"As the snail, whose tender horns being hit, So at his bloody view her eyes are fled, Into the deep dark cabins of her head." He overwhelms a genuine lover of poetry with all manner of abuse, talking about Which, by the by, 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. Chrystalline Brother of the belt of Heaven, Two liquid pulse-streams, 'stead of feather'd wings- For Dian play : Disssolve the frozen purity of air; Let thy white shoulders, silvery and bare, Show cold through wat'ry pinions: make more bright to Poets I see there is an advertisement in the "Chronicle he is so overloaded 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 any thing. I rest, Your affectionate friend, Give my love to both houses-hinc atque illinc. JOHN KEATS. “Endymion" was finished at Burford Bridge, on the 28th of November, 1817; so records the still existing manuscript, written fairly in a book, with many corrections of phrases and some of lines, but with few of sentences or of arrangement. It betrays the leading fault of the composition, namely, the dependence of the matter on the rhyme, but shows the confidence of the poet in his own profusion of diction, the strongest and most emphatic words being generally taken as those to which the continuing verse was to be adapted. There was no doubt a pleasure to him in this very victory over the limited harmonies of our language, and the result, when fortunate, is very impressive; yet the following criticism of his friend, Mr. Leigh Hunt, is also just :— "He had a just contempt for the monotonous termination of every-day couplets; he broke up his lines in order to distribute the rhyme properly; but, going only upon the ground of his contempt, and not having yet settled with himself any principle of versification, the very exuberance of his ideas led him to make use of the first rhymes that offered; so that, by a new meeting of extremes, the effect was as artificial, and much more obtrusive, than one under the old system. Dryden modestly confessed that a rhyme had often helped him to a thought. Mr. Keats, in the tyranny of his wealth, forced his rhymes to help him, whether they would or not, and they obeyed him, in the most singular manner, with equal promptitude and ingeniousness; though occasionally in the MS., when the second line of the couplet could not be made to rhyme, the sense of the first is arbitrarily altered, and its sense cramped into a new and less appropriate form." Keats passed the winter of 1817-18 at Hampstead, gayly enough among his friends; his society was much sought after, from the delightful combination of earnestness and pleasantry which distinguished his intercourse with all men. There was no effort about him to say fine things, but he did say them most effectively, and they gained considerably by his happy transition of manner. He joked well or ill, as it happened, and with a laugh which still echoes sweetly in many ears; but at the mention of oppression or wrong, or at any calumny against those he loved, he rose into grave manliness at once, and seemed like a tall man. His habitual gentleness made his occasional looks of indignation almost terrible: on one occasion, when a gross falsehood respecting the young artist, Severn, was repeated and dwelt upon, he left the room, declaring "he should be ashamed to sit with men who could utter and believe such things." On another occasion, hearing of some unworthy conduct, he burst out-" Is there no human dust-hole into which we can sweep such fellows?" Display of all kinds was especially disagreeable to him, and he complains, in a note to Haydon, that "conversation is not a search after knowledge, but an endeavor at effect-if Lord Bacon were alive, and to make a remark in the present day in company, the conversation would stop on a sudden. I am convinced of this." His health does not seem to have prevented him from indulging somewhat in that dissipation which is the natural outlet for the young energies of ardent temperaments, unconscious how scanty a portion of vital strength had been allotted to him; but a strictly regulated and abstinent life would have appeared to him pedantic and sentimental. He did not, however, to any extent, allow wine to usurp on his intellect, or games of chance to impair his means, for, in his letters to his brothers, he speaks of having drunk too much as a rare piece of joviality, and of having won £10 at cards as a great hit. His bodily vigor, too, must at this time have been considerable, as he signalized himself, at Hampstead, by giving a severe drubbing to a butcher, whom he saw beating a little boy, to the enthusiastic admiration of a crowd of bystanders. Plain, manly, practical life, on the one hand, and a free exercise of his rich imagination, on the other, were the ideal of his existence : his poetry never weakened his action, and his simple, every-day habits never coarsened the beauty of the world within him. The following letters of this time are preserved : MY DEAR TAYLOR, "Jan. 23, 1818. I have spoke 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 this to me; but I must tell you, first, he intends painting a finished Picture from the Poem. Thus he writes "When I do any thing for your Poem it must be effectual-an honor 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." * * * What think you of this? Let me hear. I shall have my second Book in readiness forthwith. Yours most sincerely, MY DEAR BAILEY, JOHN KEATS. "Jan. 23, 1818. Twelve days have passed 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. 66 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; and retorting and recriminating, and parting for ever. The same thing has happened between It is unfortunate: men should bear with each and may not be cut up, aye, The best of men have but other: there lives not the man who lashed to pieces, on his weakest side. 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 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. or I had a message from you through a letter to Jane—I think, about C. 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. C― 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 twenty, with a look and a speech the most 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 |