the Heart--and yet I think
that you are thoroughly acquainted with my innermost breast in that
respect, or you could not have known me even thus long, and still hold me
worthy to be your dear Friend. In passing, however, I must say one thing
that has pressed upon me lately, and increased my Humility and capability
of submission--and that is this truth--Men of Genius are great as certain
ethereal Chemicals operating on the Mass of neutral intellect--but they
have not any individuality, any determined Character--I would call the top
and head of those who have a proper self Men of Power.
But I am running my head into a subject which I am certain I could not do
justice to under five Years' study, and 3 vols. octavo--and, moreover, I
long to be talking about the Imagination--so my dear Bailey, do not think
of this unpleasant affair, if possible do not--I defy any harm to come of
it--I defy. I shall write to Cripps this week, and request him to tell me
all his goings-on from time to time by Letter wherever I may be. It will
go on well--so don't because you have suddenly discovered a Coldness in
Haydon suffer yourself to be teased--Do not my dear fellow--O! I wish I
was as certain of the end of all your troubles as that of your momentary
start about the authenticity of the Imagination. I am certain of nothing
but of the holiness of the Heart's affections, and the truth of
Imagination. What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth--whether
it existed before or not,--for I have the same idea of all our passions as
of Love: they are all, in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty. In
a Word, you may know my favourite speculation by my first Book, and the
little Song I sent in my last, which is a representation from the fancy of
the probable mode of operating in these Matters. The Imagination may be
compared to Adam's dream,--he awoke and found it truth:[32]--I am more
zealous in this affair, because I have never yet been able to perceive how
anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning--and yet it must
be. Can it be that even the greatest Philosopher ever arrived at his Goal
without putting aside numerous objections? However it may be, O for a life
of Sensations rather than of Thoughts! It is "a Vision in the form of
Youth," a shadow of reality to come--And this consideration has further
convinced me,--for it has come as auxiliary to another favourite
speculation of mine,--that we shall enjoy ourselves hereafter by having
what we called happiness on Earth repeated in a finer tone--And yet such a
fate can only befall those who delight in Sensation, rather than hunger as
you do after Truth. Adam's dream will do here, and seems to be a
Conviction that Imagination and its empyreal reflection, is the same as
human life and its spiritual repetition. But, as I was saying, the Simple
imaginative Mind may have its rewards in the repetition of its own silent
Working coming continually on the Spirit with a fine Suddenness--to
compare great things with small, have you never by being surprised with an
old Melody, in a delicious place by a delicious voice, _felt_ over again
your very speculations and surmises at the time it first operated on your
soul?--do you not remember forming to yourself the Singer's face--more
beautiful than it was possible, and yet with the elevation of the Moment
you did not think so? Even then you were mounted on the Wings of
Imagination, so high that the prototype must be hereafter--that delicious
face you will see. What a time! I am continually running away from the
subject. Sure this cannot be exactly the Case with a complex mind--one
that is imaginative, and at the same time careful of its fruits,--who
would exist partly on Sensation, partly on thought--to whom it is
necessary that years should bring the philosophic Mind? Such a one I
consider yours, and therefore it is necessary to your eternal happiness
that you not only drink this old Wine of Heaven, which I shall call the
redigestion of our most ethereal Musings upon Earth, but also increase in
knowledge and know all things. I am glad to hear that you are in a fair
way for Easter. You will soon get through your unpleasant reading, and
then!--but the world is full of troubles, and I have not much reason to
think myself pestered with many.
I think Jane or Marianne has a better opinion of me than I deserve: for,
really and truly, I do not think my Brother's illness connected with
mine--you know more of the real Cause than they do; nor have I any chance
of being rack'd as you have been. You perhaps at one time thought there
was such a thing as worldly happiness to be arrived at, at certain periods
of time marked out,--you have of necessity from your disposition been thus
led away--I scarcely remember counting upon any Happiness--I look not for
it if it be not in the present hour,--nothing startles me beyond the
moment. The Setting Sun will always set me to rights, or if a Sparrow come
before my Window, I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel.
The first thing that strikes me on hearing a Misfortune having befallen
another is this--"Well, it cannot be helped: he will have the pleasure of
trying the resources of his Spirit"--and I beg now, my dear Bailey, that
hereafter should you observe anything cold in me not to put it to the
account of heartlessness, but abstraction--for I assure you I sometimes
feel not the influence of a passion or affection during a whole Week--and
so long this sometimes continues, I begin to suspect myself, and the
genuineness of my feelings at other times--thinking them a few barren
Tragedy Tears.
My brother Tom is much improved--he is going to Devonshire--whither I
shall follow him. At present, I am just arrived at Dorking--to change the
Scene--change the Air, and give me a spur to wind up my Poem, of which
there are wanting 500 lines. I should have been here a day sooner, but the
Reynoldses persuaded me to stop in Town to meet your friend Christie.
There were Rice and Martin--we talked about Ghosts. I will have some Talk
with Taylor and let you know,--when please God I come down at Christmas. I
will find that Examiner if possible. My best regards to Gleig, my
Brothers' to you and Mrs. Bentley.
Your affectionate Friend
JOHN KEATS.
I want to say much more to you--a few hints will set me going. Direct
Burford Bridge near Dorking.
XXIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[Burford Bridge,] November 22, 1817.
My dear Reynolds--There are two things which tease me here--one of them
Cripps, and the other that I cannot go with Tom into Devonshire. However,
I hope to do my duty to myself in a week or so; and then I'll try what I
can do for my neighbour--now, is not this virtuous? On returning to Town
I'll damm all Idleness--indeed, in superabundance of employment, I must
not be content to run here and there on little two-penny errands, but turn
Rakehell, _i.e._ go a masking, or Bailey will think me just as great a
Promise Keeper as _he_ thinks you; for myself I do not, and do not
remember above one complaint against you for matter o' that. Bailey writes
so abominable a hand, to give his Letter a fair reading requires a little
time: so I had not seen, when I saw you last, his invitation to Oxford at
Christmas. I'll go with you. You know how poorly Rice was. I do not think
it was all corporeal,--bodily pain was not used to keep him silent. I'll
tell you what; he was hurt at what your Sisters said about his joking with
your Mother, he was, soothly to sain. It will all blow over. God knows,
my dear Reynolds, I should not talk any sorrow to you--you must have
enough vexations--so I won't any more. If I ever start a rueful subject in
a letter to you--blow me! Why don't you?--now I am going to ask you a very
silly Question neither you nor anybody else could answer, under a folio,
or at least a Pamphlet--you shall judge--why don't you, as I do, look
unconcerned at what may be called more particularly Heart-vexations? They
never surprise me--lord! a man should have the fine point of his soul
taken off to become fit for this world.
I like this place very much. There is Hill and Dale and a little River. I
went up Box hill this Evening after the Moon--"you a' seen the Moon"--came
down, and wrote some lines. Whenever I am separated from you, and not
engaged in a continued Poem, every letter shall bring you a lyric--but I
am too anxious for you to enjoy the whole to send you a particle. One of
the three books I have with me is Shakspeare's Poems: I never found so
many beauties in the sonnets--they seem to be full of fine things said
unintentionally--in the intensity of working out conceits. Is this to be
borne? Hark ye!
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the head,
And Summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly head.
He has left nothing to say about nothing or anything: for look at
snails--you know what he says about Snails--you know when he talks about
"cockled Snails"--well, in one of these sonnets, he says--the chap slips
into--no! I lie! this is in the Venus and Adonis: the simile brought it to
my Mind.
As the snail, whose tender horns being hit,
Shrinks back into his shelly cave with pain,
And there all smothered up in shade doth sit,
Long after fearing to put forth again;
So at his bloody view her eyes are fled,
Into the deep dark Cabins of her head.
He overwhelms a genuine Lover of poesy with all manner of abuse, talking
about--
"a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song."
Which, by the bye, will be a capital motto for my poem, won't it? He
speaks too of "Time's antique pen"--and "April's first-born flowers"--and
"Death's eternal cold."--By the Whim-King! I'll give you a stanza, because
it is not material in connection, and when I wrote it I wanted you--to
give your vote, pro or con.--
Crystalline Brother of the belt of Heaven,
Aquarius! to whom King Jove hath given
Two liquid pulse-streams, 'stead of feather'd wings--
Two fan-like fountains--thine illuminings
For Dian play:
Dissolve the frozen purity of air;
Let thy white shoulders, silvery and bare,
Show cold through wat'ry pinions: make more bright
The Star-Queen's Crescent on her marriage night:
Haste, haste away!
... I see there is an advertisement in the _Chronicle_ to Poets--he is so
over-loaded with poems on the "late Princess." I suppose you do not
lack--send me a few--lend me thy hand to laugh a little--send me a little
pullet-sperm, a few finch-eggs--and remember me to each of our
card-playing Club. When you die you will all be turned into Dice, and be
put in pawn with the devil: for cards, they crumple up like anything....
I rest Your affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
Give my love to both houses--hinc atque illinc.
XXIV.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
Hampstead, December 22, 1817.
My dear Brothers--I must crave your pardon for not having written ere
this.... I saw Kean return to the public in Richard III., and finely he
did it, and, at the request of Reynolds, I went to criticise his _Duke_
in Rich{d.}--the critique is in to-day's Champion, which I send you with
the Examiner, in which you will find very proper lamentation on the
obsoletion of Christmas Gambols and pastimes: but it was mixed up with so
much egotism of that drivelling nature that pleasure is entirely lost.
Hone the publisher's trial, you must find very amusing, and as Englishmen
very encouraging: his _Not Guilty_ is a thing, which not to have been,
would have dulled still more Liberty's Emblazoning--Lord Ellenborough has
been paid in his own coin--Wooler and Hone have done us an essential
service. I have had two very pleasant evenings with Dilke yesterday and
to-day, and am at this moment just come from him, and feel in the humour
to go on with this, begun in the morning, and from which he came to fetch
me. I spent Friday evening with Wells[33] and went next morning to see
_Death on the Pale horse_. It is a wonderful picture, when West's age is
considered; but there is nothing to be intense upon, no women one feels
mad to kiss, no face swelling into reality. The excellence of every art is
its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their
being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth--Examine King Lear, and
you will find this exemplified throughout; but in this picture we have
unpleasantness without any momentous depth of speculation excited, in
which to bury its repulsiveness--The picture is larger than Christ
rejected.
I dined with Haydon the Sunday after you left, and had a very pleasant
day, I dined too (for I have been out too much lately) with Horace Smith
and met his two Brothers with Hill and Kingston and one Du Bois, they only
served to convince me how superior humour is to wit, in respect to
enjoyment--These men say things which make one start, without making one
feel, they are all alike; their manners are alike; they all know
fashionables; they have all a mannerism in their very eating and drinking,
in their mere handling a Decanter. They talked of Kean and his low
company--would I were with that company instead of yours said I to myself!
I know such like acquaintance will never do for me and yet I am going to
Reynolds, on Wednesday. Brown and Dilke walked with me and back from the
Christmas pantomime. I had not a dispute, but a disquisition, with Dilke
upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once
it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in
Literature, and which Shakspeare possessed so enormously--I mean _Negative
Capability_, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties,
mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude
caught from the Penetralium of mystery,[34] from being incapable of
remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would
perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of
Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all
consideration.
Shelley's poem[35] is out and there are words about its being objected to,
as much as Queen Mab was. Poor Shelley I think he has his Quota of good
qualities, in sooth la! Write soon to your most sincere friend and
affectionate Brother
JOHN.
XXV.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
Featherstone Buildings,[36] Monday [January 5, 1818].
My dear Brothers--I ought to have written before, and you should have had
a long letter last week, but I undertook the Champion for Reynolds, who
is at Exeter. I wrote two articles, one on the Drury Lane Pantomime, the
other on the Covent Garden new Tragedy, which they have not put in;[37]
the one they have inserted is so badly punctuated that you perceive I am
determined never to write more, without some care in that particular.
Wells tells me that you are licking your chops, Tom, in expectation of my
book coming out. I am sorry to say I have not begun my corrections yet:
to-morrow I set out. I called on Sawrey[38] this morning. He did not seem
to be at all put out at anything I said and the inquiries I made with
regard to your spitting of blood, and moreover desired me to ask you to
send him a correct account of all your sensations and symptoms concerning
the palpitation and the spitting and the cough--if you have any. Your last
letter gave me a great pleasure, for I think the invalid is in a better
spirit there along the Edge; and as for George, I must immediately, now I
think of it, correct a little misconception of a part of my last letter.
The Misses Reynolds have never said one word against me about you, or by
any means endeavoured to lessen you in my estimation. That is not what I
referred to; but the manner and thoughts which I knew they internally had
towards you, time will show. Wells and Severn dined with me yesterday. We
had a very pleasant day. I pitched upon another bottle of claret, we
enjoyed ourselves very much; were all very witty and full of Rhymes. We
played a concert from 4 o'clock till 10--drank your healths, the Hunts',
and (_N.B._) seven Peter Pindars. I said on that day the only good thing I
was ever guilty of. We were talking about Stephens and the 1st Gallery. I
said I wondered that careful folks would go there, for although it was but
a shilling, still you had to pay through the Nose. I saw the Peachey
family in a box at Drury one night. I have got such a curious[39] ... or
rather I had such, now I am in my own hand.
I have had a great deal of pleasant time with Rice lately, and am getting
initiated into a little band. They call drinking deep dyin' scarlet. They
call good wine a pretty tipple, and call getting a child knocking out an
apple; stopping at a tavern they call hanging out. Where do you sup? is
where do you hang out?
Thursday I promised to dine with Wordsworth, and the weather is so bad
that I am undecided, for he lives at Mortimer Street. I had an invitation
to meet him at Kingston's,[40] but not liking that place I sent my excuse.
What I think of doing to-day is to dine in Mortimer Street (Words{th}),
and sup here in the Feath{s} buildings, as Mr. Wells has invited me. On
Saturday, I called on Wordsworth before he went to Kingston's, and was
surprised to find him with a stiff collar. I saw his spouse, and I think
his daughter. I forget whether I had written my last before my Sunday
evening at Haydon's--no, I did not, or I should have told you, Tom, of a
young man you met at Paris, at Scott's, ... Ritchie. I think he is going
to Fezan, in Africa; then to proceed if possible like Mungo Park. He was
very polite to me, and inquired very particularly after you. Then there
was Wordsworth, Lamb, Monkhouse, Landseer, Kingston, and your humble
servant. Lamb got tipsy and blew up Kingston--proceeding so far as to take
the candle across the room, hold it to his face, and show us what a soft
fellow he was.[41] I astonished Kingston at supper with a pertinacity in
favour of drinking, keeping my two glasses at work in a knowing way.
I have seen Fanny twice lately--she inquired particularly after you and
wants a co-partnership letter from you. She has been unwell, but is
improving. I think she will be quick. Mrs. Abbey was saying that the
Keatses were ever indolent, that they would ever be so, and that it is
born in them. Well, whispered Fanny to me, if it is born with us, how can
we help it? She seems very anxious for a letter. As I asked her what I
should get for her, she said a "Medal of the Princess." I called on
Haslam--we dined very snugly together. He sent me a Hare last week, which
I sent to Mrs. Dilke. Brown is not come back. I and Dilke are getting
capital friends. He is going to take the Champion. He has sent his farce
to Covent Garden. I met Bob Harris[42] on the steps at Covent Garden; we
had a good deal of curious chat. He came out with his old humble opinion.
The Covent Garden pantomime is a very nice one, but they have a middling
Harlequin, a bad Pantaloon, a worse Clown, and a shocking Columbine, who
is one of the Miss Dennets. I suppose you will see my critique on the new
tragedy in the next week's Champion. It is a shocking bad one. I have not
seen Hunt; he was out when I called. Mrs. Hunt looks as well as ever I saw
her after her confinement. There is an article in the se'nnight Examiner
on Godwin's Mandeville, signed E. K.--I think it Miss Kent's--I will send
it. There are fine subscriptions going on for Hone.
You ask me what degrees there are between Scott's novels and those of
Smollett. They appear to me to be quite distinct in every particular, more
especially in their aims. Scott endeavours to throw so interesting and
romantic a colouring into common and low characters as to give them a
touch of the sublime. Smollett on the contrary pulls down and levels what
with other men would continue romance. The grand parts of Scott are
within the reach of more minds than the finest humours in Humphrey
Clinker. I forget whether that fine thing of the Serjeant is Fielding or
Smollett, but it gives me more pleasure than the whole novel of the
Antiquary. You must remember what I mean. Some one says to the Serjeant:
"That's a non-sequitur!"--"If you come to that," replies the Serjeant,
"you're another!"--
I see by Wells's letter Mr. Abbey[43] does not overstock you with money.
You must write. I have not seen ... yet, but expect it on Wednesday. I am
afraid it is gone. Severn tells me he has an order for some drawings for
the Emperor of Russia.
You must get well Tom, and then I shall feel whole and genial as the
winter air. Give me as many letters as you like, and write to Sawrey soon.
I received a short letter from Bailey about Cripps, and one from Haydon,
ditto. Haydon thinks he improved very much. Mrs. Wells desires
particularly ... to Tom and her respects to George, and I desire no better
than to be ever your most affectionate Brother
JOHN.
_P.S._--I had not opened the Champion before I found both my articles in
it.
I was at a dance at Redhall's, and passed a pleasant time enough--drank
deep, and won 10.6 at cutting for half guineas.... Bailey was there and
seemed to enjoy the evening. Rice said he cared less about the hour than
any one, and the proof is his dancing--he cares not for time, dancing as
if he was deaf. Old Redhall not being used to give parties, had no idea of
the quantity of wine that would be drank, and he actually put in readiness
on the kitchen stairs eight dozen.
Every one inquires after you, and desires their remembrances to you.
Your Brother
JOHN.
XXVI.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
[Hampstead,] Saturday Morn [January 10, 1818].
My dear Haydon--I should have seen you ere this, but on account of my
sister being in Town: so that when I have sometimes made ten paces towards
you, Fanny has called me into the City; and the Christmas Holydays are
your only time to see Sisters, that is if they are so situated as mine. I
will be with you early next week--to-night it should be, but we have a
sort of a Club every Saturday evening--to-morrow, but I have on that day
an insuperable engagement. Cripps has been down to me, and appears
sensible that a binding to you would be of the greatest advantage to
him--if such a thing be done it cannot be before L150 or L200 are secured
in subscriptions to him. I will write to Bailey about it, give a Copy of
the Subscribers' names to every one I know who is likely to get a L5 for
him. I will leave a Copy at Taylor and Hessey's, Rodwell and Martin, and
will ask Kingston and Co. to cash up.
Your friendship for me is now getting into its teens--and I feel the past.
Also every day older I get--the greater is my idea of your achievements in
Art: and I am convinced that there are three things to rejoice at in this
Age--The Excursion, Your Pictures, and Hazlitt's depth of Taste.
Yours affectionately
JOHN KEATS.
XXVII.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.
[Hampstead,] Saturday Morning [January 10, 1818].
My dear Taylor--Several things have kept me from you lately:--first you
had got into a little hell, which I was not anxious to reconnoitre--
secondly, I have made a vow not to call again without my first book: so you
may expect to see me in four days. Thirdly, I have been racketing too
much, and do not feel over well. I have seen Wordsworth frequently--Dined
with him last Monday--Reynolds, I suppose you have seen. Just scribble me
thus many lines, to let me know you are in the land of the living, and
well. Remember me to the Fleet Street Household--and should you see any
from Percy Street, give my kindest regards to them.
Your sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
XXVIII.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
[Hampstead,] Tuesday [January 13, 1818].
My dear Brothers--I am certain I think of having a letter to-morrow
morning for I expected one so much this morning, having been in town two
days, at the end of which my expectations began to get up a little. I
found two on the table, one from Bailey and one from Haydon, I am quite
perplexed in a world of doubts and fancies--there is nothing stable in the
world; uproar's your only music--I don't mean to include Bailey in this
and so dismiss him from this with all the opprobrium he deserves--that is
in so many words, he is one of the noblest men alive at the present day.
In a note to Haydon about a week ago (which I wrote with a full sense of
what he had done, and how he had never manifested any little mean drawback
in his value of me) I said if there were three things superior in the
modern world, they were "the Excursion," "Haydon's pictures," and
"Hazlitt's depth of Taste"--so I do believe--Not thus speaking with any
poor vanity that works of genius were the first things in this world. No!
for that sort of probity and disinterestedness which such men as Bailey
possess, does hold and grasp the tiptop of any spiritual honours that can
be paid to anything in this world--And moreover having this feeling at
this present come over me in its full force, I sat down to write to you
with a grateful heart, in that I had not a Brother who did not feel and
credit me for a deeper feeling and devotion for his uprightness, than for
any marks of genius however splendid. I was speaking about doubts and
fancies--I mean there has been a quarrel of a severe nature between Haydon
and Reynolds and another ("the Devil rides upon a fiddlestick") between
Hunt and Haydon--the first grew from the Sunday on which Haydon invited
some friends to meet Wordsworth. Reynolds never went, and never sent any
Notice about it, this offended Haydon more than it ought to have done--he
wrote a very sharp and high note to Reynolds and then another in
palliation--but which Reynolds feels as an aggravation of the
first--Considering all things, Haydon's frequent neglect of his
Appointments, etc. his notes were bad enough to put Reynolds on the right
side of the question--but then Reynolds has no power of sufferance; no
idea of having the thing against him; so he answered Haydon in one of the
most cutting letters I ever read; exposing to himself all his own
weaknesses and going on to an excess, which whether it is just or no, is
what I would fain have unsaid, the fact is, they are both in the right and
both in the wrong.
The quarrel with Hunt I understand thus far. Mrs. H. was in the habit of
borrowing silver of Haydon--the last time she did so, Haydon asked her to
return it at a certain time--she did not--Haydon sent for it--Hunt went to
expostulate on the indelicacy, etc.--they got to words and parted for
ever. All I hope is at some time to bring them together again.--Lawk!
Molly there's been such doings--Yesterday evening I made an appointment
with Wells to go to a private theatre, and it being in the neighbourhood
of Drury Lane, and thinking we might be fatigued with sitting the whole
evening in one dirty hole, I got the Drury Lane ticket, and therewith we
divided the evening with a spice of Richard III----
[Later, January 19 or 20.]
Good Lord! I began this letter nearly a week ago, what have I been doing
since--I have been--I mean not been--sending last Sunday's paper to you.
I believe because it was not near me--for I cannot find it, and my
conscience presses heavy on me for not sending it. You would have had one
last Thursday, but I was called away, and have been about somewhere ever
since. Where? What! Well I rejoice almost that I have not heard from you
because no news is good news. I cannot for the world recollect why I was
called away, all I know is that there has been a dance at Dilke's, and
another at the London Coffee House; to both of which I went. But I must
tell you in another letter the circumstances thereof--for though a week
should have passed since I wrote on the other side it quite appals me. I
can only write in scraps and patches. Brown is returned from Hampstead.
Haydon has returned an answer in the same style--they are all dreadfully
irritated against each other. On Sunday I saw Hunt and dined with Haydon,
met Hazlitt and Bewick there, and took Haslam with me--forgot to speak
about Cripps though I broke my engagement to Haslam's on purpose.
Mem.--Haslam came to meet me, found me at Breakfast, had the goodness to
go with me my way--I have just finished the revision of my first book, and
shall take it to Taylor's to-morrow--intend to persevere--Do not let me
see many days pass without hearing from you.
Your most affectionate Brother
JOHN.
XXIX.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.
[Hampstead,] Friday 23d [January 1818].
My dear Taylor--I have spoken to Haydon about the drawing. He would do it
with all his Art and Heart too, if so I will it; however, he has written
thus to me; but I must tell you, first, he intends painting a finished
Picture from the Poem. Thus he writes--"When I do anything for your Poem
it must be effectual--an honour to both of us: to hurry up a sketch for
the season won't do. I think an engraving from your head, from a Chalk
drawing of mine, done with all my might, to which I would put my name,
would answer Taylor's idea better than the other. Indeed, I am sure of it.
This I will do, and this will be effectual, and as I have not done it for
any other human being, it will have an effect."
What think you of this? Let me hear. I shall have my second Book in
readiness forthwith.
Yours most sincerely
JOHN KEATS.
If Reynolds calls tell him three lines will be acceptable, for I am squat
at Hampstead.
XXX.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
[Hampstead,] Friday 23d January [1818].
My dear Brothers--I was thinking what hindered me from writing so long,
for I have so many things to say to you, and know not where to begin. It
shall be upon a thing most interesting to you, my Poem. Well! I have given
the first Book to Taylor; he seemed more than satisfied with it, and to my
surprise proposed publishing it in Quarto if Haydon would make a drawing
of some event therein, for a Frontispiece. I called on Haydon, he said he
would do anything I liked, but said he would rather paint a finished
picture, from it, which he seems eager to do; this in a year or two will
be a glorious thing for us; and it will be, for Haydon is struck with the
1st Book. I left Haydon and the next day received a letter from him,
proposing to make, as he says, with all his might, a finished chalk sketch
of my head, to be engraved in the first style and put at the head of my
Poem, saying at the same time he had never done the thing for any human
being, and that it must have considerable effect as he will put his name
to it--I begin to-day to copy my 2nd Book--"thus far into the bowels of
the land"--You shall hear whether it will be Quarto or non Quarto, picture
or non picture. Leigh Hunt I showed my 1st Book to--he allows it not much
merit as a whole; says it is unnatural and made ten objections to it in
the mere skimming over. He says the conversation is unnatural and too
high-flown for Brother and Sister--says it should be simple forgetting do
ye mind that they are both overshadowed by a supernatural Power, and of
force could not speak like Francesca in the Rimini. He must first prove
that Caliban's poetry is unnatural--This with me completely overturns his
objections--the fact is he and Shelley are hurt, and perhaps justly, at my
not having showed them the affair officiously and from several hints I
have had they appear much disposed to dissect and anatomise any trip or
slip I may have made.--But who's afraid? Ay! Tom! Demme if I am. I went
last Tuesday, an hour too late, to Hazlitt's Lecture on poetry, got there
just as they were coming out, when all these pounced upon me. Hazlitt,
John Hunt and Son, Wells, Bewick, all the Landseers, Bob Harris, aye and
more--the Landseers enquired after you particularly--I know not whether
Wordsworth has left town--But Sunday I dined with Hazlitt and Haydon, also
that I took Haslam with me--I dined with Brown lately. Dilke having taken
the Champion Theatricals was obliged to be in town--Fanny has returned to
Walthamstow.--Mr. Abbey appeared very glum, the last time I went to see
her, and said in an indirect way, that I had no business there--Rice has
been ill, but has been mending much lately--
I think a little change has taken place in my intellect lately--I cannot
bear to be uninterested or unemployed, I, who for so long a time have been
addicted to passiveness. Nothing is finer for the purposes of great
productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers. As an
instance of this--observe--I sat down yesterday to read King Lear once
again: the thing appeared to demand the prologue of a sonnet, I wrote it,
and began to read--(I know you would like to see it.)
ON SITTING DOWN TO KING LEAR ONCE AGAIN.
O golden-tongued Romance with serene Lute!
Fair-plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!
Leave melodising on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden volume and be mute.
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute
Betwixt Hell torment and impassion'd Clay
Must I burn through; once more assay
The bitter sweet of this Shakspearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When I am through the old oak forest gone
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But, when I am consumed with the Fire,
Give me new Phoenix-wings to fly at my desire.
So you see I am getting at it, with a sort of determination and strength,
though verily I do not feel it at this moment--this is my fourth letter
this morning, and I feel rather tired, and my head rather swimming--so I
will leave it open till to-morrow's post.--
I am in the habit of taking my papers to Dilke's and copying there; so I
chat and proceed at the same time. I have been there at my work this
evening, and the walk over the Heath takes off all sleep, so I will even
proceed with you. I left off short in my last just as I began an account
of a private theatrical--Well it was of the lowest order, all greasy and
oily, insomuch that if they had lived in olden times, when signs were hung
over the doors, the only appropriate one for that oily place would have
been--a guttered Candle. They played John Bull, The Review, and it was to
conclude with Bombastes Furioso--I saw from a Box the first Act of John
Bull, then went to Drury and did not return till it was over--when by
Wells's interest we got behind the scenes--there was not a yard wide all
the way round for actors, scene-shifters, and interlopers to move in--for
'Nota Bene' the Green Room was under the stage, and there was I threatened
over and over again to be turned out by the oily scene-shifters, there did
I hear a little painted Trollop own, very candidly, that she had failed
in Mary, with a "damn'd if she'd play a serious part again, as long as she
lived," and at the same time she was habited as the Quaker in the
Review.--There was a quarrel, and a fat good-natured looking girl in
soldiers' clothes wished she had only been a man for Tom's sake. One
fellow began a song, but an unlucky finger-point from the Gallery sent him
off like a shot. One chap was dressed to kill for the King in Bombastes,
and he stood at the edge of the scene in the very sweat of anxiety to show
himself, but Alas the thing was not played. The sweetest morsel of the
night moreover was, that the musicians began pegging and fagging away--at
an overture--never did you see faces more in earnest, three times did they
play it over, dropping all kinds of corrections and still did not the
curtain go up. Well then they went into a country dance, then into a
region they well knew, into the old boonsome Pothouse, and then to see how
pompous o' the sudden they turned; how they looked about and chatted; how
they did not care a damn; was a great treat----
I hope I have not tired you by this filling up of the dash in my last.
Constable the bookseller has offered Reynolds ten guineas a sheet to write
for his Magazine--it is an Edinburgh one, which Blackwood's started up in
opposition to. Hunt said he was nearly sure that the 'Cockney School' was
written by Scott[44] so you are right Tom!--There are no more little bits
of news I can remember at present.
I remain, My dear Brothers, Your very affectionate Brother
JOHN.
XXXI.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.
[Hampstead,] Friday Jan{y.} 23 [1818].
My dear Bailey--Twelve days have pass'd since your last reached me.--What
has gone through the myriads of human minds since the 12th? We talk of the
immense Number of Books, the Volumes ranged thousands by thousands--but
perhaps more goes through the human intelligence in Twelve days than ever
was written.--_How has that unfortunate family lived through the twelve?_
One saying of yours I shall never forget--you may not recollect it--it
being perhaps said when you were looking on the Surface and seeming of
Humanity alone, without a thought of the past or the future--or the deeps
of good and evil--you were at that moment estranged from speculation, and
I think you have arguments ready for the Man who would utter it to
you--this is a formidable preface for a simple thing--merely you said,
"_Why should woman suffer?_" Aye, why should she? "By heavens I'd coin my
very Soul, and drop my Blood for Drachmas!" These things are, and he, who
feels how incompetent the most skyey Knight-errantry is to heal this
bruised fairness, is like a sensitive leaf on the hot hand of
thought.--Your tearing, my dear friend, a spiritless and gloomy letter up,
to re-write to me, is what I shall never forget--it was to me a real
thing--Things have happened lately of great perplexity--you must have
heard of them--Reynolds and Haydon retorting and recriminating--and
parting for ever--the same thing has happened between Haydon and Hunt. It
is unfortunate--Men should bear with each other: there lives not the Man
who may not be cut up, aye Lashed to pieces on his weakest side. The best
of Men have but a portion of good in them--a kind of spiritual yeast in
their frames, which creates the ferment of existence--by which a Man is
propelled to act, and strive, and buffet with Circumstance. The sure way,
Bailey, is first to know a Man's faults, and then be passive--if after
that he insensibly draws you towards him then you have no power to break
the link. Before I felt interested in either Reynolds or Haydon, I was
well read in their faults; yet, knowing them, I have been cementing
gradually with both. I have an affection for them both, for reasons almost
opposite--and to both must I of necessity cling, supported always by the
hope that, when a little time, a few years, shall have tried me more fully
in their esteem, I may be able to bring them together. The time must come,
because they have both hearts: and they will recollect the best parts of
each other, when this gust is overblown.--I had a message from you through
a letter to Jane--I think, about Cripps--there can be no idea of binding
until a sufficient sum is sure for him--and even then the thing should be
maturely considered by all his helpers--I shall try my luck upon as many
fat purses as I can meet with.--Cripps is improving very fast: I have the
greater hopes of him because he is so slow in development. A Man of great
executing powers at 20, with a look and a speech almost stupid, is sure to
do something.
I have just looked through the Second Side of your Letter--I feel a great
content at it.--I was at Hunt's the other day, and he surprised me with a
real authenticated lock of _Milton's Hair_. I know you would like what I
wrote thereon, so here it is--_as they say of a Sheep in a Nursery
Book_:--
ON SEEING A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR.
Chief of Organic Numbers!
Old Scholar of the Spheres!
Thy spirit never slumbers,
But rolls about our ears
For ever, and for ever!
O what a mad endeavour
Worketh he,
Who to thy sacred and ennobled hearse
Would offer a burnt sacrifice of verse
And melody.
How heavenward thou soundest,
Live Temple of sweet noise,
And Discord unconfoundest,
Giving Delight new joys,
And Pleasure nobler pinions!
O, where are thy dominions?
Lend thine ear
To a young Delian oath,--aye, by thy soul,
By all that from thy mortal lips did roll,
And by the kernel of thine earthly love,
Beauty, in things on earth, and things above,
I swear!
When every childish fashion
Has vanish'd from my rhyme,
Will I, gray-gone in passion,
Leave to an after-time,
Hymning and harmony
Of thee, and of thy works, and of thy life;
But vain is now the burning and the strife,
Pangs are in vain, until I grow high-rife
With old Philosophy,
And mad with glimpses of futurity!
For many years my offering must be hush'd;
When I do speak, I'll think upon this hour,
Because I feel my forehead hot and flush'd,
Even at the simplest vassal of thy power,--
A lock of thy bright hair,--
Sudden it came,
And I was startled, when I caught thy name
Coupled so unaware;
Yet, at the moment, temperate was my blood.
I thought I had beheld it from the flood.
This I did at Hunt's at his request--perhaps I should have done something
better alone and at home.--I have sent my first Book to the press, and
this afternoon shall begin preparing the Second--my visit to you will be a
great spur to quicken the proceeding.--I have not had your Sermon
returned--I long to make it the Subject of a Letter to you--What do they
say at Oxford?
I trust you and Gleig pass much fine time together. Remember me to him and
Whitehead. My Brother Tom is getting stronger, but his spitting of Blood
continues. I sat down to read King Lear yesterday, and felt the greatness
of the thing up to the Writing of a Sonnet preparatory thereto--in my next
you shall have it.--There were some miserable reports of Rice's health--I
went, and lo! Master Jemmy had been to the play the night before, and was
out at the time--he always comes on his legs like a Cat. I have seen a
good deal of Wordsworth. Hazlitt is lecturing on Poetry at the Surrey
Institution--I shall be there next Tuesday.
Your most affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
XXXII.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.
[Hampstead, January 30, 1818.]
My dear Taylor--These lines as they now stand about "happiness," have rung
in my ears like "a chime a mending"--See here,
"Behold
Wherein lies happiness, Peona? fold, etc."
It appears to me the very contrary of blessed. I hope this will appear to
you more eligible.
"Wherein lies Happiness? In that which becks
Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
A fellowship with Essence till we shine
Full alchemised, and free of space--Behold
The clear religion of Heaven--fold, etc."
You must indulge me by putting this in, for setting aside the badness of
the other, such a preface is necessary to the subject. The whole thing
must, I think, have appeared to you, who are a consecutive man, as a thing
almost of mere words, but I assure you that, when I wrote it, it was a
regular stepping of the Imagination towards a truth. My having written
that argument will perhaps be of the greatest service to me of anything I
ever did. It set before me the gradations of happiness, even like a kind
of pleasure thermometer, and is my first step towards the chief attempt in
the drama. The playing of different natures with joy and Sorrow--Do me
this favour, and believe me
Your sincere friend
J. KEATS.
I hope your next work will be of a more general Interest. I suppose you
cogitate a little about it, now and then.
XXXIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Hampstead, Saturday [January 31, 1818].
My dear Reynolds--I have parcelled out this day for Letter Writing--more
resolved thereon because your Letter will come as a refreshment and will
have (sic parvis etc.) the same effect as a Kiss in certain situations
where people become over-generous. I have read this first sentence over,
and think it savours rather; however an inward innocence is like a nested
dove, as the old song says....
Now I purposed to write to you a serious poetical letter, but I find that
a maxim I met with the other day is a just one: "On cause mieux quand on
ne dit pas _causons_." I was hindered, however, from my first intention by
a mere muslin Handkerchief very neatly pinned--but "Hence, vain deluding,"
etc. Yet I cannot write in prose; it is a sunshiny day and I cannot, so
here goes,--
Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port,
Away with old Hock and Madeira,
Too earthly ye are for my sport;
There's a beverage brighter and clearer.
Instead of a pitiful rummer,
My wine overbrims a whole summer;
My bowl is the sky,
And I drink at my eye,
Till I feel in the brain
A Delphian pain--
Then follow, my Caius! then follow:
On the green of the hill
We will drink our fill
Of golden sunshine,
Till our brains intertwine
With the glory and grace of Apollo!
God of the Meridian,
And of the East and West,
To thee my soul is flown,
And my body is earthward press'd.--
It is an awful mission,
A terrible division;
And leaves a gulph austere
To be fill'd with worldly fear.
Aye, when the soul is fled
Too high above our head,
Affrighted do we gaze
After its airy maze,
As doth a mother wild,
When her young infant child
Is in an eagle's claws--
And is not this the cause
Of madness?--God of Song,
Thou bearest me along
Through sights I scarce can bear:
O let me, let me share
With the hot lyre and thee,
The staid Philosophy.
Temper my lonely hours,
And let me see thy bowers
More unalarm'd!
My dear Reynolds, you must forgive all this ranting--but the fact is, I
cannot write sense this Morning--however you shall have some--I will copy
out my last Sonnet.
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled Books in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain--
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting Love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
I must take a turn, and then write to Teignmouth. Remember me to all, not
excepting yourself.
Your sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
XXXIV.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Hampstead, Tuesday [February 3, 1818].
My dear Reynolds--I thank you for your dish of Filberts--would I could get
a basket of them by way of dessert every day for the sum of twopence.[45]
Would we were a sort of ethereal Pigs, and turned loose to feed upon
spiritual Mast and Acorns--which would be merely being a squirrel and
feeding upon filberts, for what is a squirrel but an airy pig, or a
filbert but a sort of archangelical acorn? About the nuts being worth
cracking, all I can say is, that where there are a throng of delightful
Images ready drawn, simplicity is the only thing. The first is the best on
account of the first line, and the "arrow, foil'd of its antler'd food,"
and moreover (and this is the only word or two I find fault with, the more
because I have had so much reason to shun it as a quicksand) the last has
"tender and true." We must cut this, and not be rattlesnaked into any more
of the like. It may be said that we ought to read our contemporaries, that
Wordsworth, etc., should have their due from us. But, for the sake of a
few fine imaginative or domestic passages, are we to be bullied into a
certain Philosophy engendered in the whims of an Egotist? Every man has
his speculations, but every man does not brood and peacock over them till
he makes a false coinage and deceives himself. Many a man can travel to
the very bourne of Heaven, and yet want confidence to put down his
half-seeing. Sancho will invent a Journey heavenward as well as anybody.
We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us, and, if we do not
agree, seems to put its hand into its breeches pocket. Poetry should be
great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not
startle it or amaze it with itself--but with its subject. How beautiful
are the retired flowers!--how would they lose their beauty were they to
throng into the highway, crying out, "Admire me, I am a violet! Dote upon
me, I am a primrose!" Modern poets differ from the Elizabethans in this:
each of the moderns like an Elector of Hanover governs his petty state and
knows how many straws are swept daily from the Causeways in all his
dominions, and has a continual itching that all the Housewives should have
their coppers well scoured: The ancients were Emperors of vast Provinces,
they had only heard of the remote ones and scarcely cared to visit them. I
will cut all this--I will have no more of Wordsworth or Hunt in
particular--Why should we be of the tribe of Manasseh, when we can wander
with Esau? Why should we kick against the Pricks, when we can walk on
Roses? Why should we be owls, when we can be eagles? Why be teased with
"nice-eyed wagtails," when we have in sight "the Cherub Contemplation"?
Why with Wordsworth's "Matthew with a bough of wilding in his hand," when
we can have Jacques "under an oak," etc.? The secret of the Bough of
Wilding will run through your head faster than I can write it. Old Matthew
spoke to him some years ago on some nothing, and because he happens in an
Evening Walk to imagine the figure of the old Man, he must stamp it down
in black and white, and it is henceforth sacred. I don't mean to deny
Wordsworth's grandeur and Hunt's merit, but I mean to say we need not be
teased with grandeur and merit when we can have them uncontaminated and
unobtrusive. Let us have the old Poets and Robin Hood. Your letter and its
sonnets gave me more pleasure than will the Fourth Book of Childe Harold
and the whole of anybody's life and opinions. In return for your Dish of
Filberts, I have gathered a few Catkins, I hope they'll look pretty.
TO J. H. R. IN ANSWER TO HIS ROBIN HOOD SONNETS.
No! those days are gone away,
And their hours are old and gray,
And their minutes buried all
Under the down-trodden pall
Of the leaves of many years.
Many times have Winter's shears,
Frozen North and chilling East,
Sounded tempests to the feast
Of the forest's whispering fleeces,
Since men paid no rent on Leases.
No! the Bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no more;
Silent is the ivory shrill
Past the heath and up the Hill;
There is no mid-forest laugh,
Where lone Echo gives the half
To some wight amaz'd to hear
Jesting, deep in forest drear.
On the fairest time of June
You may go with Sun or Moon,
Or the seven stars to light you,
Or the polar ray to right you;
But you never may behold
Little John or Robin bold;
Never any of all the clan,
Thrumming on an empty can
Some old hunting ditty, while
He doth his green way beguile
To fair Hostess Merriment
Down beside the pasture Trent,
For he left the merry tale,
Messenger for spicy ale.
Gone the merry morris din,
Gone the song of Gamelyn,
Gone the tough-belted outlaw
Idling in the "grene shawe":
All are gone away and past!
And if Robin _should_ be cast
Sudden from his turfed grave,
And if Marian _should_ have
Once again her forest days,
She would weep, and he would craze:
He would swear, for all his oaks,
Fall'n beneath the Dock-yard strokes,
Have rotted on the briny seas;
She would weep that her wild bees
Sang not to her--"strange that honey
Can't be got without hard money!"
So it is! yet let us sing,
Honour to the old bow-string,
Honour to the bugle-horn,
Honour to the woods unshorn,
Honour to the Lincoln green,
Honour to the archer keen,
Honour to tight little John,
And the horse he rode upon:
Honour to bold Robin Hood,
Sleeping in the underwood!
Honour to maid Marian,
And to all the Sherwood clan--
Though their days have hurried by
Let us two a burden try.
I hope you will like them--they are at least written in the Spirit of
Outlawry. Here are the Mermaid lines,
Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field, or mossy cavern,
Fairer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine Host's Canary wine?
Or are fruits of paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of Venison? O generous food
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would with his Maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.
I have heard that, on a day,
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
No body knew whither, till
An astrologer's old Quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old-sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack,
The Mermaid in the Zodiac.
Souls of Poets dead and gone,
Are the winds a sweeter home?
Richer is uncellar'd cavern,
Than the merry mermaid Tavern?[46]
I will call on you at 4 to-morrow, and we will trudge together, for it is
not the thing to be a stranger in the Land of Harpsicols. I hope also to
bring you my 2nd Book. In the hope that these Scribblings will be some
amusement for you this Evening, I remain, copying on the Hill,
Your sincere friend and Co-scribbler
JOHN KEATS.
XXXV.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.
Fleet Street, Thursday Morn [February 5, 1818].
My dear Taylor--I have finished copying my Second Book--but I want it for
one day to overlook it. And moreover this day I have very particular
employ in the affair of Cripps--so I trespass on your indulgence, and take
advantage of your good nature. You shall hear from me or see me soon. I
will tell Reynolds of your engagement to-morrow.
Yours unfeignedly
JOHN KEATS.
XXXVI.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
Hampstead, Saturday Night [February 14, 1818].
My dear Brothers--When once a man delays a letter beyond the proper time,
he delays it longer, for one or two reasons--first, because he must begin
in a very common-place style, that is to say, with an excuse; and secondly
things and circumstances become so jumbled in his mind, that he knows not
what, or what not, he has said in his last--I shall visit you as soon as I
have copied my poem all out, I am now much beforehand with the printer,
they have done none yet, and I am half afraid they will let half the
season by before the printing. I am determined they shall not trouble me
when I have copied it all.--Horace Smith has lent me his manuscript called
"Nehemiah Muggs, an exposure of the Methodists"--perhaps I may send you a
few extracts--Hazlitt's last Lecture was on Thomson, Cowper, and Crabbe,
he praised Thomson and Cowper but he gave Crabbe an unmerciful licking--I
think Hunt's article of Fazio--no it was not, but I saw Fazio the first
night, it hung rather heavily on me--I am in the high way of being
introduced to a squad of people, Peter Pindar, Mrs. Opie, Mrs. Scott--Mr.
Robinson a great friend of Coleridge's called on me.[47] Richards tells me
that my poems are known in the west country, and that he saw a very clever
copy of verses, headed with a Motto from my Sonnet to George--Honours rush
so thickly upon me that I shall not be able to bear up against them. What
think you--am I to be crowned in the Capitol, am I to be made a
Mandarin--No! I am to be invited, Mrs. Hunt tells me, to a party at
Ollier's, to keep Shakspeare's birthday--Shakspeare would stare to see me
there.[48] The Wednesday before last Shelley, Hunt and I wrote each a
Sonnet on the River Nile, some day you shall read them all. I saw a sheet
of Endymion, and have all reason to suppose they will soon get it done,
there shall be nothing wanting on my part. I have been writing at
intervals many songs and Sonnets, and I long to be at Teignmouth, to read
them over to you: however I think I had better wait till this Book is off
my mind; it will not be long first.
Reynolds has been writing two very capital articles, in the Yellow Dwarf,
on popular Preachers--All the talk here is about Dr. Croft the Duke of
Devon etc.
Your most affectionate Brother
JOHN.
XXXVII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[Hampstead, February 19, 1818.]
My dear Reynolds--I had an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life
in this manner--Let him on a certain day read a certain page of full Poesy
or distilled Prose, and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, and
reflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dream
upon it: until it becomes stale--But when will it do so? Never--When Man
has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect any one grand and spiritual
passage serves him as a starting-post towards all "the two-and-thirty
Palaces." How happy is such a voyage of conception, what delicious
diligent indolence! A doze upon a sofa does not hinder it, and a nap upon
Clover engenders ethereal finger-pointings--the prattle of a child gives
it wings, and the converse of middle-age a strength to beat them--a strain
of music conducts to "an odd angle of the Isle," and when the leaves
whisper it puts a girdle round the earth.--Nor will this sparing touch of
noble Books be any irreverence to their Writers--for perhaps the honors
paid by Man to Man are trifles in comparison to the benefit done by great
works to the "spirit and pulse of good" by their mere passive existence.
Memory should not be called Knowledge--Many have original minds who do not
think it--they are led away by Custom. Now it appears to me that almost
any Man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy
Citadel--the points of leaves and twigs on which the spider begins her
work are few, and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting. Man
should be content with as few points to tip with the fine Web of his Soul,
and weave a tapestry empyrean--full of symbols for his spiritual eye, of
softness for his spiritual touch, of space for his wandering, of
distinctness for his luxury. But the minds of mortals are so different and
bent on such diverse journeys that it may at first appear impossible for
any common taste and fellowship to exist between two or three under these
suppositions. It is however quite the contrary. Minds would leave each
other in contrary directions, traverse each other in numberless points,
and at last greet each other at the journey's end. An old man and a child
would talk together and the old man be led on his path and the child left
thinking. Man should not dispute or assert, but whisper results to his
Neighbour, and thus by every germ of spirit sucking the sap from mould
ethereal every human might become great, and humanity instead of being a
wide heath of furze and briars, with here and there a remote Oak or Pine,
would become a grand democracy of forest trees. It has been an old
comparison for our urging on--the beehive--however it seems to me that we
should rather be the flower than the Bee--for it is a false notion that
more is gained by receiving than giving--no, the receiver and the giver
are equal in their benefits. The flower, I doubt not, receives a fair
guerdon from the Bee--its leaves blush deeper in the next spring--and who
shall say between Man and Woman which is the most delighted? Now it is
more noble to sit like Jove than to fly like Mercury:--let us not
therefore go hurrying about and collecting honey, bee-like, buzzing here
and there impatiently from a knowledge of what is to be arrived at. But
let us open our leaves like a flower, and be passive and receptive;
budding patiently under the eye of Apollo and taking hints from every
noble insect that favours us with a visit--Sap will be given us for meat,
and dew for drink. I was led into these thoughts, my dear Reynolds, by the
beauty of the morning operating on a sense of Idleness. I have not read
any Books--the Morning said I was right--I had no idea but of the Morning,
and the Thrush said I was right--seeming to say,
"O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in Mist,
And the black Elmtops 'mong the freezing stars:
To thee the Spring will be a harvest-time--
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night, when Phoebus was away,
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn--
O fret not after knowledge--I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge--I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he's awake who thinks himself asleep."
Now I am sensible all this is a mere sophistication (however it may
neighbour to any truths), to excuse my own indolence--So I will not
deceive myself that Man should be equal with Jove--but think himself very
well off as a sort of scullion-Mercury or even a humble-bee. It is no
matter whether I am right or wrong either one way or another, if there is
sufficient to lift a little time from your shoulders--
Your affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
XXXVIII.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
Hampstead, Saturday [February 21, 1818].
My dear Brothers--I am extremely sorry to have given you so much
uneasiness by not writing; however, you know good news is no news or vice
versa. I do not like to write a short letter to you, or you would have had
one long before. The weather although boisterous to-day has been very much
milder; and I think Devonshire is not the last place to receive a
temperate Change. I have been abominably idle since you left, but have
just turned over a new leaf, and used as a marker a letter of excuse to an
invitation from Horace Smith. The occasion of my writing to-day is the
enclosed letter--by Postmark from Miss W----[49] Does she expect you in
town George? I received a letter the other day from Haydon, in which he
says, his Essays on the Elgin Marbles are being translated into Italian,
the which he superintends. I did not mention that I had seen the British
Gallery, there are some nice things by Stark, and Bathsheba by Wilkie,
which is condemned. I could not bear Alston's Uriel.
Reynolds has been very ill for some time, confined to the house, and had
leeches applied to his chest; when I saw him on Wednesday he was much the
same, and he is in the worst place for amendment, among the strife of
women's tongues, in a hot and parch'd room: I wish he would move to
Butler's for a short time. The Thrushes and Blackbirds have been singing
me into an idea that it was Spring, and almost that leaves were on the
trees. So that black clouds and boisterous winds seem to have mustered and
collected in full Divan, for the purpose of convincing me to the contrary.
Taylor says my poem shall be out in a month, I think he will be out before
it....
The thrushes are singing now as if they would speak to the winds, because
their big brother Jack, the Spring, was not far off. I am reading Voltaire
and Gibbon, although I wrote to Reynolds the other day to prove reading of
no use; I have not seen Hunt since, I am a good deal with Dilke and Brown,
we are very thick; they are very kind to me, they are well. I don't think
I could stop in Hampstead but for their neighbourhood. I hear Hazlitt's
lectures regularly, his last was on Gray, Collins, Young, etc., and he
gave a very fine piece of discriminating Criticism on Swift, Voltaire, and
Rabelais. I was very disappointed at his treatment of Chatterton. I
generally meet with many I know there. Lord Byron's 4th Canto is expected
out, and I heard somewhere, that Walter Scott has a new Poem in readiness.
I am sorry that Wordsworth has left a bad impression wherever he visited
in town by his egotism, Vanity, and bigotry. Yet he is a great poet if not
a philosopher. I have not yet read Shelley's Poem, I do not suppose you
have it yet, at the Teignmouth libraries. These double letters must come
rather heavy, I hope you have a moderate portion of cash, but don't fret
at all, if you have not--Lord! I intend to play at cut and run as well as
Falstaff, that is to say, before he got so lusty.
I remain praying for your health my dear Brothers
Your affectionate Brother
JOHN.
XXXIX.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.
Hampstead, February 27 [1818].
My dear Taylor--Your alteration strikes me as being a great
Improvement--And now I will attend to the punctuations you speak of--The
comma should be at _soberly_, and in the other passage, the Comma should
follow _quiet_. I am extremely indebted to you for this alteration, and
also for your after admonitions. It is a sorry thing for me that any one
should have to overcome prejudices in reading my verses--that affects me
more than any hypercriticism on any particular passage--In Endymion, I
have most likely but moved into the go-cart from the leading-strings--In
poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their
centre.
1st. I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by
singularity; It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest
thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
2d. Its touches of beauty should never be half-way, thereby making the
reader breathless, instead of content. The rise, the progress, the setting
of Imagery should, like the sun, come natural to him, shine over him, and
set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of
twilight. But it is easier to think what poetry should be, than to write
it--And this leads me to
Another axiom--That if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a
tree, it had better not come at all.--However it may be with me, I cannot
help looking into new countries with "O for a Muse of Fire to ascend!" If
Endymion serves me as a pioneer, perhaps I ought to be content--I have
great reason to be content, for thank God I can read, and perhaps
understand Shakspeare to his depths; and I have I am sure many friends,
who, if I fail, will attribute any change in my life and temper to
humbleness rather than pride--to a cowering under the wings of great
poets, rather than to a bitterness that I am not appreciated. I am anxious
to get Endymion printed that I may forget it and proceed. I have copied
the 3rd Book and begun the 4th. On running my eye over the proofs, I saw
one mistake--I will notice it presently, and also any others, if there be
any. There should be no comma in "the raft branch down sweeping from a
tall ash-top." I have besides made one or two alterations, and also
altered the thirteenth line p. 32 to make sense of it, as you will see. I
will take care the printer shall not trip up my heels. There should be no
dash after Dryope, in the line "Dryope's lone lulling of her child."
Remember me to Percy Street.
Your sincere and obliged friend
JOHN KEATS.
_P.S._--You shall have a short preface in good time.
XL.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.
[Hampstead, March 1818?]
My dear Sirs--I am this morning making a general clearance of all lent
Books--all--I am afraid I do not return all--I must fog your memories
about them--however with many thanks here are the remainder--which I am
afraid are not worth so much now as they were six months ago--I mean the
fashions may have changed--
Yours truly
JOHN KEATS.
XLI.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.
Teignmouth, Friday [March 13, 1818].[50]
My dear Bailey--When a poor devil is drowning, it is said he comes thrice
to the surface ere he makes his final sink--if however even at the third
rise he can manage to catch hold of a piece of weed or rock he stands a
fair chance, as I hope I do now, of being saved. I have sunk twice in our
correspondence, have risen twice, and have been too idle, or something
worse, to extricate myself. I have sunk the third time, and just now risen
again at this two of the Clock P.M., and saved myself from utter perdition
by beginning this, all drenched as I am, and fresh from the water. And I
would rather endure the present inconvenience of a wet jacket than you
should keep a laced one in store for me. Why did I not stop at Oxford in
my way? How can you ask such a Question? Why, did I not promise to do so?
Did I not in a letter to you make a promise to do so? Then how can you be
so unreasonable as to ask me why I did not? This is the thing--(for I have
been rubbing up my Invention--trying several sleights--I first polished a
cold, felt it in my fingers, tried it on the table, but could not pocket
it:--I tried Chillblains, Rheumatism, Gout, tight boots,--nothing of that
sort would do,--so this is, as I was going to say, the thing)--I had a
letter from Tom, saying how much better he had got, and thinking he had
better stop--I went down to prevent his coming up. Will not this do? turn
it which way you like--it is selvaged all round. I have used it, these
three last days, to keep out the abominable Devonshire weather--by the by,
you may say what you will of Devonshire: the truth is, it is a splashy,
rainy, misty, snowy, foggy, haily, floody, muddy, slipshod county. The
hills are very beautiful, when you get a sight of 'em--the primroses are
out, but then you are in--the Cliffs are of a fine deep colour, but then
the Clouds are continually vieing with them--the Women like your London
people in a sort of negative way--because the native men are the poorest
creatures in England--because Government never have thought it worth while
to send a recruiting party among them. When I think of Wordsworth's sonnet
"Vanguard of Liberty! ye men of Kent!" the degenerated race about me are
Pulvis ipecac. simplex--a strong dose. Were I a corsair, I'd make a
descent on the south coast of Devon; if I did not run the chance of having
Cowardice imputed to me. As for the men, they'd run away into the
Methodist meeting-houses, and the women would be glad of it. Had England
been a large Devonshire, we should not have won the Battle of Waterloo.
There are knotted oaks--there are lusty rivulets? there are meadows such
as are not--there are valleys of feminine[51] climate--but there are no
thews and sinews--Moore's Almanack is here a Curiosity--Arms, neck, and
shoulders may at least be seen there, and the ladies read it as some
out-of-the-way Romance. Such a quelling Power have these thoughts over me
that I fancy the very air of a deteriorating quality. I fancy the flowers,
all precocious, have an Acrasian spell about them--I feel able to beat off
the Devonshire waves like soapfroth. I think it well for the honour of
Britain that Julius Caesar did not first land in this County. A Devonshirer
standing on his native hills is not a distinct object--he does not show
against the light--a wolf or two would dispossess him. I like, I love
England. I like its living men--give me a long brown plain "for my
morning,"[51] so I may meet with some of Edmund Ironside's descendants.
Give me a barren mould, so I may meet with some shadowing of Alfred in the
shape of a Gipsy, a huntsman or a shepherd. Scenery is fine--but human
nature is finer--the sward is richer for the tread of a real nervous
English foot--the Eagle's nest is finer, for the Mountaineer has looked
into it. Are these facts or prejudices? Whatever they be, for them I shall
never be able to relish entirely any Devonshire scenery--Homer is fine,
Achilles is fine, Diomed is fine, Shakspeare is fine, Hamlet is fine, Lear
is fine, but dwindled Englishmen are not fine. Where too the women are so
passable, and have such English names, such as Ophelia, Cordelia etc. that
they should have such Paramours or rather Imparamours--As for them, I
cannot in thought help wishing, as did the cruel Emperor, that they had
but one head, and I might cut it off to deliver them from any horrible
Courtesy they may do their undeserving countrymen, I wonder I meet with no
born monsters--O Devonshire, last night I thought the moon had dwindled in
heaven----
I have never had your Sermon from Wordsworth, but Mr. Dilke lent it me.
You know my ideas about Religion. I do not think myself more in the right
than other people, and that nothing in this world is proveable. I wish I
could enter into all your feelings on the subject, merely for one short 10
minutes, and give you a page or two to your liking. I am sometimes so very
sceptical as to think Poetry itself a mere Jack o' Lantern to amuse
whoever may chance to be struck with its brilliance. As tradesmen say
everything is worth what it will fetch, so probably every mental pursuit
takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer--being in
itself a Nothing. Ethereal things may at least be thus real, divided under
three heads--Things real--things semireal--and nothings. Things real, such
as existences of Sun moon and Stars--and passages of Shakspeare.--Things
semireal, such as love, the Clouds etc., which require a greeting of the
Spirit to make them wholly exist--and Nothings, which are made great and
dignified by an ardent pursuit--which, by the by, stamp the Burgundy mark
on the bottles of our minds, insomuch as they are able to "_consecrate
whate'er they look upon_." I have written a sonnet here of a somewhat
collateral nature--so don't imagine it an "apropos des bottes"--
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of Man:
He hath his lusty Spring, when Fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
He chews the honied cud of fair Spring thoughts,
Till in his Soul, dissolv'd, they come to be
Part of himself: He hath his Autumn Ports
And havens of repose, when his tired wings
Are folded up, and he content to look[52]
On Mists in idleness--to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his winter too of Pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
Aye, this may be carried--but what am I talking of?--it is an old maxim of
mine, and of course must be well known, that every point of thought is the
Centre of an intellectual world. The two uppermost thoughts in a Man's
mind are the two poles of his world--he revolves on them, and everything
is Southward or Northward to him through their means.--We take but three
steps from feathers to iron.--Now, my dear fellow, I must once for all
tell you I have not one idea of the truth of any of my speculations--I
shall never be a reasoner, because I care not to be in the right, when
retired from bickering and in a proper philosophical temper. So you must
not stare if in any future letter, I endeavour to prove that Apollo, as he
had catgut strings to his lyre, used a cat's paw as a pecten--and further
from said Pecten's reiterated and continual teasing came the term
_hen-pecked_. My Brother Tom desires to be remembered to you; he has just
this moment had a spitting of blood, poor fellow--Remember me to Gleig and
Whitehead.
Your affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
XLII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Teignmouth, Saturday [March 14, 1818].
Dear Reynolds--I escaped being blown over and blown under and trees and
house being toppled on me.--I have since hearing of Brown's accident had
an aversion to a dose of parapet, and being also a lover of antiquities I
would sooner have a harmless piece of Herculaneum sent me quietly as a
present than ever so modern a chimney-pot tumbled on to my head--Being
agog to see some Devonshire, I would have taken a walk the first day, but
the rain would not let me; and the second, but the rain would not let me;
and the third, but the rain forbade it. Ditto 4--ditto 5--ditto--so I made
up my Mind to stop indoors, and catch a sight flying between the showers:
and, behold I saw a pretty valley--pretty cliffs, pretty Brooks, pretty
Meadows, pretty trees, both standing as they were created, and blown down
as they are uncreated--The green is beautiful, as they say, and pity it is
that it is amphibious--_mais!_ but alas! the flowers here wait as
naturally for the rain twice a day as the Mussels do for the Tide; so we
look upon a brook in these parts as you look upon a splash in your
Country. There must be something to support this--aye, fog, hail, snow,
rain, Mist blanketing up three parts of the year. This Devonshire is like
Lydia Languish, very entertaining when it smiles, but cursedly subject to
sympathetic moisture. You have the sensation of walking under one great
Lamplighter: and you can't go on the other side of the ladder to keep your
frock clean, and cosset your superstition. Buy a girdle--put a pebble in
your mouth--loosen your braces--for I am going among scenery whence I
intend to tip you the Damosel Radcliffe--I'll cavern you, and grotto you,
and waterfall you, and wood you, and water you, and immense-rock you, and
tremendous-sound you, and solitude you. I'll make a lodgment on your
glacis by a row of Pines, and storm your covered way with bramble Bushes.
I'll have at you with hip and haw small-shot, and cannonade you with
Shingles--I'll be witty upon salt-fish, and impede your cavalry with
clotted cream. But ah Coward! to talk at this rate to a sick man, or, I
hope, to one that was sick--for I hope by this you stand on your right
foot. If you are not--that's all,--I intend to cut all sick people if they
do not make up their minds to cut Sickness--a fellow to whom I have a
complete aversion, and who strange to say is harboured and countenanced in
several houses where I visit--he is sitting now quite impudent between me
and Tom--He insults me at poor Jem Rice's--and you have seated him before
now between us at the Theatre, when I thought he looked with a longing eye
at poor Kean. I shall say, once for all, to my friends generally and
severally, cut that fellow, or I cut you--
I went to the Theatre here the other night, which I forgot to tell George,
and got insulted, which I ought to remember to forget to tell any Body;
for I did not fight, and as yet have had no redress--"Lie thou there,
sweetheart!"[53] I wrote to Bailey yesterday, obliged to speak in a high
way, and a damme who's afraid--for I had owed him so long; however, he
shall see I will be better in future. Is he in town yet? I have directed
to Oxford as the better chance. I have copied my fourth Book, and shall
write the Preface soon. I wish it was all done; for I want to forget it
and make my mind free for something new--Atkins the Coachman, Bartlett the
Surgeon, Simmons the Barber, and the Girls over at the Bonnet-shop, say we
shall now have a month of seasonable weather--warm, witty, and full of
invention--Write to me and tell me that you are well or thereabouts, or by
the holy Beaucoeur, which I suppose is the Virgin Mary, or the repented
Magdalen (beautiful name, that Magdalen), I'll take to my Wings and fly
away to anywhere but old or Nova Scotia--I wish I had a little innocent
bit of Metaphysic in my head, to criss-cross the letter: but you know a
favourite tune is hardest to be remembered when one wants it most and you,
I know, have long ere this taken it for granted that I never have any
speculations without associating you in them, where they are of a pleasant
nature, and you know enough of me to tell the places where I haunt most,
so that if you think for five minutes after having read this, you will
find it a long letter, and see written in the Air above you,
Your most affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
Remember me to all. Tom's remembrances to you.
XLIII.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Teignmouth, Saturday Morn [March 21, 1818].
My dear Haydon--In sooth, I hope you are not too sanguine about that
seal--in sooth I hope it is not Brumidgeum--in double sooth I hope it is
his--and in triple sooth I hope I shall have an impression.[54] Such a
piece of intelligence came doubly welcome to me while in your own County
and in your own hand--not but I have blown up the said County for its
urinal qualifications--the six first days I was here it did nothing but
rain; and at that time having to write to a friend I gave Devonshire a
good blowing up--it has been fine for almost three days, and I was coming
round a bit; but to-day it rains again--with me the County is yet upon its
good behaviour. I have enjoyed the most delightful Walks these three fine
days beautiful enough to make me content.
Here all the summer could I stay,
For there's Bishop's teign
And King's teign
And Coomb at the clear teign head--
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream
All spread upon barley bread.
There's arch Brook
And there's larch Brook
Both turning many a mill;
And cooling the drouth
Of the salmon's mouth,
And fattening his silver gill.
There is Wild wood,
A Mild hood
To the sheep on the lea o' the down,
Where the golden furze,
With its green, thin spurs,
Doth catch at the maiden's gown.
There is Newton marsh
With its spear grass harsh--
A pleasant summer level
Where the maidens sweet
Of the Market Street,
Do meet in the dusk to revel.
There's the Barton rich
With dyke and ditch
And hedge for the thrush to live in
And the hollow tree
For the buzzing bee
And a bank for the wasp to hive in.
And O, and O
The daisies blow
And the primroses are waken'd,
And the violets white
Sit in silver plight,
And the green bud's as long as the spike end.
Then who would go
Into dark Soho,
And chatter with dack'd hair'd critics,
When he can stay
For the new-mown hay,
And startle the dappled Prickets?
I know not if this rhyming fit has done anything--it will be safe with you
if worthy to put among my Lyrics. Here's some doggrel for you--Perhaps you
would like a bit of b----hrell--
Where be ye going, you Devon Maid?
And what have you there in the Basket?
Ye tight little fairy just fresh from the dairy,
Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?
I love your Meads, and I love your flowers,
And I love your junkets mainly,
But 'hind the door I love kissing more,
O look not so disdainly.
I love your hills, and I love your dales,
And I love your flocks a-bleating--
But O, on the heather to lie together,
With both our hearts a-beating!
I'll put your Basket all safe in a nook,
Your shawl I hang up on the willow,
And we will sigh in the daisy's eye
And kiss on a grass green pillow.
How does the work go on? I should like to bring out my "Dentatus"[55] at
the time your Epic makes its appearance. I expect to have my Mind soon
clear for something new. Tom has been much worse: but is now getting
better--his remembrances to you. I think of seeing the Dart and
Plymouth--but I don't know. It has as yet been a Mystery to me how and
where Wordsworth went. I can't help thinking he has returned to his
Shell--with his beautiful Wife and his enchanting Sister. It is a great
Pity that People should by associating themselves with the finest things,
spoil them. Hunt has damned Hampstead and masks and sonnets and Italian
tales. Wordsworth has damned the lakes--Milman has damned the old
drama--West has damned----wholesale. Peacock has damned satire--Ollier has
damn'd Music--Hazlitt has damned the bigoted and the blue-stockinged; how
durst the Man?! he is your only good damner, and if ever I am damn'd--damn
me if I shouldn't like him to damn me. It will not be long ere I see you,
but I thought I would just give you a line out of Devon.
Yours affectionately
JOHN KEATS.
Remember me to all we know.
XLIV.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.
Teignmouth, Saturday Morn [March 21, 1818].
My dear Sirs--I had no idea of your getting on so fast--I thought of
bringing my 4th Book to Town all in good time for you--especially after
the late unfortunate chance.
I did not however for my own sake delay finishing the copy which was done
a few days after my arrival here. I send it off to-day, and will tell you
in a Postscript at what time to send for it from the Bull and Mouth or
other Inn. You will find the Preface and dedication and the title Page as
I should wish it to stand--for a Romance is a fine thing notwithstanding
the circulating Libraries. My respects to Mrs. Hessey and to Percy Street.
Yours very sincerely
JOHN KEATS.
_P.S._--I have been advised to send it to you--you may expect it on
Monday--for I sent it by the Postman to Exeter at the same time with this
Letter. Adieu!
XLV.--TO JAMES RICE.
Teignmouth, Tuesday [March 24, 1818].
My dear Rice--Being in the midst of your favourite Devon, I should not, by
rights, pen one word but it should contain a vast portion of Wit, Wisdom
and learning--for I have heard that Milton ere he wrote his answer to
Salmasius came into these parts, and for one whole month, rolled himself
for three whole hours (per day?), in a certain meadow hard by us--where
the mark of his nose at equidistances is still shown. The exhibitor of the
said meadow further saith, that, after these rollings, not a nettle sprang
up in all the seven acres for seven years, and that from the said time, a
new sort of plant was made from the whitethorn, of a thornless nature,
very much used by the bucks of the present day to rap their boots withal.
This account made me very naturally suppose that the nettles and thorns
etherealised by the scholar's rotatory motion, and garnered in his head,
thence flew after a process of fermentation against the luckless Salmasius
and occasioned his well-known and unhappy end. What a happy thing it would
be if we could settle our thoughts and make our minds up on any matter in
five minutes, and remain content--that is, build a sort of mental cottage
of feelings, quiet and pleasant--to have a sort of Philosophical
back-garden, and cheerful holiday-keeping front one--but alas! this never
can be: for as the material cottager knows there are such places as France
and Italy, and the Andes and burning mountains, so the spiritual Cottager
has knowledge of the terra semi-incognita of things unearthly, and cannot
for his life keep in the check-rein--or I should stop here quiet and
comfortable in my theory of nettles. You will see, however, I am obliged
to run wild being attracted by the load-stone concatenation. No sooner had
I settled the knotty point of Salmasius, than the Devil put this whim into
my head in the likeness of one of Pythagoras's questionings--Did Milton do
more good or harm in the world? He wrote, let me inform you (for I have it
from a friend, who had it of ----,) he wrote Lycidas, Comus, Paradise Lost
and other Poems, with much delectable prose--He was moreover an active
friend to man all his life, and has been since his death.--Very good--but,
my dear Fellow, I must let you know that, as there is ever the same
quantity of matter constituting this habitable globe--as the ocean
notwithstanding the enormous changes and revolutions taking place in some
or other of its demesnes--notwithstanding Waterspouts whirlpools and
mighty rivers emptying themselves into it--still is made up of the same
bulk, nor ever varies the number of its atoms--and as a certain bulk of
water was instituted at the creation--so very likely a certain portion of
intellect was spun forth into the thin air, for the brains of man to prey
upon it. You will see my drift without any unnecessary parenthesis. That
which is contained in the Pacific could not lie in the hollow of the
Caspian--that which was in Milton's head could not find room in Charles
the Second's--He like a Moon attracted intellect to its flow--it has not
ebbed yet, but has left the shore-pebbles all bare--I mean all Bucks,
Authors of Hengist, and Castlereaghs of the present day; who without
Milton's gormandising might have been all wise men--Now forasmuch as I was
very predisposed to a country I had heard you speak so highly of, I took
particular notice of everything during my journey, and have bought some
folio asses' skins for memorandums. I have seen everything but the
wind--and that, they say, becomes visible by taking a dose of acorns, or
sleeping one night in a hog-trough, with your tail to the Sow Sow-West.
Some of the little Bar-maids look'd at me as if I knew Jem Rice.... Well,
I can't tell! I hope you are showing poor Reynolds the way to get well.
Send me a good account of him, and if I can, I'll send you one of Tom--Oh!
for a day and all well!
I went yesterday to Dawlish fair.
Over the Hill and over the Dale,
And over the Bourne to Dawlish,
Where ginger-bread wives have a scanty sale,
And ginger-bread nuts are smallish, etc. etc.
Tom's remembrances and mine to you all.
Your sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
XLVI.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[Teignmouth, March 25, 1818.]
My dear Reynolds--In hopes of cheering you through a Minute or two, I was
determined will he nill he to send you some lines, so you will excuse the
unconnected subject and careless verse. You know, I am sure, Claude's
Enchanted Castle,[56] and I wish you may be pleased with my remembrance of
it. The Rain is come on again--I think with me Devonshire stands a very
poor chance. I shall damn it up hill and down dale, if it keep up to the
average of six fine days in three weeks. Let me have better news of you.
Tom's remembrances to you. Remember us to all.
Your affectionate friend,
JOHN KEATS.
Dear Reynolds! as last night I lay in bed,
There came before my eyes that wonted thread
Of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances,
That every other minute vex and please:
Things all disjointed come from north and south,--
Two Witch's eyes above a Cherub's mouth,
Voltaire with casque and shield and habergeon,
And Alexander with his nightcap on;
Old Socrates a-tying his cravat,
And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth's cat;
And Junius Brutus, pretty well so so,
Making the best of's way towards Soho.
Few are there who escape these visitings,--
Perhaps one or two whose lives have patent wings,
And thro' whose curtains peeps no hellish nose,
No wild-boar tushes, and no Mermaid's toes;
But flowers bursting out with lusty pride,
And young Aeolian harps personify'd;
Some Titian colours touch'd into real life,--
The sacrifice goes on; the pontiff knife
Gleams in the Sun, the milk-white heifer lows,
The pipes go shrilly, the libation flows:
A white sail shows above the green-head cliff,
Moves round the point, and throws her anchor stiff;
The mariners join hymn with those on land.
You know the Enchanted Castle,--it doth stand
Upon a rock, on the border of a Lake,
Nested in trees, which all do seem to shake
From some old magic-like Urganda's Sword.
O Phoebus! that I had thy sacred word
To show this Castle, in fair dreaming wise,
Unto my friend, while sick and ill he lies!
You know it well enough, where it doth seem
A mossy place, a Merlin's Hall, a dream;
You know the clear Lake, and the little Isles,
The mountains blue, and cold near neighbour rills,
All which elsewhere are but half animate;
There do they look alive to love and hate,
To smiles and frowns; they seem a lifted mound
Above some giant, pulsing underground.
Part of the Building was a chosen See,
Built by a banish'd Santon of Chaldee;
The other part, two thousand years from him,
Was built by Cuthbert de Saint Aldebrim;
Then there's a little wing, far from the Sun,
Built by a Lapland Witch turn'd maudlin Nun;
And many other juts of aged stone
Founded with many a mason-devil's groan.
The doors all look as if they op'd themselves
The windows as if latch'd by Fays and Elves,
And from them comes a silver flash of light,
As from the westward of a Summer's night;
Or like a beauteous woman's large blue eyes
Gone mad thro' olden songs and poesies.
See! what is coming from the distance dim!
A golden Galley all in silken trim!
Three rows of oars are lightening, moment whiles
Into the verd'rous bosoms of those isles;
Towards the shade, under the Castle wall,
It comes in silence,--now 'tis hidden all.
The Clarion sounds, and from a Postern-gate
An echo of sweet music doth create
A fear in the poor Herdsman, who doth bring
His beasts to trouble the enchanted spring,--
He tells of the sweet music, and the spot,
To all his friends, and they believe him not.
O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,
Would all their colours from the sunset take:
From something of material sublime,
Rather than shadow our own soul's day-time
In the dark void of night. For in the world
We jostle,--but my flag is not unfurl'd
On the Admiral-staff,--and so philosophise
I dare not yet! Oh, never will the prize,
High reason, and the love of good and ill,
Be my award! Things cannot to the will
Be settled, but they tease us out of thought;
Or is it that imagination brought
Beyond its proper bound, yet still confin'd,
Lost in a sort of Purgatory blind,
Cannot refer to any standard law
Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw
In happiness, to see beyond our bourn,--
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.
Dear Reynolds! I have a mysterious tale,
And cannot speak it: the first page I read
Upon a Lampit rock of green sea-weed
Among the breakers; 'twas a quiet eve,
The rocks were silent, the wide sea did weave
An untumultuous fringe of silver foam
Along the flat brown sand; I was at home
And should have been most happy,--but I saw
Too far into the sea, where every maw
The greater on the less feeds evermore.--
But I saw too distinct into the core
Of an eternal fierce destruction,
And so from happiness I far was gone.
Still am I sick of it, and tho' to-day,
I've gather'd young spring-leaves, and flowers gay
Of periwinkle and wild strawberry,
Still do I that most fierce destruction see,--
The Shark at savage prey,--the Hawk at pounce,--
The gentle Robin, like a Pard or Ounce,
Ravening a worm,--Away, ye horrid moods!
Moods of one's mind! You know I hate them well.
You know I'd sooner be a clapping Bell
To some Kamtschatkan Missionary Church,
Than with these horrid moods be left i' the lurch.
XLVII.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Wednesday, [Teignmouth, April 8, 1818].
My dear Haydon--I am glad you were pleased with my nonsense, and if it so
happen that the humour takes me when I have set down to prose to you I
will not gainsay it. I should be (God forgive me) ready to swear because I
cannot make use of your assistance in going through Devon if I was not in
my own Mind determined to visit it thoroughly at some more favourable time
of the year. But now Tom (who is getting greatly better) is anxious to be
in Town--therefore I put off my threading the County. I purpose within a
month to put my knapsack at my back and make a pedestrian tour through the
North of England, and part of Scotland--to make a sort of Prologue to the
Life I intend to pursue--that is to write, to study and to see all Europe
at the lowest expence. I will clamber through the Clouds and exist. I will
get such an accumulation of stupendous recollections that as I walk
through the suburbs of London I may not see them--I will stand upon Mount
Blanc and remember this coming Summer when I intend to straddle Ben
Lomond--with my soul!--galligaskins are out of the Question. I am nearer
myself to hear your "Christ" is being tinted into immortality. Believe me
Haydon your picture is part of myself--I have ever been too sensible of
the labyrinthian path to eminence in Art (judging from Poetry) ever to
think I understood the emphasis of painting. The innumerable compositions
and decompositions which take place between the intellect and its thousand
materials before it arrives at that trembling delicate and snail-horn
perception of beauty. I know not your many havens of intenseness--nor ever
can know them: but for this I hope not you achieve is lost upon me[57]:
for when a Schoolboy the abstract Idea I had of an heroic painting--was
what I cannot describe. I saw it somewhat sideways, large, prominent,
round, and colour'd with magnificence--somewhat like the feel I have of
Anthony and Cleopatra. Or of Alcibiades leaning on his Crimson Couch in
his Galley, his broad shoulders imperceptibly heaving with the Sea. That
passage in Shakspeare is finer than this--
See how the surly Warwick mans the Wall.
I like your consignment of Corneille--that's the humour of it--they shall
be called your Posthumous Works.[58] I don't understand your bit of
Italian. I hope she will awake from her dream and flourish fair--my
respects to her. The Hedges by this time are beginning to leaf--Cats are
becoming more vociferous--young Ladies who wear Watches are always looking
at them. Women about forty-five think the Season very backward--Ladies'
Mares have but half an allowance of food. It rains here again, has been
doing so for three days--however as I told you I'll take a trial in June,
July, or August next year.
I am afraid Wordsworth went rather huff'd out of Town--I am sorry for
it--he cannot expect his fireside Divan to be infallible--he cannot expect
but that every man of worth is as proud as himself. O that he had not fit
with a Warrener[59]--that is dined at Kingston's. I shall be in town in
about a fortnight and then we will have a day or so now and then before I
set out on my northern expedition--we will have no more abominable
Rows--for they leave one in a fearful silence--having settled the
Methodists let us be rational--not upon compulsion--no--if it will out
let it--but I will not play the Bassoon any more deliberately. Remember me
to Hazlitt, and Bewick--
Your affectionate friend,
JOHN KEATS.
XLVIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Thy. morng., [Teignmouth, April 9, 1818].
My dear Reynolds--Since you all agree that the thing[60] is bad, it must
be so--though I am not aware there is anything like Hunt in it (and if
there is, it is my natural way, and I have something in common with Hunt).
Look it over again, and examine into the motives, the seeds, from which
any one sentence sprung--I have not the slightest feel of humility towards
the public--or to anything in existence,--but the eternal Being, the
Principle of Beauty, and the Memory of great Men. When I am writing for
myself for the mere sake of the moment's enjoyment, perhaps nature has its
course with me--but a Preface is written to the Public; a thing I cannot
help looking upon as an Enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings
of Hostility. If I write a Preface in a supple or subdued style, it will
not be in character with me as a public speaker--I would be subdued before
my friends, and thank them for subduing me--but among Multitudes of Men--I
have no feel of stooping, I hate the idea of humility to them.
I never wrote one single Line of Poetry with the least Shadow of public
thought.
Forgive me for vexing you and making a Trojan horse of such a Trifle, both
with respect to the matter in Question, and myself--but it eases me to
tell
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