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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.

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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 Shak

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speare 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].1

My dear Bailey-When a poor devil is drowning, it is said he comes thrice to the surface ere he makes his

1 This letter has been hitherto erroneously printed under date September 1818.

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!”

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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 rivu-
lets? there are meadows such as are not-there are
valleys of feminine1 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 Cæsar
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,”1 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 shep-
herd. 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
1 Reading doubtful.

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