the rain would not let me; and the third, but the rain forbade it. Ditto 4-ditto 5-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 are 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 Mussels 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 thisaye, fog, hail, snow, rain, Mist blanketing up three parts of the year. This Devonshire is like Lydia Languish, very entertaining when it smiles, but cursedly subject to sympathetic moisture. You have the sensation of walking under one great Lamp-lighter: and you can't go on the other side of the ladder to keep your frock clean, and cosset your superstition. Buy a girdle-put a pebble in your mouth-loosen your braces-for I am going among scenery whence I intend to tip you the Damosel Radcliffe-I'll cavern you, and grotto you, and waterfall you, and wood you, and water you, and immenserock you, and tremendous-sound you, and solitude you. I'll make a lodgment on your glacis by a row of Pines, and storm your covered way with bramble Bushes. I'll have at you with hip and haw small-shot, and cannonade you with Shingles-I'll be witty upon salt-fish,' and impede your cavalry with clotted cream. But ah Coward! to talk at this rate to a sick man, or, I hope, to one that was sick-for I hope by this you stand on your right foot. If you are not-that's all,-I intend to 1 Teignmouth used to have a considerable trade in dried cod from Newfoundland-called locally "salt fish." cut all sick people if they do not make up their minds to cut Sickness-a fellow to whom I have a complete aversion, and who strange to say is harboured and countenanced in several houses where I visit—he is sitting now quite impudent between me and Tom-he insults me at poor Jem Rice's-and you have seated him before now between us at the Theatre, when I thought he looked with a longing eye at poor Kean. I shall say, once for all, to my friends, generally and severally, cut that fellow, or I cut you. I went to the Theatre here the other night, which I forgot to tell George, and got insulted, which I ought to remember to forget to tell any Body; for I did not fight, and as yet have had no redress-"Lie thou there, sweetheart!" I wrote to Bailey yesterday, obliged to speak in a high way, and a damme who's afraid-for I had owed him so long; however, he shall see I will be better in future. Is he in town yet? I have directed to Oxford as the better chance. I have copied my Fourth Book, and shall write the Preface soon. I wish it was all done; for I want to forget it, and make my mind free for something new. Atkins the coachman, Bartlett the surgeon, Simmons' the Barber, and the Girls over at the Bonnet-shop, say we shall now have a month of seasonable weather-warm, witty, and full of invention. Write to me and tell me that you are well or thereabouts, or by the holy Beaucœur, which I suppose is the Virgin Mary, or the repented Magdalen (beautiful name, that Magdalen), I'll take to my Wings and fly away to anywhere but old or Nova Scotia. I wish I had a little innocent bit of Metaphysic in my head, to criss-cross the 1 Probably these are all the names of real inhabitants. Mr. Bartlett, at all events, I well remember as the senior medical practitioner of the place in 1850 and onwards. letter: but you know a favourite tune is hardest to be remembered when one wants it most and you, I know, have long ere this taken it for granted that I never have any speculations without associating you in them, where they are of a pleasant nature, and you know enough of me to tell the places where I haunt most, so that if you think for five minutes after having read this, you will find it a long letter, and see written in the Air before you, Your most affectionate friend John Keats. Remember me to all. Tom's remembrances to you. XLIV. To BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON. My dear Haydon, Teignmouth, Saturday Morn. In sooth, I hope you are not too sanguine about that seal'-in sooth I hope it is not Brumidgeum-in double sooth I hope it is his-and in triple sooth I hope I shall have an impression. Such a piece of intelligence came doubly welcome to me while in your own County and in your own hand-not but I have blown up the said County for its urinal qualifications-the six first days I was here it did nothing but rain; and at that time having to write to a friend I gave Devonshire a good blowing 1 1 A seal found in a field at Stratford-upon-Avon, and thought by Haydon to have belonged to Shakespeare. |