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. *** 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; they are kind to me. I don't think I could stop in Hampstead but for their neighborhood. I hear Hazlitt's lectures regularly: his last was on Gray, Collins, Young, &c., 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 Fourth Canto is expected out, and I heard somewhere, that Walter Scott has a new poem in readiness. 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, JOHN. A lady, whose feminine acuteness of perception is only equaled by the vigor of her understanding, tells me she distinctly remembers Keats as he appeared at this time at Hazlitt's lectures. "His eyes were large and blue, his hair auburn; he wore it divided down the centre, and it fell in rich masses on each side of his face; his mouth was full, and less intellectual than his other features. His countenance lives in my mind as one of singular beauty and brightness-it had an expression as if he had been. looking on some glorious sight. The shape of his face had not the squareness of a man's, but more like some women's faces I have seen-it was so wide over the forehead and so small at the chin. He seemed in perfect health, and with life offering all things that were precious to him." Keats had lately vindicated those "who delight in sensation against those who "hunger after Truth," and that, no doubt, was the tendency of his nature. But it is most interesting to observe how this dangerous inclination was in him continually balanced and modified by the purest appreciation of moral excellence, how far he was from taking the sphere he loved best to dwell in for the whole or even the best of creation. Never have words more effectively expressed the conviction of the superiority of virtue above beauty than those in the following letter-never has a poet more devoutly submitted the glory of imagination to the power of conscience. MY DEAR BROTHERS, HAMPSTEAD, April 21, 1818. 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 I 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 believe-not thus speaking with any poor vanitythat works of genius are 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 tip-top of any spiritual honors that can be paid to any thing 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 have just finished the revision of my first book, and shall take it to Taylor's to-morrow. Your most affectionate brother, JOHN. The correction and publication of "Endymion" were the chief occupations of this half year, and naturally furnish much of the matter for Keats's correspondence. The "Axioms" in the second letter to Mr. Taylor, his publisher, express with wonderful vigor and conciseness the Poet's notion of his own art, and are the more interesting as they contain principles which superficial readers might have imagined he would have been the first to disregard and violate. MY DEAR TAYLOR, have rung [POSTMARK, 30 Jan. 1818. HAMPSTEAD.] These lines, as they now stand, about "happiness," "Behold Wherein lies happiness, Peona ? fold," &c. 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 alchemized and free of space. Behold The clear religion of Heaven-Peona! fold," &c. 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 imagi nation towards a truth. My having written that argument will perhaps be of the greatest service to me of any thing 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 favor, and believe me, J. KEATS. I hope your next work will be of a more general interest. suppose you cogitate a little about it now and then. MY DEAR TAYLOR, HAMPSTEAD, Feb. 27, 1818. It is a Your alteration strikes me as being a great improvement. And now I will attend to the punctuation 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. 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. 2nd. Its touches of beauty should never be halfway, 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 "Oh, for a muse of fire to ascend!" If "Endymion" serves me as a pioneer, perhaps I ought 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 Third Book, and begun the Fourth. I will take care the printer shall not trip up my heels. Remember me to Percy Street. Your sincere and obliged friend, JOHN KEATS. P.S.-You shall have a short preface in good time. DEAR REYNOLDS, TEIGNMOUTH, 14 March, [1818.] 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 fourth, ditto fifth, ditto-so I made up my mind to stop in doors, 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 were 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 muscles 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, |