Chapter V: Preface (4)

Your affectionate friend

JOHN KEATS.

XXXVIII.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.

Hampstead, Saturday [February 21, 1818].

My dear Brothers--I am extremely sorry to have given you so much uneasiness by not writing; however, you know good news is no news or vice versa. I do not like to write a short letter to you, or you would have had one long before. The weather although boisterous to-day has been very much milder; and I think Devonshire is not the last place to receive a temperate Change. I have been abominably idle since you left, but have just turned over a new leaf, and used as a marker a letter of excuse to an invitation from Horace Smith. The occasion of my writing to-day is the enclosed letter--by Postmark from Miss W----[49] Does she expect you in town George? I received a letter the other day from Haydon, in which he says, his Essays on the Elgin Marbles are being translated into Italian, the which he superintends. I did not mention that I had seen the British Gallery, there are some nice things by Stark, and Bathsheba by Wilkie, which is condemned. I could not bear Alston's Uriel.

Reynolds has been very ill for some time, confined to the house, and had leeches applied to his chest; when I saw him on Wednesday he was much the same, and he is in the worst place for amendment, among the strife of women's tongues, in a hot and parch'd room: I wish he would move to Butler's for a short time. The Thrushes and Blackbirds have been singing me into an idea that it was Spring, and almost that leaves were on the trees. So that black clouds and boisterous winds seem to have mustered and collected in full Divan, for the purpose of convincing me to the contrary. Taylor says my poem shall be out in a month, I think he will be out before it....

The thrushes are singing now as if they would speak to the winds, because their big brother Jack, the Spring, was not far off. I am reading Voltaire and Gibbon, although I wrote to Reynolds the other day to prove reading of no use; I have not seen Hunt since, I am a good deal with Dilke and Brown, we are very thick; they are very kind to me, they are well. I don't think I could stop in Hampstead but for their neighbourhood. I hear Hazlitt's lectures regularly, his last was on Gray, Collins, Young, etc., and he gave a very fine piece of discriminating Criticism on Swift, Voltaire, and Rabelais. I was very disappointed at his treatment of Chatterton. I generally meet with many I know there. Lord Byron's 4th Canto is expected out, and I heard somewhere, that Walter Scott has a new Poem in readiness. I am sorry that Wordsworth has left a bad impression wherever he visited in town by his egotism, Vanity, and bigotry. Yet he is a great poet if not a philosopher. I have not yet read Shelley's Poem, I do not suppose you have it yet, at the Teignmouth libraries. These double letters must come rather heavy, I hope you have a moderate portion of cash, but don't fret at all, if you have not--Lord! I intend to play at cut and run as well as Falstaff, that is to say, before he got so lusty.

I remain praying for your health my dear Brothers

Your affectionate Brother

JOHN.

XXXIX.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.

Hampstead, February 27 [1818].

My dear Taylor--Your alteration strikes me as being a great Improvement--And now I will attend to the punctuations you speak of--The comma should be at _soberly_, and in the other passage, the Comma should follow _quiet_. I am extremely indebted to you for this alteration, and also for your after admonitions. It is a sorry thing for me that any one should have to overcome prejudices in reading my verses--that affects me more than any hypercriticism on any particular passage--In Endymion, I have most likely but moved into the go-cart from the leading-strings--In poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre.

1st. I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity; It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

2d. Its touches of beauty should never be half-way, thereby making the reader breathless, instead of content. The rise, the progress, the setting of Imagery should, like the sun, come natural to him, shine over him, and set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of twilight. But it is easier to think what poetry should be, than to write it--And this leads me to

Another axiom--That if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.--However it may be with me, I cannot help looking into new countries with "O for a Muse of Fire to ascend!" If Endymion serves me as a pioneer, perhaps I ought to be content--I have great reason to be content, for thank God I can read, and perhaps understand Shakspeare to his depths; and I have I am sure many friends, who, if I fail, will attribute any change in my life and temper to humbleness rather than pride--to a cowering under the wings of great poets, rather than to a bitterness that I am not appreciated. I am anxious to get Endymion printed that I may forget it and proceed. I have copied the 3rd Book and begun the 4th. On running my eye over the proofs, I saw one mistake--I will notice it presently, and also any others, if there be any. There should be no comma in "the raft branch down sweeping from a tall ash-top." I have besides made one or two alterations, and also altered the thirteenth line p. 32 to make sense of it, as you will see. I will take care the printer shall not trip up my heels. There should be no dash after Dryope, in the line "Dryope's lone lulling of her child."

Remember me to Percy Street.

Your sincere and obliged friend

JOHN KEATS.

_P.S._--You shall have a short preface in good time.

XL.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.

[Hampstead, March 1818?]

My dear Sirs--I am this morning making a general clearance of all lent Books--all--I am afraid I do not return all--I must fog your memories about them--however with many thanks here are the remainder--which I am afraid are not worth so much now as they were six months ago--I mean the fashions may have changed--

Yours truly

JOHN KEATS.

XLI.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.

Teignmouth, Friday [March 13, 1818].[50]

My dear Bailey--When a poor devil is drowning, it is said he comes thrice to the surface ere he makes his final sink--if however even at the 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. I 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 up 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 Chillblains, 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--because Government never have thought it worth while to send a recruiting party among them. 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 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--there are valleys of feminine[51] climate--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 soapfroth. I think it well for the honour of Britain that Julius Caesar 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 morning,"[51] 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 Gipsy, 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 has 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 is fine, Diomed is fine, Shakspeare is fine, Hamlet is fine, Lear is fine, but dwindled Englishmen are not fine. Where too the women are so passable, and have such English names, such as Ophelia, Cordelia etc. that they should have such Paramours or rather Imparamours--As for them, I cannot in thought help wishing, as did the cruel Emperor, that they had but one head, and I might cut it off to deliver them from any horrible Courtesy they may do their undeserving countrymen, I wonder I meet with no born monsters--O Devonshire, last night I thought the moon had dwindled in heaven----

I have never had your Sermon from Wordsworth, but Mr. Dilke lent it me. You know my ideas about Religion. I do not think myself more in the right than other people, and that nothing in this world is proveable. I wish I could enter into all your feelings on the subject, merely for one short 10 minutes, and give you a page or two to your liking. I am sometimes so very sceptical as to think Poetry itself a mere Jack o' Lantern to amuse whoever may chance to be struck with its brilliance. As tradesmen say everything is worth what it will fetch, so probably every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer--being in itself a Nothing. Ethereal things may at least be thus real, divided under three heads--Things real--things semireal--and nothings. Things real, such as existences of Sun moon and Stars--and passages of Shakspeare.--Things semireal, such as love, the Clouds etc., which require a greeting of the Spirit to make them wholly exist--and Nothings, which are made great and dignified by an ardent pursuit--which, by the by, stamp the Burgundy mark on the bottles of our minds, insomuch as they are able to "_consecrate whate'er they look upon_." I have written a sonnet here of a somewhat collateral nature--so don't imagine it an "apropos des bottes"--

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of Man:
He hath his lusty Spring, when Fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
He chews the honied cud of fair Spring thoughts,
Till in his Soul, dissolv'd, they come to be
Part of himself: He hath his Autumn Ports
And havens of repose, when his tired wings
Are folded up, and he content to look[52]
On Mists in idleness--to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his winter too of Pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

Aye, this may be carried--but what am I talking of?--it is an old maxim of mine, and of course must be well known, that every point of thought is the Centre of an intellectual world. The two uppermost thoughts in a Man's mind are the two poles of his world--he revolves on them, and everything is Southward or Northward to him through their means.--We take but three steps from feathers to iron.--Now, my dear fellow, I must once for all tell you I have not one idea of the truth of any of my speculations--I shall never be a reasoner, because I care not to be in the right, when retired from bickering and in a proper philosophical temper. So you must not stare if in any future letter, I endeavour to prove that Apollo, as he had catgut strings to his lyre, used a cat's paw as a pecten--and further from said Pecten's reiterated and continual teasing came the term _hen-pecked_. My Brother Tom desires to be remembered to you; he has just this moment had a spitting of blood, poor fellow--Remember me to Gleig and Whitehead.

Your affectionate friend

JOHN KEATS.

XLII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

Teignmouth, Saturday [March 14, 1818].

Dear Reynolds--I escaped being blown over and blown under and trees and house being toppled on me.--I have since hearing of Brown's accident had an aversion to a dose of parapet, and being also a lover of antiquities I would sooner have a harmless piece of Herculaneum sent me quietly as a present than ever so modern a chimney-pot tumbled on to my head--Being agog to see some Devonshire, I would have taken a walk the first day, but the rain would not let me; and the second, but 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 indoors, 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 this--aye, 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 Lamplighter: 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 immense-rock 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 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!"[53] 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 Beaucoeur, 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 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 above you,

Your most affectionate friend

JOHN KEATS.

Remember me to all. Tom's remembrances to you.

XLIII.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.

Teignmouth, Saturday Morn [March 21, 1818].

My dear Haydon--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.[54] 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 up--it has been fine for almost three days, and I was coming round a bit; but to-day it rains again--with me the County is yet upon its good behaviour. I have enjoyed the most delightful Walks these three fine days beautiful enough to make me content.

Here all the summer could I stay,
For there's Bishop's teign
And King's teign
And Coomb at the clear teign head--
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream
All spread upon barley bread.

There's arch Brook
And there's larch Brook
Both turning many a mill;
And cooling the drouth
Of the salmon's mouth,
And fattening his silver gill.

There is Wild wood,
A Mild hood
To the sheep on the lea o' the down,
Where the golden furze,
With its green, thin spurs,
Doth catch at the maiden's gown.

There is Newton marsh
With its spear grass harsh--
A pleasant summer level
Where the maidens sweet
Of the Market Street,
Do meet in the dusk to revel.

There's the Barton rich
With dyke and ditch
And hedge for the thrush to live in
And the hollow tree
For the buzzing bee
And a bank for the wasp to hive in.

And O, and O
The daisies blow
And the primroses are waken'd,
And the violets white
Sit in silver plight,
And the green bud's as long as the spike end.

Then who would go
Into dark Soho,
And chatter with dack'd hair'd critics,
When he can stay
For the new-mown hay,
And startle the dappled Prickets?

I know not if this rhyming fit has done anything--it will be safe with you if worthy to put among my Lyrics. Here's some doggrel for you--Perhaps you would like a bit of b----hrell--

Where be ye going, you Devon Maid?
And what have you there in the Basket?
Ye tight little fairy just fresh from the dairy,
Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?

I love your Meads, and I love your flowers,
And I love your junkets mainly,
But 'hind the door I love kissing more,
O look not so disdainly.

I love your hills, and I love your dales,
And I love your flocks a-bleating--
But O, on the heather to lie together,
With both our hearts a-beating!

I'll put your Basket all safe in a nook,
Your shawl I hang up on the willow,
And we will sigh in the daisy's eye
And kiss on a grass green pillow.

How does the work go on? I should like to bring out my "Dentatus"[55] at the time your Epic makes its appearance. I expect to have my Mind soon clear for something new. Tom has been much worse: but is now getting better--his remembrances to you. I think of seeing the Dart and Plymouth--but I don't know. It has as yet been a Mystery to me how and where Wordsworth went. I can't help thinking he has returned to his Shell--with his beautiful Wife and his enchanting Sister. It is a great Pity that People should by associating themselves with the finest things, spoil them. Hunt has damned Hampstead and masks and sonnets and Italian tales. Wordsworth has damned the lakes--Milman has damned the old drama--West has damned----wholesale. Peacock has damned satire--Ollier has damn'd Music--Hazlitt has damned the bigoted and the blue-stockinged; how durst the Man?! he is your only good damner, and if ever I am damn'd--damn me if I shouldn't like him to damn me. It will not be long ere I see you, but I thought I would just give you a line out of Devon.

Yours affectionately

JOHN KEATS.

Remember me to all we know.

XLIV.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.

Teignmouth, Saturday Morn [March 21, 1818].

My dear Sirs--I had no idea of your getting on so fast--I thought of bringing my 4th Book to Town all in good time for you--especially after the late unfortunate chance.

I did not however for my own sake delay finishing the copy which was done a few days after my arrival here. I send it off to-day, and will tell you in a Postscript at what time to send for it from the Bull and Mouth or other Inn. You will find the Preface and dedication and the title Page as I should wish it to stand--for a Romance is a fine thing notwithstanding the circulating Libraries. My respects to Mrs. Hessey and to Percy Street.

Yours very sincerely

JOHN KEATS.

_P.S._--I have been advised to send it to you--you may expect it on Monday--for I sent it by the Postman to Exeter at the same time with this Letter. Adieu!

XLV.--TO JAMES RICE.

Teignmouth, Tuesday [March 24, 1818].

My dear Rice--Being in the midst of your favourite Devon, I should not, by rights, pen one word but it should contain a vast portion of Wit, Wisdom and learning--for I have heard that Milton ere he wrote his answer to Salmasius came into these parts, and for one whole month, rolled himself for three whole hours (per day?), in a certain meadow hard by us--where the mark of his nose at equidistances is still shown. The exhibitor of the said meadow further saith, that, after these rollings, not a nettle sprang up in all the seven acres for seven years, and that from the said time, a new sort of plant was made from the whitethorn, of a thornless nature, very much used by the bucks of the present day to rap their boots withal. This account made me very naturally suppose that the nettles and thorns etherealised by the scholar's rotatory motion, and garnered in his head, thence flew after a process of fermentation against the luckless Salmasius and occasioned his well-known and unhappy end. What a happy thing it would be if we could settle our thoughts and make our minds up on any matter in five minutes, and remain content--that is, build a sort of mental cottage of feelings, quiet and pleasant--to have a sort of Philosophical back-garden, and cheerful holiday-keeping front one--but alas! this never can be: for as the material cottager knows there are such places as France and Italy, and the Andes and burning mountains, so the spiritual Cottager has knowledge of the terra semi-incognita of things unearthly, and cannot for his life keep in the check-rein--or I should stop here quiet and comfortable in my theory of nettles. You will see, however, I am obliged to run wild being attracted by the load-stone concatenation. No sooner had I settled the knotty point of Salmasius, than the Devil put this whim into my head in the likeness of one of Pythagoras's questionings--Did Milton do more good or harm in the world? He wrote, let me inform you (for I have it from a friend, who had it of ----,) he wrote Lycidas, Comus, Paradise Lost and other Poems, with much delectable prose--He was moreover an active friend to man all his life, and has been since his death.--Very good--but, my dear Fellow, I must let you know that, as there is ever the same quantity of matter constituting this habitable globe--as the ocean notwithstanding the enormous changes and revolutions taking place in some or other of its demesnes--notwithstanding Waterspouts whirlpools and mighty rivers emptying themselves into it--still is made up of the same bulk, nor ever varies the number of its atoms--and as a certain bulk of water was instituted at the creation--so very likely a certain portion of intellect was spun forth into the thin air, for the brains of man to prey upon it. You will see my drift without any unnecessary parenthesis. That which is contained in the Pacific could not lie in the hollow of the Caspian--that which was in Milton's head could not find room in Charles the Second's--He like a Moon attracted intellect to its flow--it has not ebbed yet, but has left the shore-pebbles all bare--I mean all Bucks, Authors of Hengist, and Castlereaghs of the present day; who without Milton's gormandising might have been all wise men--Now forasmuch as I was very predisposed to a country I had heard you speak so highly of, I took particular notice of everything during my journey, and have bought some folio asses' skins for memorandums. I have seen everything but the wind--and that, they say, becomes visible by taking a dose of acorns, or sleeping one night in a hog-trough, with your tail to the Sow Sow-West. Some of the little Bar-maids look'd at me as if I knew Jem Rice.... Well, I can't tell! I hope you are showing poor Reynolds the way to get well. Send me a good account of him, and if I can, I'll send you one of Tom--Oh! for a day and all well!

I went yesterday to Dawlish fair.

Over the Hill and over the Dale,
And over the Bourne to Dawlish,
Where ginger-bread wives have a scanty sale,
And ginger-bread nuts are smallish, etc. etc.

Tom's remembrances and mine to you all.

Your sincere friend

JOHN KEATS.

XLVI.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

[Teignmouth, March 25, 1818.]

My dear Reynolds--In hopes of cheering you through a Minute or two, I was determined will he nill he to send you some lines, so you will excuse the unconnected subject and careless verse. You know, I am sure, Claude's Enchanted Castle,[56] and I wish you may be pleased with my remembrance of it. The Rain is come on again--I think with me Devonshire stands a very poor chance. I shall damn it up hill and down dale, if it keep up to the average of six fine days in three weeks. Let me have better news of you.

Tom's remembrances to you. Remember us to all.

Your affectionate friend,

JOHN KEATS.

Dear Reynolds! as last night I lay in bed,
There came before my eyes that wonted thread
Of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances,
That every other minute vex and please:
Things all disjointed come from north and south,--
Two Witch's eyes above a Cherub's mouth,
Voltaire with casque and shield and habergeon,
And Alexander with his nightcap on;
Old Socrates a-tying his cravat,
And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth's cat;
And Junius Brutus, pretty well so so,
Making the best of's way towards Soho.

Few are there who escape these visitings,--
Perhaps one or two whose lives have patent wings,
And thro' whose curtains peeps no hellish nose,
No wild-boar tushes, and no Mermaid's toes;
But flowers bursting out with lusty pride,
And young Aeolian harps personify'd;
Some Titian colours touch'd into real life,--
The sacrifice goes on; the pontiff knife
Gleams in the Sun, the milk-white heifer lows,
The pipes go shrilly, the libation flows:
A white sail shows above the green-head cliff,
Moves round the point, and throws her anchor stiff;
The mariners join hymn with those on land.

You know the Enchanted Castle,--it doth stand
Upon a rock, on the border of a Lake,
Nested in trees, which all do seem to shake
From some old magic-like Urganda's Sword.
O Phoebus! that I had thy sacred word
To show this Castle, in fair dreaming wise,
Unto my friend, while sick and ill he lies!

You know it well enough, where it doth seem
A mossy place, a Merlin's Hall, a dream;
You know the clear Lake, and the little Isles,
The mountains blue, and cold near neighbour rills,
All which elsewhere are but half animate;
There do they look alive to love and hate,
To smiles and frowns; they seem a lifted mound
Above some giant, pulsing underground.

Part of the Building was a chosen See,
Built by a banish'd Santon of Chaldee;
The other part, two thousand years from him,
Was built by Cuthbert de Saint Aldebrim;
Then there's a little wing, far from the Sun,
Built by a Lapland Witch turn'd maudlin Nun;
And many other juts of aged stone
Founded with many a mason-devil's groan.

The doors all look as if they op'd themselves
The windows as if latch'd by Fays and Elves,
And from them comes a silver flash of light,
As from the westward of a Summer's night;
Or like a beauteous woman's large blue eyes
Gone mad thro' olden songs and poesies.

See! what is coming from the distance dim!
A golden Galley all in silken trim!
Three rows of oars are lightening, moment whiles
Into the verd'rous bosoms of those isles;
Towards the shade, under the Castle wall,
It comes in silence,--now 'tis hidden all.
The Clarion sounds, and from a Postern-gate
An echo of sweet music doth create
A fear in the poor Herdsman, who doth bring
His beasts to trouble the enchanted spring,--
He tells of the sweet music, and the spot,
To all his friends, and they believe him not.

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,
Would all their colours from the sunset take:
From something of material sublime,
Rather than shadow our own soul's day-time
In the dark void of night. For in the world
We jostle,--but my flag is not unfurl'd
On the Admiral-staff,--and so philosophise
I dare not yet! Oh, never will the prize,
High reason, and the love of good and ill,
Be my award! Things cannot to the will
Be settled, but they tease us out of thought;
Or is it that imagination brought
Beyond its proper bound, yet still confin'd,
Lost in a sort of Purgatory blind,
Cannot refer to any standard law
Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw
In happiness, to see beyond our bourn,--
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.

Dear Reynolds! I have a mysterious tale,
And cannot speak it: the first page I read
Upon a Lampit rock of green sea-weed
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,
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 Kamtschatkan Missionary Church,
Than with these horrid moods be left i' the lurch.

XLVII.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.

Wednesday, [Teignmouth, April 8, 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 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 favourable 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 Ben Lomond--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 your many havens of intenseness--nor ever can know them: but for this I hope not you achieve is lost upon me[57]: 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 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. That passage in Shakspeare is finer than this--

See how the surly Warwick mans the Wall.

I like your consignment of Corneille--that's the humour of it--they shall be called your Posthumous Works.[58] 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 leaf--Cats 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[59]--that is dined 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 Rows--for 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.

XLVIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

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

My dear Reynolds--Since you all agree that the thing[60] 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 Aetna for any great Public good--but I hate a Mawkish Popularity. I cannot be subdued before them--My glory would be to daunt and dazzle the thousand jabberers about Pictures and Books--I see swarms of Porcupines with their Quills erect "like lime-twigs set to catch my Winged Book," and I would fright them away with a torch. You will say my Preface is not much of a Torch. It would have been too insulting "to begin from Jove," and I could not set a golden head upon a thing of clay. If there is any fault in the Preface it is not affectation, but an undersong of disrespect to the Public--if I write another Preface it must be done without a thought of those people--I will think about it. If it should not reach you in four or five days, tell Taylor to publish it without a Preface, and let the Dedication simply stand--"inscribed to the Memory of Thomas Chatterton."

I had resolved last night to write to you this morning--I wish it had been about something else--something to greet you towards the close of your long illness. I have had one or two intimations of your going to Hampstead for a space; and I regret to see your confounded Rheumatism keeps you in Little Britain where, I am sure the air is too confined. Devonshire continues rainy. As the drops beat against the window, they give me the same sensation as a quart of cold water offered to revive a half-drowned devil--no feel of the clouds dropping fatness; but as if the roots of the earth were rotten, cold, and drenched. I have not been able to go to Kent's cave at Babbicombe--however on one very beautiful day I had a fine Clamber over the rocks all along as far as that place. I shall be in Town in about Ten days--We go by way of Bath on purpose to call on Bailey. I hope soon to be writing to you about the things of the north, purposing to wayfare all over those parts. I have settled my accoutrements in my own mind, and will go to gorge wonders. However, we'll have some days together before I set out--

I have many reasons for going wonder-ways: to make my winter chair free from spleen--to enlarge my vision--to escape disquisitions on Poetry and Kingston Criticism; to promote digestion and economise shoe-leather. I'll have leather buttons and belt; and, if Brown holds his mind, over the Hills we go. If my Books will help me to it, then will I take all Europe in turn, and see the Kingdoms of the Earth and the glory of them. Tom is getting better, he hopes you may meet him at the top o' the hill. My Love to your nurses. I am ever

Your affectionate Friend

JOHN KEATS.

XLIX.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

[Teignmouth,] Friday [April 10, 1818].

My dear Reynolds--I am anxious you should find this Preface tolerable. If there is an affectation in it 'tis natural to me. Do let the Printer's Devil cook it, and let me be as "the casing air."

You are too good in this Matter--were I in your state, I am certain I should have no thought but of discontent and illness--I might though be taught patience: I had an idea of giving no Preface; however, don't you think this had better go? O, let it--one should not be too timid--of committing faults.

The climate here weighs us down completely; Tom is quite low-spirited. It is impossible to live in a country which is continually under hatches. Who would live in a region of Mists, Game Laws, indemnity Bills, etc., when there is such a place as Italy? It is said this England from its Clime produces a Spleen, able to engender the finest Sentiments, and cover the whole face of the isle with Green--so it ought, I'm sure.--I should still like the Dedication simply, as I said in my last.

I wanted to send you a few songs written in your favorite Devon--it cannot be--Rain! Rain! Rain! I am going this morning to take a facsimile of a Letter of Nelson's, very much to his honour--you will be greatly pleased when you see it--in about a week. What a spite it is one cannot get out--the little way I went yesterday, I found a lane banked on each side with store of Primroses, while the earlier bushes are beginning to leaf.

I shall hear a good account of you soon.

Your affectionate Friend

JOHN KEATS.

My Love to all and remember me to Taylor.

L.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.

Teignmouth, Friday [April 24, 1818].

My dear Taylor--I think I did wrong to leave to you all the trouble of Endymion--But I could not help it then--another time I shall be more bent to all sorts of troubles and disagreeables. Young men for some time have an idea that such a thing as happiness is to be had, and therefore are extremely impatient under any unpleasant restraining. In time however, of such stuff is the world about them, they know better, and instead of striving from uneasiness, greet it as an habitual sensation, a pannier which is to weigh upon them through life--And in proportion to my disgust at the task is my sense of your kindness and anxiety. The book pleased me much. It is very free from faults: and, although there are one or two words I should wish replaced, I see in many places an improvement greatly to the purpose.

I think those speeches which are related--those parts where the speaker repeats a speech, such as Glaucus's repetition of Circe's words, should have inverted commas to every line. In this there is a little confusion.--If we divide the speeches into _identical_ and _related_; and to the former put merely one inverted Comma at the beginning and another at the end; and to the latter inverted Commas before every line, the book will be better understood at the 1st glance. Look at pages 126, 127, you will find in the 3d line the beginning of a related speech marked thus "Ah! art awake--" while, at the same time, in the next page the continuation of the _identical_ speech is marked in the same manner, "Young man of Latmos--" You will find on the other side all the parts which should have inverted commas to every line.

I was proposing to travel over the North this summer. There is but one thing to prevent me.--I know nothing--I have read nothing--and I mean to follow Solomon's directions, "Get learning--get understanding." I find earlier days are gone by--I find that I can have no enjoyment in the world but continual drinking of knowledge. I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world--Some do it with their Society--some with their wit--some with their benevolence--some with a sort of power of conferring pleasure and good-humour on all they meet--and in a thousand ways, all dutiful to the command of great Nature--there is but one way for me. The road lies through application, study, and thought.--I will pursue it; and for that end, purpose retiring for some years. I have been hovering for some time between an exquisite sense of the luxurious, and a love for philosophy,--were I calculated for the former, I should be glad. But as I am not, I shall turn all my soul to the latter.--My brother Tom is getting better, and I hope I shall see both him and Reynolds better before I retire from the world. I shall see you soon, and have some talk about what Books I shall take with me.

Your very sincere friend

JOHN KEATS.

Pray remember me to Hessey Woodhouse and Percy Street.

LI.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

Teignmouth, April 27, 1818.

My dear Reynolds--It is an awful while since you have heard from me--I hope I may not be punished, when I see you well, and so anxious as you always are for me, with the remembrance of my so seldom writing when you were so horribly confined. The most unhappy hours in our lives are those in which we recollect times past to our own blushing--If we are immortal that must be the Hell. If I must be immortal, I hope it will be after having taken a little of "that watery labyrinth" in order to forget some of my school-boy days and others since those.

I have heard from George at different times how slowly you were recovering--It is a tedious thing--but all Medical Men will tell you how far a very gradual amendment is preferable; you will be strong after this, never fear. We are here still enveloped in clouds--I lay awake last night listening to the Rain with a sense of being drowned and rotted like a grain of wheat. There is a continual courtesy between the Heavens and the Earth. The heavens rain down their unwelcomeness, and the Earth sends it up again to be returned to-morrow. Tom has taken a fancy to a physician here, Dr. Turton, and I think is getting better--therefore I shall perhaps remain here some Months. I have written to George for some Books--shall learn Greek, and very likely Italian--and in other ways prepare myself to ask Hazlitt in about a year's time the best metaphysical road I can take. For although I take poetry to be Chief, yet there is something else wanting to one who passes his life among Books and thoughts on Books--I long to feast upon old Homer as we have upon Shakspeare, and as I have lately upon Milton. If you understood Greek, and would read me passages, now and then, explaining their meaning, 'twould be, from its mistiness, perhaps, a greater luxury than reading the thing one's self. I shall be happy when I can do the same for you. I have written for my folio Shakspeare, in which there are the first few stanzas of my "Pot of Basil." I have the rest here finished, and will copy the whole out fair shortly, and George will bring it you--The compliment is paid by us to Boccace, whether we publish or no: so there is content in this world--_mine_ is short--you must be deliberate about yours: you must not think of it till many months after you are quite well:--then put your passion to it, and I shall be bound up with you in the shadows of Mind, as we are in our matters of human life. Perhaps a Stanza or two will not be too foreign to your Sickness.

Were they unhappy then?--It cannot be--
Too many tears for lovers have been shed,
Too many sighs give we to them in fee,
Too much of pity after they are dead,
Too many doleful stories do we see,
Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;
Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse
Over the pathless waves towards him bows.

But, for the general award of love
The little sweet doth kill much bitterness;
Though Dido silent is in under-grove,
And Isabella's was a great distress,
Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove
Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less--
Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

* * * * *

She wept alone for pleasures not to be;
Sorely she wept until the night came on,
And then, instead of love, O misery!
She brooded o'er the luxury alone:
What might have been too plainly did she see,[61]
And to the silence made a gentle moan,
Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,
And on her couch low murmuring "Where? O where?"

I heard from Rice this morning--very witty--and have just written to Bailey. Don't you think I am brushing up in the letter way? and being in for it, you shall hear again from me very shortly:--if you will promise not to put hand to paper for me until you can do it with a tolerable ease of health--except it be a line or two. Give my Love to your Mother and Sisters. Remember me to the Butlers--not forgetting Sarah.

Your affectionate Friend

JOHN KEATS.

LII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

Teignmouth, May 3d [1818].

My dear Reynolds--What I complain of is that I have been in so uneasy a state of Mind as not to be fit to write to an invalid. I cannot write to any length under a disguised feeling. I should have loaded you with an addition of gloom, which I am sure you do not want. I am now thank God in a humour to give you a good groat's worth--for Tom, after a Night without a Wink of sleep, and over-burthened with fever, has got up after a refreshing day-sleep and is better than he has been for a long time; and you I trust have been again round the common without any effect but refreshment. As to the Matter I hope I can say with Sir Andrew[62] "I have matter enough in my head" in your favour--And now, in the second place, for I reckon that I have finished my Imprimis, I am glad you blow up the weather--all through your letter there is a leaning towards a climate-curse, and you know what a delicate satisfaction there is in having a vexation anathematised: one would think there has been growing up for these last four thousand years, a grand-child Scion of the old forbidden tree, and that some modern Eve had just violated it; and that there was come with double charge