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In the early part of May, it appears from the following extract of a letter to Mr. Hunt,* written from Margate, that the sojourn in the Isle of Wight had not answered his expectations the solitude, or rather the company of self, was too much for him.

"I went to the Isle of Wight, thought so much about poetry, so long together, that I could not get to sleep at night; and moreover, I know not how it is, I could not get wholesome food. By this means, in a week or so, I became not over capable in my upper stories, and set off pell-mell for Margate, at least a hundred and fifty miles, because, forsooth, I fancied I should like my old lodgings here, and could continue to do without trees. Another thing, I was too much in solitude, and consequently was obliged to be in continual burning of thought as an only resource. However, Tom is with me at present, and we are very comfortable. We intend, though, to get among some trees. How have you got on among them? How are the nymphs?—I suppose they have led you a fine dance. Where are you now?

"I have asked myself so often why I should be a Poet more than other men, seeing how great a thing it is, how great things are to be gained by it, what a thing to be in the mouth of Fame, that at last the idea has grown so monstrously beyond my seeming power of attainment, that the other day I nearly consented with myself to drop into a Phaeton. Yet 'tis a disgrace to fail even in a huge attempt, and at this moment I drive the thought from me. I begun my poem about a fortnight since, and have done some every

Given entire in the first volume of "Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries."

day, except travelling ones. good deal for the time, but it me, that I will not copy any out. When I consider that so many of these pin-points go to form a bodkin-point (God send I end not my life with a bare bodkin, in its modern sense), and that it requires a thousand bodkins to make a spear bright enough to throw any light to posterity, I see nothing but continual up-hill journeying. Nor is there anything more unpleasant (it may come among the thousand and one) than to be so journeying and to miss the goal at last. But I intend to whistle all these cogitations into the sea, where I hope they will breed storms violent enough to block up all exit from Russia.

Perhaps I may have done a appears such a pin's point to

"Does Shelley go on telling 'strange stories of the death of kings?'* Tell him there are strange stories of the death of poets. Some have died before they were conceived. 'How do you make that out, Master Vellum?'"

This letter is signed "John Keats alias Junkets," an appel

Mr. Hunt mentions that Shelley was fond of quoting the passage in Shakespeare, and of applying it in an unexpected manner. Travelling with him once to town in the Hampstead stage, in which their only companion was an old lady, who sat silent and stiff, after the English fashion, Shelley startled her into a look of the most ludicrous astonishment by saying abruptly,

"Hist!

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell strange stories of the deaths of kings."

The old lady looked on the coach floor, expecting them to take their seats accordingly.

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suggestive of a multitude of images is one such legend to an

earnest and constructive mind!

He was a poet, sure a lover too,

Who stood on Latmos' top, what time there blew
Soft breezes from the myrtle vale below;
And brought, in faintness, solemn, sweet, and slow,
A hymn from Dian's temple-while upswelling,
The incense went to her own starry dwelling.—
But, though her face was clear as infants' eyes,
Though she stood smiling o'er the sacrifice,
The Poet wept at her so piteous fate,
Wept that such beauty should be desolate :
So, in fine wrath, some golden sounds he won,
And gave meek Cynthia her Endymion.

And the description of the effect of the union of the Poet and the Goddess on universal nature is equal in vivacity and tenderness to anything in the maturer work.

The evening weather was so bright and clear
That men of health were of unusual cheer,
Stepping like Homer at the trumpet's call,
Or young Apollo on the pedestal;

And lovely woman there is fair and warm,
As Venus looking sideways in alarm.
The breezes were ethereal and pure,

And crept through half-closed lattices, to cure

The languid sick; it cooled their fevered sleep,
And soothed them into slumbers full and deep.
Soon they awoke, clear-eyed, nor burnt with thirsting.
Nor with hot fingers, nor with temples bursting,
And springing up they met the wond'ring sight
Of their dear friends, nigh foolish with delight,
Who feel their arms and breasts, and kiss and stare,
And on their placid foreheads part the hair.
Young men and maidens at each other gazed
With hands held back and motionless, amazed
To see the brightness in each other's eyes;
And so they stood, filled with a sweet surprise,
Until their tongues were loosed in poesy:
Therefore no lover did of anguish die,
But the soft numbers, in that moment spoken,
Made silken ties, that never may be broken.

George Keats had now for some time left the countinghouse of Mr. Abbey, his guardian, on account of the conduct of a younger partner towards him, and had taken lodgings Iwith his two brothers. Mr. Abbey entertained a high opinion of his practical abilities and energies, which experience shortly verified. Tom, the youngest, had more of the poetic and sensitive temperament, and the bad state of health into which he fell, on entering manhood, absolutely precluded him from active occupation. He was soon compelled to retire to Devonshire, as his only chance for life, and George accompanied him. John, in the mean time, was advancing with his poem, and had come to an arrangement with Messrs. Taylor and Hessey (who seem to have cordially appreciated his genius) respecting its publication. The following letters indicate that they gave him tangible proofs of their interest in his welfare, and his reliance on their gene

rosity was, probably, only equal to his trust in his own abundant powers of repayment. The physical symptoms he alludes to had nothing dangerous about them and merely suggested some prudence in his mental labours. Nor had he then experienced the harsh repulse of ungenial criticism, but, although never unconscious of his own deficiencies, nor blind to the jealousies and spites of others, still believed himself to be accompanied on his path to fame by the sympathies and congratulations of all the fellow-men he cared for: and they were many.

MARGATE,

May 16th, 1817.

MY DEAR SIR,

I am extremely indebted to you for your liberality in the shape of manufactured rag, value 20/., and shall immediately proceed to destroy some of the minor heads of that hydra the Dun; to conquer which the knight need have no sword, 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 Sybil'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 think I could make a nice little

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