Chapter IV: Preface (3)

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--