take out his pens first sometimes. But I might as well tell a hen to hold up her head before she drinks, instead of afterwards.

Your affectionate friend,

JOHN KEATS.

FROM THE OUTSIDE SHEET OF THE SAME LETTER.

"There has been a flaming attack upon Hunt in the Edinburgh Magazine.' I never read anything so virulent accusing him of the greatest crimes, depreciating his wife, his poetry, his habits, his company, his conversation. These philippics are to come out in numbers-called 'The Cockney School of Poetry.' There has been but one number published, that on Hunt,-to which they have prefixed a motto from one Cornelius Webb, 'Poetaster' who, unfortunately, was of our party occasionally at Hampstead, and took it into his head to write the following: something about 'We'll talk on Wordsworth, Byron, a theme we never tire on'; and so forth, till he comes to Hunt and Keats. In the motto they have put Hunt and Keats in large letters. I have no doubt that the second number was intended for me, but have hopes of its nonappearance, from the following advertisement in last Sunday's Examiner': 'To Z.-The writer of the article signed Z, in 'Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine' for October, 1817, is invited to send his address to the printer of the 'Examiner,' in order that justice may be executed on the proper person.' I don't mind the thing much; but if he should go to such lengths with me as he has done

with Hunt, I must infallibly call him to account, if he be a human being, and appears in squares and theatres, where we might possibly meet.''

No. 33.

9th Oct. 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 me. It has so chanced that I have had that paper every day. I have seen to-day'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 weakness. Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe I critic on his own works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what "Blackwood" or the "Quarterly" could 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." 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 it 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 judgement. I may write independently, and with judgement, 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, &c., I am,

Yours very sincerely,

No. 34

JOHN KEATS.

MY DEAR BAILEY:

TEIGNMOUTH, Sept. 1818.

When a poor devil is drowning, it is said he comes thrice to the surface before he makes his final sink; if, however, at third rise he can manage to catch hold of a piece of weed or rock, he stands a fair chance, as I hope I do now, of being saved. have sunk twice in our correspondence, have risen twice, and have been too idle, or something worse, to extricate myself. I have sunk the third time, and just now risen again at this two of the clock P. M., and saved myself from utter perdition by beginning

this, all drenched as I am, and fresh from the water. And I would rather endure the present inconvenience of a wet jacket than you should keep a laced one in store for me. Why did I not stop at Oxford in my way? How can you ask such a question? Why did I not promise to do so? Did I not, in a letter to you, make a promise to do so? Then how can you be so unreasonable as to ask me why I did not? This is the thing—(for I have been rubbing my invention; trying several sleights: I first polished a cold, felt it in my fingers, tried it on the table, but could not pocket it: I tried chilblains, rheumatism, gout, tight boots,-nothing of that sort would do, so this is, as I was going to say, the thing)-I had a letter from Tom, saying how much better he had got, and thinking he had better stop, I went down to prevent his coming up. Will not this do? Turn it which way you like-it is selvaged all round. I have used it, these three last days, to keep out the abominable Devonshire weather. By the by, you may say what you will of Devonshire: the truth is, it is a splashy, rainy, misty, snowy, foggy, haily, floody, muddy, slipshod county. The hills are very beautiful, when you get a sight of 'em; the primroses are out,-but then you are in; the cliffs are of a fine deep colour, but then the clouds are continually vieing with them. The women like your London people in a sort of negative way— because the native men are the poorest creatures in England. When I think of Wordsworth's sonnet, "Vanguard of Liberty! ye men of Kent!" the degenerated race about me are pulvis Ipecac. simplex -a strong dose. Were I a corsair, I'd make a VOL. I.

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descent on the south coast of Devon, if I did not run the chance of having cowardice imputed to me. As for the men, they'd run away into the Methodist meeting-houses; and the women would be glad of it. Had England been a large Devonshire, we should not have won the battle of Waterloo. There are knotted oaks, there are lusty rivulets, there are meadows such as are not elsewhere, but there are no thews and sinews. "Moore's Almanack" is here a curiosity: arms, neck, and shoulders may at least be seen there, and the ladies read it as some out-of-the-way romance. Such a quelling power have these thoughts over me that I fancy the very air of a deteriorating quality. I fancy the flowers, all precocious, have an Acrasian spell about them; I feel able to beat off the Devonshire waves like soap-froth. I think it well, for the honour of England, that Julius Cæsar did not first land in this county. A Devonshirer, standing on his native hills, is not a distinct object; he does not show against the light; a wolf or two would dispossess him. I like, I love England-I like its living men. Give me a long brown plain for my money, so I may meet with some of Edmund Ironside's descendants; give me a barren mould, so I may meet with some shadowing of Alfred in the shape of a gipsey, a huntsman, or a shepherd. Scenery is fine, but human nature is finer; the sward is richer for the tread of a real nervous English foot; the eagle's nest is finer for the mountaineer having looked into it. Are these facts or prejudices? Whatever they be, for them I shall never be able to relish entirely any Devonshire scenery. Homer is fine, Achilles