three days. I shall ask Mr. Abbey to let me bring you to Hampstead. If Mr. A. should see this Letter tell him that he still must if he pleases forward the Post Bill to Perth as I have empowered my fellow traveller to receive it. I have a few Scotch, pebbles for you from the Island of Icolmkill — I am afraid they are rather shabby -I did not go near the Mountain of Cairn Gorm. I do not know the Name of George's ship-the Name of the Port he has gone to is Philadelphia whence he will travel to the Settlement across the Country -I will tell you all about this when I see you. The Title of my last Book is Endymion — you shall have one soon. — I would not advise you to play on the Flageolet however I will get you one if you please. I will speak to Mr. Abbey on what you say concerning school. I am sorry for your poor Canary. You shall have another! volume of my first Book. My toothache keeps on so that I cannot write with any pleasure — all I can say now is that your Letter is a very nice one without fault and that you will hear from or see in a few days if his throat will let him, Your affectionate Brother

68. TO THE SAME

JOHN.

Hampstead, Tuesday (August 25, 1818]. MY DEAR FANNY- I have just written to Mr. Abbey to ask him to let you come and see poor Tom who has lately been much worse. He is better at present sends his Love to you and wishes much to see you—I hope he will shortly- I have not been able to come to Walthamstow on his account as well as a little Indisposition of my own. I have asked Mr. A. to write me- if he does not mention anything of it to you, I will tell you what reasons he has though I do not think he will make any objection. Write me what you want with a Flageolet and I will get one ready for you by the time you come.

Your affectionate Brother JOHN

69. TO JANE REYNOLDS

Well Walk, September 1st [1818]. MY DEAR JANE — Certainly your kinė note would rather refresh than trouble me, and so much the more would your coming if as you say, it could be done without agitating my Brother too much. Receive on your Hearth our deepest thanks for your Solicitude concerning us.

I am glad John is not hurt, but gone safe into Devonshire - I shall be in great expectation of his Letter - but the promise of it in so anxious and friendly a way I prize more than a hundred. I shall be in town to-day on some business with my guardian as was' with scarce a hope of being able to call on you. For these two last days Tom has been more cheerful: you shall hear again soon how he will be. Remember us particularly to your Mo

70. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE

[Hampstead, September 21, 1818.] MY DEAR DILKE - According to the Wentworth place Bulletin you have left Brighton much improved: therefore now a few lines will be more of a pleasure than a bore. I have things to say to you, and would fain begin upon them in this fourth line: but I have a Mind too well regulated to proceed upon anything without due preliminary remarks. - You may perhaps have observed that in the simple process of eating radishes I never begin at the root but constantly dip the little green head in the salt- that in the Game of Whist if I have an ace I constantly play it first. So how can I with any face begin without a dissertation on letter-writing? Yet when I consider that a sheet of paper contains room only for three pages and a half, how can I do justice to such a pregnant subject ? However, as you have seen the history of the world stamped as it were by a dimin

dents, Potato growers.

Bath - Boarding schools, and suburbans in general.

and plunge into abstract images to ease myself of his countenance, his voice, and feebleness so that I live now in a continual fever. It must be poisonous to life, although I feel well. Imagine the hateful siege of contraries' if I think of fame, of poetry, it seems a crime to me, and yet I must do so or suffer. I am sorry to give you pain I am almost resolved to burn this but I really have not selfpossession and magnanimity enough to manage the thing otherwise - after all it may be a nervousness proceeding from the Mercury.

Bailey I hear is gaining his spirits, and he will yet be what I once thought impossible, a cheerful Man-I think he is not

female, and literary.

Octavo or tears

All who make use of

a lascivious seal. Duodec. - May be found for the most

part on Milliners' and Dressmakers' Parlour tables.

I suppose you will have heard that Hazlitt has on foot a prosecution against Blackwood. I dined with him a few days since at Hessey's there was not a word said about it, though I understand he is excessively vexed. Reynolds, by what I hear, is almost over-happy, and Rice is in town. I have not seen him, nor shall I for some time, as my throat has become worse after getting well, and I am determined to stop at home till I am quite well. I was going to Town to-morrow with Mrs. D. but I thought it best to ask her excuse this morning. I wish I could say Tom was any better. His identity presses upon me so all day that I am obliged to go out - and although I intended to have given some time to study alone, I am obliged to write

I forgot to ask Mrs. Dilke if she had anything she wanted to say immediately to you. This morning look'd so unpromising that I did not think she would have gone — but I find she has, on sending for some volumes of Gibbon. I was in a little funk yesterday, for I sent in an unseal'd note of sham abuse, until I recollected, from what I heard Charles say, that the servant could neither read nor write-not even to her Mother as Charles observed. I have just had a Letter from Reynolds - he is going on gloriously. The following is a translation of a line of Ronsard

'Love pour'd her beauty into my warm veins.' You have passed your Romance, and I never gave in to it, or else I think this line a feast for one of your Lovers. How goes it with Brown?

me.

thankful for it-There is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of Immortality. Poor Tom that woman—and Poetry were ringing changes in my senses - Now I am in comparison happy — I am sensible this will distress you - you must forgive Had I known you would have set out so soon I could have sent you the 'Pot of Basil' for I had copied it out ready. — Here is a free translation of a Sonnet of Ronsard [see p. 123], which I think will please you I have the loan of his works they have great Beauties.

--

I had not the original by me when I wrote it, and did not recollect the purport of the last lines.

I should have seen Rice ere this but I am confined by Sawrey's mandate in the house now, and have as yet only gone out in fear of the damp night. You know what an undangerous matter it is. I shall soon be quite recovered Your offer I shall remember as though it had even now taken place in fact I think it cannot be. Tom is not up yet-I cannot say he is better. I have not heard from George. Your affectionate friend JOHN KEATS.

72. TO FANNY KEATS

[Hampstead, October 9, 1818.] MY DEAR FANNY-Poor Tom is about the same as when you saw him last; per

me.

Your affectionate Brother

ness.

JOHN.

73. TO JAMES AUGUSTUS HESSEY

[Hampstead, October 9, 1818.]

--

MY DEAR HESSEY-You are very good in sending me the letters from the Chronicle - and I am very bad in not acknowledging such a kindness sooner - pray forgive It has so chanced that I have had that paper every day I have seen today's. I cannot but feel indebted to those Gentlemen who have taken my part - As for the rest, I begin to get a little acquainted with my own strength and weak- Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own Works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what Blackwood or the Quarterly could possibly inflict- and also when I feel I am right, no external praise can give me such a glow as my own solitary reperception and ratification of what is fine. J. S. is perfectly right in regard to the slip-shod Endymion.43 That it is so is no fault of mine. No!-though it may sound a little paradoxical. It is as good as I had power to make it by myself - Had I been nervous about its being a perfect piece, and with that view asked advice, and trembled over every page, it would not have been written; for it is not in my nature to fumble- I will write independently. — I have written independently without Judgment. I may write independently, and with Judgment, hereafter. The Genius of

Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself- That which is creative must create itself In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest But I am nigh getting into a rant. So, with remembrances to Taylor and Woodhouse etc. I am Yours very sincerely

JOHN KEATS.

74. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS

[Hampstead, October 13 or 14, 1818.] MY DEAR GEORGE - There was a part in your Letter which gave me a great deal of pain, that where you lament not receiving Letters from England. I intended to have written immediately on my return from Scotland (which was two Months earlier than I had intended on account of my own as well as Tom's health) but then I was told by Mrs. W. that you had said you would not wish any one to write till we had heard from you. This I thought odd and now I see that it could not have been so; yet at the time I suffered my unreflecting head to be satisfied, and went on in that sort of abstract careless and restless Life with which you are well acquainted. This sentence should it give you any uneasiness do not let it last for before I finish it will be explained away to your satisfaction

I am grieved to say I am not sorry you had not Letters at Philadelphia; you could have had no good news of Tom and I have been withheld on his account from beginning these many days; I could not bring myself to say the truth, that he is no better but much worse However it must be

told; and you must my dear Brother and Sister take example from me and bear up against any Calamity for my sake as I do for yours. Our's are ties which independent of their own Sentiment are sent us by providence to prevent the deleterious effects of one great solitary grief. I have Fanny and I have you three people whose Happiness to me is sacred- and it does annul that selfish sorrow which I should otherwise fall into, living as I do with poor Tom who looks upon me as his only comfort the tears will come into your Eyes - let them—and embrace each other - thank heaven for what happiness you have, and after thinking a moment or two that you suffer in common with all Mankind hold it not a sin to regain your cheerfulness

I will relieve you of one uneasiness of overleaf I returned I said on account of my health I am now well from a bad sore throat which came of bog trotting in the Island of Mull of which you shall hear by the copies I shall make from my Scotch Letters

Your content in each other is a delight to me which I cannot express the Moon is now shining full and brilliant she is the same to me in Matter, what you are to me in Spirit. If you were here my dear Sister I could not pronounce the words which I can write to you from a distance: I have a tenderness for you, and an admiration which I feel to be as great and more chaste than I can have for any woman in the world. You will mention Fanny — her character is not formed, her identity does not press upon me as yours does. I hope from the bottom of my heart that I may one day feel as much for her as I do for you - I know not how it is, but I have never made any acquaintance of my own- nearly all through your medium my dear Brother through you I know not only a Sister but a glorious human being. And now I am talking of those to whom you have made me known I cannot forbear mentioning

Haslam as a most kind and obliging and constant friend. His behaviour to Tom during my absence and since my return has endeared him to me for ever besides his anxiety about you. To-morrow I shall call on your Mother and exchange information with her. On Tom's account I have not been able to pass so much time with her as I would otherwise have done - I have seen her but twice - once I dined with her and Charles — She was well, in good spirits, and I kept her laughing at my bad jokes. We went to tea at Mrs. Millar's, and in going were particularly struck with the light and shade through the Gate way at the Horse Guards. I intend to write you such Volumes that it will be impossible for me to keep any order or method in what I write that will come first which is uppermost in my Mind, not that which is uppermost in my heart besides I should wish to give you a picture of our Lives here whenever by a touch I can do it; even as you must see by the last sentence our walk past Whitehall all in good health and spirits this I am certain of, because I felt so much pleasure from the simple idea of your playing a game at Cricket. At Mrs. Millar's I saw Henry quite well there was Miss Keasle the good-natured Miss Waldegrave — Mrs. Millar began a long story and you know it is her Daughter's way to help her on as though her tongue were ill of the gout. Mrs. M. certainly tells a story as though she had been taught her Alphabet in Crutched Friars. Dilke has been very unwell; I found him very ailing on my return

and

[October 14 or 15.]

I came by ship from Inverness, and was nine days at Sea without being sick-a little Qualm now and then put me in mind of you - however as soon as you touch the shore all the horrors of Sickness are soon forgotten, as was the case with a Lady on board who could not hold her head up all the way. We had not been in the Thames an hour before her tongue began to some tune; paying off as it was fit she should all old scores. I was the only Englishman on board. There was a downright Scotchman who hearing that there had been a bad crop of Potatoes in England had brought some triumphant specimens from Scotland - these he exhibited with national pride to all the Lightermen and Watermen from the Nore to the Bridge. I fed upon beef all the way; not being able to eat the thick Porridge which the Ladies managed to manage with large awkward horn spoons into the bargain. Severn has had a narrow escape of his Life from a Typhus fever: he is now gaining strength - Reynolds has returned from a six weeks' enjoyment in Devonshire he is well, and persuades me to publish my pot of Basil as an answer to the attacks made on me in Blackwood's Magazine and the Quarterly Review. There have been two Letters in my defence in the Chronicle and one in the Examiner, copied from the Alfred Exeter Paper, and written by Reynolds. I do not know who wrote those in the Chronicle. This is a mere matter of the moment - I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death. Even as a Matter of present interest the attempt to crush me in the Quarterly has only brought me more into notice, and it is a common expression among book men 'I wonder the Quarterly should cut its own throat.'

It does me not the least harm in Society to make me appear little and ridiculous: I know when a man is superior to me and give him all due respect - he will be the