my spirit is fevered in a

not write contrary and I am now sure of having p of it this Summer. At this moment in no enviable SituationI 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 stumblingblock 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 know what I said in it. I could about Poetry in the way I should hav for I was not in humor with either mine. His self-delusions are very lamen able they have enticed him into a Situa tion which I should be less eager after than

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: 8 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!

he same scene we find

Let determined things tiny 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 9.

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.

9. TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY

Margate, May 16, 1817. MY DEAR SIRS-I am extremely indebted to you for your liberality in the shape manufactured rag, value £20, and shal' im mediately proceed to destroy some of t minor heads of that hydra the dun; tquer which the knight need have no Swd

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 tomorrow I will begin my next month. This evening I go to Canterbury, having got tired of Margde. I was not right in my head when I came At Canterbury I hope the remembrance of Chaucer will set me forward like

ard Ball. I am glad to hear of Mr. health, and of the welfare of the 'Intown-stayers.' And think Reynolds will ike his Trip- I have some idea of seeing the Continent some time this summer.

In

[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, yon 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 will you 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 £20 and a £10, 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

say

JOHN KEATS.

11. TO MARIANE AND JANE REYNOLDS 10

Oxf[ord, September 5, 1817].

MY DEAR FRIENDS - You are I am glad to hear comfortable at Hampton,11 where I hope you will receive the Biscuits we ate

-

you find

the other night at Little Britain. 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 Tel lus's rolling-pin. I'm on the sofa - Buon aparte is on the snuff-box-But you are by the seaside argal, you bathe walk - you say 'how beautiful' 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 - Onaso 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 should n'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 gardenrollers, 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 chimneysweeper, drinks like a gingerbread baker and breathes like Achilles that we are such sublunary creatures, let us endeavour to correct all our bad spelling

-so it being

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 't is 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 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 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 12 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

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