LETTER TO HAYDON.

Among the breakers; 'twas a quiet eve,
The rocks were silent, the wide sea did weave
An untumultuous fringe of silver foam
Along the flat brown sand; I was at home
And should have been most happy,—but I saw
Too far into the sea, where every maw
The greater on the less feeds evermore.-
But I saw too distinct into the core

Of an eternal fierce destruction,

And so from happiness I far was gone. )\'\
Still am I sick of it, and tho', to-day,

113

I've gather'd young spring-leaves, and flowers gay
Of periwinkle and wild strawberry,

Still do I that most fierce destruction see,—
The Shark at savage prey,-the Hawk at pounce,-
The gentle Robin, like a Pard or Ounce,
Ravening a worm,-Away, ye horrid moods!
Moods of one's mind! You know I hate them well.
You know I'd sooner be a clapping Bell

To some Kamtschatcan Missionary Church,
Than with these horrid moods be left i' the lurch.

XLVIII.'

To BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.

Wednesday

[Postmarks, Teignmouth, and 10 April 1818.]

My dear Haydon,

I am glad you were pleased with my nonsense, and if it so happen that the humour takes me when I have set down to prose to you I will not gainsay it. I

This letter may be presumed to have been written on the 8th of April, which was à Wednesday.

I

should be (God forgive me) ready to swear because I cannot make use of your assistance in going through Devon if I was not in my own Mind determined to visit it thoroughly at some more favorable time of the year. But now Tom (who is getting greatly better) is anxious to be in Town-therefore I put off my threading the County. I purpose within a month to put my knapsack at my back and make a pedestrian tour through the North of England, and part of Scotland-to make a sort of Prologue to the Life I intend to pursue-that is to write, to study and to see all Europe at the lowest expence. I will clamber through the Clouds and exist. I will get such an accumulation of stupendous recollections that as I walk through the suburbs of London I may not see them—I will stand upon Mount Blanc and remember this coming Summer when I intend to straddle BenLomond-with my soul!-galligaskins are out of the Question. I am nearer myself to hear your Christ is being tinted into immortality. Believe me Haydon your picture is part of myself-I have ever been too sensible of the labyrinthian path to eminence in Art (judging from Poetry) ever to think I understood the emphasis of painting. The innumerable compositions and decompositions which take place between the intellect and its thousand materials before it arrives at that trembling delicate and snail-horn perception of beauty. I know not you[r] many havens of intenseness-nor ever can know them but for this I hope not you achieve is lost upon me for when a Schoolboy the abstract Idea I had of an heroic painting—was what I cannot describe. I saw it somewhat sideways, large, prominent, round, and colour'd with magnificence-somewhat like the feel

:

Such is the phrase in the letter. Probably the sense is "but for all this I hope what you achieve is not lost upon me."

I have of Anthony and Cleopatra. Or of Alcibiades leaning on his Crimson Couch in his Galley, his broad shoulders imperceptibly heaving with the Sea. passage in Shakespeare is finer than this—

See how the surly Warwick mans the Wall.

That

I like your consignment of Corneille-that's the humour of it. They shall be called your Posthumous Works. I don't understand your bit of Italian. I hope she will awake from her dream and flourish fair-my respects to her. The Hedges by this time are beginning to leafCats are becoming more vociferous-young Ladies who wear Watches are always looking at them. Women about forty five think the Season very backward-Ladies' Mares have but half an allowance of food. It rains here again, has been doing so for three days-however as I told you I'll take a trial in June, July, or August next

year.

I am afraid Wordsworth went rather huff'd out of Town-I am sorry for it-he cannot expect his fireside Divan to be infallible-he cannot expect but that every man of worth is as proud as himself. O that he had not fit with a Warrener-that is din'd at Kingston's. I shall be in town in about a fortnight and then we will have a day or so now and then before I set out on my northern expedition-we will have no more abominable Rowsfor they leave one in a fearful silence-having settled the Methodists let us be rational-not upon compulsion—no -if it will out let it but I will not play the Bassoon any more deliberately. Remember me to Hazlitt, and Bewick

Your affectionate friend
John Keats-

XLIX.

To JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

My dear Reynolds,

Thy. morng. [Teignmouth, 9 April 1818.]

Since you all agree that the thing' is bad, it must be so though I am not aware there is anything like Hunt in it (and if there is, it is my natural way, and I have something in common with Hunt). Look it over again, and examine into the motives, the seeds, from which any one sentence sprung-I have not the slightest feel of humility towards the public-or to anything in existence, but the eternal Being, the Principle of Beauty, and the Memory of great Men. When I am writing for myself for the mere sake of the moment's enjoyment, perhaps nature has its course with me-but a Preface is written to the Public; a thing I cannot help looking upon as an Enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of Hostility. If I write a Preface in a supple or subdued style, it will not be in character with me as a public speaker-I would be subdued before my friends, and thank them for subduing me-but among Multitudes of Men-I have no feel of stooping, I hate the idea of humility to them.

I never wrote one single Line of Poetry with the least Shadow of public thought.

Forgive me for vexing you and making a Trojan horse of such a Trifle, both with respect to the matter in Question, and myself-but it eases me to tell you-I could not live without the love of my friends—I would jump down Ætna for any great Public good—but I hate

The first Preface to Endymion.