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Dear Lord Jeffrey, It is with great pleasure that I dedicate to you these late memorials and relics of a man, whose early genius you did much to rescue from the alterna- tive of obloquy or oblivion. The merits which your generous sagacity perceived under so many disadvantages, are now recognised by every student and lover of poetry in this country, and have acquired a still brighter fame, in that other and wider England beyond the Atlantic, whose national youth is, perhaps, more keenly susceptible of poetic impressions and delights, than the maturer and more conscious fatherland. VI DEDICATION. I think that the poetical portion of these volumes, wiU confirm the opinions you hazarded at the time, when such views were hazardous even to a critical reputation so well-founded as your own : and I believe that you will find in the clear transcript of the poet's mind, conveyed in these familiar letters, more than a vindication of all the interest you took in a character, whose moral purity and nobleness is as significant as its intellectual excellence. It has no doubt frequently amused you to have outlived literary reputations, whose sound and glitter you foresaw would not stand the tests of time and altered circumstance ; but it is a far deeper source of satisfaction to have received the ratification by public opinion of judgments, once doubted or derided, and thus to have anticipated the tardy justice which a great work of art frequently obtains, when the hand of the artist is cold, and the heart, that palpitated under neglect, is still for ever. This composition, or rather compilation, has been indeed a labour of love, and I rejoice to prefix to it a DEDICATION. VU name not dearer to public esteem than to private friendship, — not less worthy of gratitude and of affection than of high professional honours and wide intellectual fame. I remain, dear Lord Jeffrey, Yours with respect and regard, R. MONCKTON MiLNES. Pall Mall, Aug. 1st, 1848. PREFACE. It is now fifteen years ago that I met, at the villa of my distinguished friend Mr. Landor, on the beautiful hill-side of Fiesole, Mr. Charles Brown, a retired Russia-merchant, with whose name I was already familiar as the generous protector and devoted friend of the Poet Keats. Mr. Severn the artist, whom I had known at Rome, had already satisfied much of my curiosity respecting a man, whom the gods had favoured with great genius and early death, but had added to one gift the consciousness of public dis- regard, and to the other the trial of severe physical suffering. With the works of Keats I had always felt a strong poetical sympathy, accompanied by a ceaseless wonder at their wealth of diction and of imagery, which was increased by the consciousness that all that he had produced was rather a promise PREFACE. than an accomplishment ; he had ever seemed to me to have done more at school in poetry, than almost any other man who had made it the ohject of a mature life. This adolescent character had given me an especial interest in the moral history of this Mar- cellus of the empire of English song, and when my imagination measured what he might have become by what he was, it stood astounded at the result. Therefore the circumstances of his life and writings appeared to me of a high literary interest, and I looked on whatever unpublished productions of his that fell in my way with feelings perhaps not in all cases warranted by their intrinsic merits. Few of these remains had escaped the affectionate care of Mr. Brown, and he told me that he only deferred their publication till his return to England. This took place two or three years afterwards, and the pre- liminary arrangements for giving them to the world were actually in progress, when the accident of attend- ing a meeting on the subject of the colonisation of New Zealand altered all Mr. Brown's plans, and deter- mined him to transfer his fortunes and the closing years of his Ufe to the antipodes. Before he left this country he confided to my care all his collections of Keats' s writings, accompanied with a biographical notice, and I engaged to use them to the best of my abihty for the purpose of \-indicating the character and advancing the fame of his honoured friend. As soon as my intention was made known, I received from the friends and acquaintances of the poet the kindest assistance. His earUest guide and companion m hterature, Mr. Cowden Clarke, and liis comrades in youthful study, Mr. Holmes and Mr. Felton INIathew, supphed me with all their recol- lections of his boyhood ; Mr. Reynolds, whom Mr. Leigh Hunt, in the " Examiner" of 1816, associated with Shelley and Keats as the three poets of promise whom time was ripening, contributed the rich store of correspondence, which began with Keats' s intro- duction into literary society, and never halted to the last ; ]Mr. Haslam and Mr. Dilke aided me with letters and remembrances, and many persons who casually heard of my project forwarded me informa- tion that circumstances had placed in their way. To the enUghtened pubhshers Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, and to Mr. Olher, I am also indebted for willing cooperation. Mr. Leigh Hunt had already laid his offering on XU PREFACE. the shrine of his beloved brother in the trials and triumphs of genius, and could only encourage me by his interest and sympathy. I have already mentioned Mr. Severn, without whom I should probably have never thought of undertaking the task, and who now offered me the additional inducement of an excellent portrait of his friend to prefix to the book : he has also in his pos- session a small full-length of Keats sitting reading, which is considered a striking and characteristic resemblance. But perhaps the most valuable, as the most confi- dential communication I received, was from the gentleman who has married the widow of George Keats, and who placed at my disposal, with the con- sent of the family, the letters George received from his brother after he emigrated to America. I have taken the liberty of omitting some few unimportant passages which referred exclusively to individuals or transitory circumstances, regarding this part of the correspondence as of a more private character than any other that has fallen into my hands. I am not indeed unprepared for the charge, that I have published in these volumes much that might well have heeu omitted, both for its own irrelevancy, and from the decent reverence that should always veil, more or less, the intimate family concerns and the deep internal life of those that are no more. Never has such remonstrance been more ably expressed than in the following passage from Mr. Wordsworth's " Letter to a friend of Robert Bums,"* and which, on account of the rarity of the pamphlet, I here transcribe: — " Biography, though differing in some essentials from works of fiction, is nevertheless like them an art — an art, the laws of which are determined by the imperfections of our nature and the constitution of society. Truth is not here, as in the sciences and in natural philosophy, to be sought without scruple, and promulgated for its own sake upon the mere chance of its being serviceable, but only for obviously jus- tifying purposes, moral or intellectual. Silence is a priA-ilege of the grave, a right of the departed; let him therefore, who infringes that right by speaking publicly of, for, or against those who cannot speak for themselves, take heed that he open not his mouth without a sufficient sanction. * * * * * Published 1816. XIV PREFACE. The general obligation upon which I have insisted is especially binding upon those who undertake the biography of authors. Assuredly there is no cause why the lives of that class of men should be pried into with diligent curiosity, and laid open with the same disregard of reserve which may sometimes be expedient in composing the history of men who have borne an active part in the world. Such thorough knowledge of the good and bad qualities of these latter, as can only be obtained by a scrutiny of their private bias, conduces to explain, not only their own public conduct, but that of those with whom they have acted. Nothing of this applies to authors, considered merely as authors. Our business is with their books, to understand and to enjoy them. And of poets more especially it is true, that if their works be good, they contain within themselves all that is necessary to their being comprehended and relished. It should seem that the ancients thought in this manner, for of the eminent Greek and Roman poets, few and scanty memorials were, I believe, ever prepared, and fewer still are preserved. It is delightful to read what, in the happy exercise of his own genius, Horace chooses to communicate of himself and his friends; but I confess I am not so much a lover of knowledge independent of its quality, as to make it likely that it would much rejoice me were I to hear that records of the Sabine poet and his contemporaries, composed upon the Boswellian plan, had been unearthed among the ruins of Herculaneum." With this earnest warning before me, I hesitated some time as to the appHcation of my materials. It was easy for me to construct out of them a signal monument of the worth and genius of Keats: by selecting the circumstances and the passages that illustrated the extent of his abilities, the purity of his objects and the nobleness of his nature, I might have presented to the world a monography, appa- rently perfect, and at least as real as those which the affection or pride of the relatives or dependants of remarkable personages generally prefix to their works. But I could not be unconscious that, if I were able to present to public view the true per- sonality of a man of genius, without either wounding the feelings of mourning friends or detracting from his existing reputation, I should be doing a much better thing in itself, and one much more becoming XVI PREFACE. that office of biographer, which I, a personal stranger to the individual, had consented to undertake. For, if I left the memorials of Keats to tell their own tale, they would in truth be the book, and my business would be almost limited to their collection and arrangement; whereas, if I only regarded them as the materials of my own work, the general effect would chiefly depend on my ability of construction, and the temptation to render the facts of the story subservient to the excellence of the work of art would never have been absent. I had else to consider which procedure was most likely to raise the character of Keats in the estima- tion of those most capable of judging it. I saw how grievously he was misapprehended even by many who wished to see in him only what was best. I perceived that many, who heartily admired his poetry, looked on it as the production of a wayward, erratic, genius, self-indulgent in conceits, disrespectful of the rules and limitations of Art, not only unlearned but care- less of knowledge, not only exaggerated but des- pising proportion. I knew that his moral disposition was assumed to be weak, gluttonous of sensual excitement, querulous of severe judgment, fantastical in its tastes, and lackadaisical in its sentiments. He was all but universally believed to have been killed by a stupid, savage, article in a review, and to the compassion generated by his untoward fate he was held to owe a certain personal interest, which his poetic reputation hardly justified. When, then, I found, from the undeniable docu- mentary evidence of his inmost life, that nothing could be further from the truth than this opinion, it seemed to me, that a portrait, so dissimilar from the general assumption, would hardly obtain credit, and might rather look like the production of a paradoxical partiahty than the result of conscientious inqmry. I had to show that Keats, in his intellectual character, reverenced simplicity and tnxth above all things, and abhorred whatever was merely strange and strong — that he was ever learning and ever growing more con- scious of his own ignorance, — that his models were always the highest and the purest, and that his earnest- ness in aiming at their excellence, was only equal to the humble estimation of his own efforts — that his poetical course was one of distinct and positive pro- gress, exhibiting a self-command and self-direction which enabled him to understand and avoid the faults XVm PREFACE. even of the writers he was most naturally inclined to esteem, and to liberate himself at once, not only from the fetters of literary partizanship, but even from the subtler influences and associations of the accidental literary spirit of his own time. I had also to exhibit the moral pecuHarities of Keats as the effects of a strong will, passionate temperament, indomitable courage, and a somewhat contemptuous disregard of other men — to represent him as unflinchingly meeting all criticism of his writings, and caring for the Article, which was supposed to have had such homicidal success, just so far as it was an evidence of the Uttle power he had as yet acquired over the sympathies of mankind, and no more. I had to make prominent the brave front he opposed to poverty and pain — to show, how love of pleasure was in him continually subordinate to higher aspirations, notwithstanding the sharp zest of enjoyment which his mercurial nature conferred on him ; and above all, I had to illustrate how little he abused his full possession of that imaginative faculty, which enables the poet to vivify the phantoms of the hour, and to purify the objects of sense, beyond what the moralist may sanction, or the mere practical man can understand. I thus came to the conclusion, that it was best to act simply as editor of the Life which was, as it were, already written. I had not the right, which many men yet living might claim from personal knowledge, of analysing motives of action and explaining courses of conduct ; I could tell no more than was told to me, and that I have done as faith- fully as I was able : and I now leave the result in the hands of the few whose habits of thought incline them to such subjects, not, indeed, in the hope that their task \n\\ be as agreeable as mine has been, but in the belief, that they will find in it much that is not mine to appreciate and enjoy : a previous admi- ration of the works of Keats which have been already published is the test of their authority to approve or condemn these supplementary memorials, and I admit no other. ERRATA. VOL. I. Page 205, line 20, for " Titians," read " Titans." — 270, last line, instead of " When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept," &c. read, " As Hermes once took to his feathers light." VOL. II. Page 295, second line of motto, for " Than those that made the hyacinthine bell," read, " Than those that mock the hyacinthine bell." the Philosopher, yet our observation will be more or less limited and obscured by the sequence of events, the forms of manners, or the exigencies of theory, and the personality of the writer must be frequently lost ; while the Poet, if his utterances be deep and true, can hai'dly hide himself even beneath the epic or dra- matic veil, and often makes of the rough public ear a LIFE AND LETTERS JOHN KEATS. TO the Poet, if to any man, it may justly be conceded to be estimated by what he has written rather than by what he has done, and to be judged by the productions of his genius rather than by the circum- stances of his outward life. For although the choice and treatment of a subject may enable us to con- template the mind of the Historian, the Novelist, or the Philosopher, yet our observation will be more or less limited and obscured by the sequence of events, the forms of manners, or the exigencies of theorj-, and the persouahty of the writer must be frequently lost ; while the Poet, if his utterances be deep and true, can hardly hide himself even beneath the epic or dra- matic veil, and often makes of the rough public ear a 2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF confessional into which to pour the richest treasures and holiest secrets of his soul. His Life is in his ■writings, and his Poems are his works indeed. The biography therefore of a poet can be little better than a comment on his Poems, even when itself of long duration, and chequered with strange and various adventures : but these pages concern one whose whole story may be summed up in the com- position of three small volumes of verse, some earnest friendships, one passion, and a premature death. As men die, so they walk among posterity ; and our im- pression of Keats can only be that of a noble nature perseveringly testing its own powers, of a manly heart bravely surmounting its first hard experience, and of an imagination ready to inundate the world, yet learning to flow witliin regulated channels and abating its violence without lessening its strength. It is thus no more than the beginning of a Life which can here be written, and nothing but a convic- tion of the singularity and greatness of the fragment would justify any one in attempting to draw general attention to its shape and substance. The interest indeed of the Poems of Keats has already had much of a personal character : and his early end, like that of Chatterton, (of whom he ever speaks with a sort of prescient sympathy) has, in some degree, stood him in stead of a fulfilled poetical existence. Ever improving JOHN KEATS. 3 in his art, he gave no reason to believe that his man'ellous faculty had anything m common with that Ipical facility "which many men have manifested in boyhood or in youth, but which has grown torpid or disappeared altogether with the advance of mature life ; in him no one doubts that a true genius was suddenly arrested, and they who will not allow him to have won his place in the first ranks of English poets will not deny the promise of his candidature. When a man has had a fair field of existence before him and free scope for the exhibition of his energies, it becomes a superfluous and generally an unpro- fitable task to collect together the unimportant incidents of his career and hoard up the scattered remnants of his mind, most of which he would pro- bably have himself wished to be forgotten. But in the instance of Keats, it is a natural feeling in those who knew and loved, and not an extravagant one in those who merely admire him, to desire, as far as may be, to repair the injustice of destiny, and to glean whatever relics they may find of a harvest of which so few fuU sheaves were permitted to be garnered. The interest which attaches to the family of every remarkable individual has failed to discover in that of Keats anything more than that the influences with which his childhood was surrounded were virtuous and honourable. His father, who was employed in 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF the establishment of Mr. Jennings, the proprietor of large livery-stables on the Pavement in Moorfields, nearly opposite the entrance into Finsbm-y Circus, became liis master's son-in-law, and is still remembered as a man of excellent natural sense, lively and ener- getic countenance, and entire freedom from any vul- garity or assumption on account of his prosperous alliance. He was killed by a fall from his horse in 1804, at the early age of thirty-sis. The mother, a lively intelligent woman, was supposed to have pre- maturely hastened the birth of John by her passionate love of amusement, though his constitution gave no signs of the peculiar debility of a seventh months child. He was bom on the 29th of October, 1795.* He had two brothers, George, older than himself, Thomas, younger, and a sister much younger ; John resembled his father in feature stature and manners, while the two brothers were more like their mother, who was tall, had a large oval face, and a somewhat saturnine demeanour. She succeeded however in in- spiring her children with the profoundest affection, and especially John, who, when, on an occasion of illness, the doctor ordered her not to be disturbed * This point, which has been disputed, (Mr. Leigh Hunt making him a year younger), is decided by the proceedings in Chancery, on the administration of his effects, where he is said to have come of age in October, 1816. Rawlings v. Jennings, June 3rd, 1825. JOHN KEATS. 5 for some time, kept sentinel at her door for above three hom's with an old sword he had picked up, and allowed no one to enter the room. At this time he was between four and five years old, and later he was sent, with his brothei-s, to Mr. Clarke's school at Enfield, which was then in high repute. Harrow had been at first proposed but was found to be too expensive. A maternal uncle of the young Keats's had been an ofiicer in Duncan's ship in the action off Camperdown and had distinguished himself there both by his signal braveiy and by his peculiarly lofty stature, which made him a mai'k for the enemy's shot ; the Dutch admu'al said as much to him after the battle. This sailor-imcle was the ideal of the boys, and filled their imagination when they went to school with the notion of keeping up the family's reputation for courage. This was manifested in the elder brother by a passive manliness, but in John and Tom by the fiercest pug- nacity. John was always fighting ; he chose his favourites among his schoolfellows from those that fought the most readily and pertinaciously, nor were the brothers loth to exercise their mettle even on one another. This disposition, however, in all of them, seems to have been combined with much tenderness, and, in John, with a passionate sensibility, which ex- liibited itself in the strongest contrasts. Convulsions of laughter and of tears were equally frequent with 6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF him, and he would pass from one to the other almost without an interval. He gave vent to his impulses with no regard for consequences ; he violently attacked an usher who had boxed his brother's ears, and on the occasion of his mother's death, which occurred sud- denly, in 1810, (though she had lingered for some years in a consumption,) he hid himself in a nook under the master's desk for several days, in a long agony of grief, and would take no consolation from master or from friend. The sense of humour, which almost universally accompanies a deep sensibility, and is perhaps but the reverse of the medal, abounded in him ; from the first, he took infinite delight in any grotesque originality or novel prank of his companions, and, after the exhibition of "physical courage, appeared to prize these above all other quali- fications. His indifference to be thought well of as " a good boy," was as remarkable as his facility in getting through the daily tasks of the school, which never seemed to occupy his attention, but in which he was never behind the others. His skill in all manly exercises and the perfect generosity of his disposition, made him extremely popular : " he combined," writes one of his schoolfellows, " a terrier-like resoluteness of character, with the most noble placability," and another mentions that his extraordinary energy, ani- mation, and ability, impressed them all with a convic- JOHN KEATS. 7 tion of his future greatness, " but rather m a military or some such active sphere of life, than in the peaceful arena of literature."* This impression was no doubt unconsciously aided by a rare vivacity of countenance and very beautiful features. His eyes, then, as ever, were large and sensitive, flashing with strong emo- tions or suffused with tender sympathies, and more distinctly reflected the varying impulses of his nature than when under the self-control of maturer years : his hair hung in thick brown ringlets round a head diminutive for the breadth of the shoulders below it, while the smallness of the lower limbs, which in later life marred the proportion of his person, was not then apparent, any more than the undue prominence of the lower lip, which afterwards gave his face too pugnacious a character to be entirely pleasing, but at that time only completed such an impression as the ancients had of Achilles, — joyous and glorious youth, everlastingly striving. After remaining some time at school his intellectual ambition suddenly developed itself : he determined to cany off all the first prizes in literature, and he succeeded : but the object was only obtained by a total sacrifice of his amusements and favourite exei'cises. Even on the half-holidays, when the school was all out at play, he remained at home translating his * Mr. E. Holmes, author of the " Life of Mozart," &c. 8 LIFE AND LETTEES OF Virgil or his Fenelon : it has frequently occurred to the master to force him out into the open air for his health, and then he would walk in the garden with a book in his hand. The quantity of translations on paper he made during the last two years of his stay at Enfield was surprising. The twelve books of the " ^neid " were a portion of it, but he does not appear to have been familiar with much other and more difficult Latin poetry, nor to have even commenced learning the Greek language. Yet Tooke's " Pan- theon," Spence's " Polymetis, " and Lempriere's "Dictionary," were sufficient fully to introduce his imagination to the enchanted world of old mythology ; with this, at once, he became intimately acquainted, and a natural consanguinity, so to say, of intellect, soon domesticated him with the ancient ideal life, so that his scanty scholarship supplied him with a clear perception of classic beauty, and led the way to that wonderful reconstruction of Grecian feeling and fancy, of which his mind became afterwards capable. He does not seem to have been a sedulous reader of other books, but " Ptobinson Crusoe" and Marmontel's " Incas of Peru" impressed him strongly, and he must have met with Shakspeare, for he told a school- fellow considerably younger than himself, " that he thought no one could dare to read ' Macbeth ' alone in a house, at two o'clock in the morning." JOHN KEATS. 9 On the death of their remainmg parent, the young Keats 's were consigned to the guardianship of Mr. Abbey, a merchant. About eight thousand pounds were left to be equally divided among the four children. It does not appear whether the wishes of John, as to his destuiation in life, were at all consulted, but on leaving school in the summer of 1810, he was ap- prenticed, for five years, to Mr. Hammond, a sm-geon of some eminence at Edmonton. The vicinity to Enfield enabled him to keep up his connection with the family of Mr. Clarke, where he was always received with familiar kindness. His talents and energy had strongly recommended him to his pre- ceptor, and his affectionate disposition endeared him to his son. In Chai'les Cowden Clarke, Keats found a friend capable of sjnupathising with all his highest tastes and finest sentiments, and in this genial at- mosphere his powers gradually expanded. He was always borrowing books, which he devoured rather than read. Yet so little expectation was formed of the direction his ability would take, that when, in the beginning of 1812, he asked for the loan of Spenser's " Fairy Queen," Mr. Clarke remembers that it was supposed in the family that he merely desired, from a boyish ambition, to study an illustrious production of literature. The effect, however, produced on him by that great work of ideality was electrical : he was in the 10 LIFE AND LETTERS OF habit of walking over to Enfield at least once a week, to talk over his reading with his friend, and he would now speak of nothing but Spenser. A new world of dehght seemed revealed to him : " he ramped through the scenes ofthe romance," writes Mr. Clarke, " like a young horse turned into a spring meadow : " he revelled in the gorgeousness of the imagery, as in the pleasures of a sense fresh-found : the force and felicity of an epithet (such for example as — " the sea- shouldering whale ") would light up his countenance with ecstacy, and some fine touch of description would seem to strike on the secret chords of his soul and generate countless' harmonies. This in fact was not only his open presentation at the Court of the Muses, (for the lines in imitation of Spenser, " Now Morning from her orient chamber came, And her first footsteps touched a verdant hill," &c. are the earliest known verses of his composition,) but it was the great impulse of his poetic life, and the stream of his inspiration remained long coloured by the rich soil over which it first had flowed. Nor vpill the just critic of the maturer poems of Keats fail to trace to the influence of the study of Spenser much that at first appears forced and fantastical both in idea and in expression, and discover that pre- cisely those defects which are commonly attributed to JOHN KEATS. 11 an extravagant originality may be distinguished as proceeding from a too indiscriminate reverence for a great but unequal model. In the scanty records which are left of the adolescent years in which Keats became a poet, a Sonnet on Spenser, the date of which 1 have not been able to trace, itself illustrates this view : — " Spenser ! a jealous honourer of thine, A forester deep in thy midmost trees, Did, last eve, ask my promise to refine Some English, that might strive thine ear to please. But, Elfin-poet ! 'tis impossible For an inhabitant of wintry earth To rise, like Phoebus, with a golden quill, Fire-winged, and make a morning in his mirth. It is impossible to 'scape from toil O' the sudden, and receive thy spiriting : The flower must drink the nature of the soil Before it can put forth its blossoming : Be with me in the summer days and I Will for thine honour and his pleasure try." A few memorials remain of his other studies. Chaucer evidently gave him the greatest pleasure : he afterwards complained of the diction as "annoyingly mixed up vrith Gallicisms," but at the time when he wrote the Sonnet, at the end of the tale of " The Flower and the Leaf," he felt nothing but the pm'e breatli of nature in the moniing of English literatui'e. His friend Clarke, tired with a long walk, had fallen 12 LIFE AND LETTERS OF asleep on the sofa with the book in his hand, and when he woke, the volume was enriched with this addition, " This pleasant tale is like a little copse : " &c. * The strange tragedy of the fate of Chatterton " the marvellous Boy, the sleepless soul that perished in its pride," so disgraceful to the age in which it occurred and so awful a warning to all others of the cruel evils, which the mere apathy and ignorance of the world can inflict on genius, is a frequent subject of allusion and interest in Keats 's letters and poems, and some lines of the following invocation bear a mournful anticipatory analogy to the close of the beau- tiful elegy which Shelley hung over another early grave. " Chatterton ! how very sad thy fate ! Dear child of sorrow — son of misery ! How soon the film of death obscured that eye. Whence Genius mildly flashed, and high debate. How soon that voice, majestic and elate, Melted in dying numbers ! Oh ! how nigh Was night to thy fair morning. Thou didst die A half-blown flow'ret which cold blasts amate."!* But this is past: thou art among the stars Of highest Heaven : to the rolling spheres Thou sweetly singest : nought thy hymning mars, Above the ingrate world and human fears. * See the " Literary Remains." j- Amate. — Affright. Chaucer. JOHN KEATS. 13 On earth the good man hase detraction hars From thy fair name, and waters it with tears." Not long before tliis, Keats had become familiar ■with the works of Lord Byron, and indited a Sonnet, of little merit, to him in December, 1814 : — " Byron ! how sweetly sad thy melody ! Attuning still the soul to tenderness, As if soft Pity, with unusual stress, 1 Had touched her plaintive lute, and thou, being by, Hadst caught the tones, nor suffered them to die. O'ershading sorrow doth not make thee less Delightful : thou thy griefs dost dress With a bright halo, shining beamily. As when a cloud the golden moon doth veil. Its sides are tinged with a resplendent glow. Through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail. And like fair veins in sable marble flow ; Still warble, dying swan ! still tell the tale, The enchanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe." Confused as are the imagery and diction of these lines, their feeling suggests a painful contrast with the harsh judgment and late remorse of their object, the proud and successful poet, who never heard of this imperfect utterance of boyish sympathy and respect. The impressible nature of Keats would naturally incline him to erotic composition, but his early love- verses are remarkably deficient in beauty and even in passion. Some which remain in manuscript are without any interest, and those published in the 14 ^ LIFE AND LETTEKS OF little volume of 1817 are the worst pieces in it. The world of personal emotion was then far less familiar to him than that of fancy, and indeed it seems to have been long before he descended from the ideal atmosphere in which he dwelt so happily, into the troubled realities of human love. Not, however, that the creatures even of his young imagination were unimbued with natural affections ; so far from it, it may be reasonably conjectured that it was the interfusion of ideal and sensual life which rendered the Grecian mythology so peculiarly congenial to the mind of Keats, and when the " Endymion" comes to be critically considered, it will be found that its excellence consists in its clear comprehension of that ancient spirit of beauty, to which all outward perceptions so excel- lently ministered, and which undertook to ennoble and purify, as far as was consistent with their retention, the instinctive desires of mankind. Friendship, generally ardent in youth, would not remain without its impression in the early poems of Keats, and a congeniality of literaiy dispositions ap- pears to have been the chief impulse to these relations. With Mr. Felton Mathew,* to whom his first published Epistle was addressed, he appears to have enjoyed a high intellectual sympathy. This friend had introduced * A gentleman of high literary merit, now employed in the administration of the Poor Law. JOHN KEATS. 15 him to agreeable society, both of books and men, and those verses were written just at the time when Keats became fully aware that he had no real interest in the profession he was sedulously pursuing, and was already in the midst of that sad conflict between the outer and inner worlds, which is too often, perhaps always in some degree, the Poet's heritage in life. That freedom from the bonds of conventional phra- seology which so clearly designates true genius, but which, if unwatched and unchastened, will continually outrage the perfect form that can alone embalm the beautiful idea and preserve it for ever, is there already manifest, and the presence of Spenser shows itself not only by quaint expressions and curious adap- tations of rhyme, but by the introduction of the words "and make a sun-shine in a shady place," applied to the power of the Muse. Mr. Mathew retains his impression that at that time "the eye of Keats was more critical than tender, and so was his mind : he admired more the external decorations than felt the deep emotions of the Muse. He delighted in leading you through the mazes of elaborate description, but was less conscious of the sublime and the pathetic. He used to spend many evenings in reading to me, but I never observed the tears in his eyes nor the broken voice which are indicative of extreme sensibility." This modification of a nature at first passionately susceptible and the 16 LIFE AND LETTERS OF growing preponderance of the imagination is a frequent phenomenon m poetical psychology. To his brother George, then a clerk in Mr. Abbey's house, his next Epistle is addressed, and Spenser is there too. But by this time the delightful compla- cency of conscious genius had already dawned upon his mind and gives the poem an especial interest. After a brilliant sketch of the present happiness of the Poet, " his proud eye looks through the film of death ; " he thinks of leaving behind him lays " of such a dear delight, That maids will sing them on their hridal night;" he foresees that the patriot will thunder out his numbers, " To startle princes from their easy slumhers;" and while he checks himself in what he calls " this mad ambition," yet lie owns he has felt " relief from pain, When some hright thought has darted through my brain — Through all the day, I 've felt a greater pleasure Than if I 'd brought to light a hidden treasure." Although this foretaste of fame is in most cases a delusion (as the fame itself may be a greater delusion still), yet it is the best and purest drop in the cup of intellectual ambition. It is enjoyed, thank God, by JOHN KEATS. 17 thousands, who soon learn to estimate their own capa- cities aright and tranquilly submit to the obscxire and transitoiy condition of their existence : it is felt by many, who look back on it in after years with a smiling pity to thiak they were so deceived, but who never- theless recognise in that aspiration the spring of their future energies and usefulness in other and far different fields of action ; and the few, in whom the prophecy is accomplished — who become what they have believed — will often turn away with uneasy satiety from pre- sent satisfaction to the memory of those happy hopes, to the thought of the dear delight they then derived from one single leaf of those laurels that now crowd in at the window, and which the hand is half inclined to push away to let in the fresh air of heaven. The lines "As to my Sonnets — though none else should heed them, I feel delighted still that you should read them," occur in this Epistle, and several of these have been preserved besides those published or already men- tioned. Some, indeed, are mere experiments in this difficult but attractive form of composition, and others evidently refer to forgotten details of daily life and are unmeaning without them. A few of unequal power and illustrative of the progress of genius should not be forgotten, while those contained in the first volume of his Poems are perhaps the most remarkable pieces 18 LIFE AND LETTERS OF in it. They are as noble in thought, rich in expres- sion, and harmonious in rhythm as any in the language, and among the best may be ranked that " On first looking into Chapman's Homer." Unable as he was to read the original Greek, Homer had as yet been to him a name of solemn significance, and nothing more. His friend and literary counsellor, Mr, Clarke, happened to borrow Chapman's transla- tion, and having invited Keats to read it with him one evening, they continued their study till daylight. He describes Keats 's delight as intense, even to shouting aloud, as some passage of especial energy struck his imagination. It was fortunate that he was introduced to that heroic company through an intei"pretation which preserves so much of the ancient simplicity, and in a metre that, after all various attempts, including that of the hexameter, still appears the best adapted, from its pauses and its length, to represent in English the Greek epic verse. An accomplished scholar may perhaps be unwilling, or unable, to understand how thoroughly the imaginative reader can fill up the neces- sary defects of any translation which adheres, as far as it may, to the tone and spirit of the original, and does not introduce fresh elements of thought, incongruous ornaments, or cumbrous additions; be it bald and tame, he can clothe and colour it — be it harsh and ill-jointed, he can perceive the smoothness and completeness that JOHN' KEATS. 19 has beeu lost; only let it not be like Pope's Homer, a new ■work with an old name — a portrait, itself of con- siderable power and beauty, but in which the featux'es of the indi^'idual are scarcely to be recognised. The Sonnet in which these his first impressions are con- centrated, was left the following day on Mr. Clai'kes table, realising the idea of that form of verse ex- pressed by Keats himself in his thu'd Epistle, as — " swelling loudly Up to its climax, and then dying proudly." This Epistle is written in a bolder and freer strain than the others ; the Poet in excusing himself for not having addressed his Muse to Mr. Clarke before, on account of his inferiority to the great masters of song, implies that he is growing conscious of a pos- sible brotherhood with them ; and his terse and true description of the various orders of verse, with which his friend has familiarised his mind — the Sonnet, as above cited — the Ode, " Growing, like Atlas, stronger from its load," "4 the Epic, " of all the king, Round, vast, and spanning all, like Saturn's ring," and last, " The sharp, the rapier-pointed Epigram, — " betokens the justness of perception generally allied with redundant fancy. c 2 20 LIFE AND LETTEES OF These notices have anticipated the period of the ter- mination of Keats's apprenticeship and his removal to London, for the purpose of walking the hospitals. He lodged in the Poultry, and having been introduced by Mr. Clarke to some literary friends soon found himself in a circle of minds which appreciated his genius and stimulated him to exertion. One of his first acquaintance, at that time eminent for his poetical origi- nality and his political pei'secutions, was Mr. Leigh Hunt, who was regarded by some with admiration, by others with ridicule, as the master of a school of poets, though in truth he was only their encourager, sympathiser, and friend ; while the unpopularity of his liberal and cosmopolite politics was visited with indis- criminating injustice on all who had the happiness of his friendship or even the gratification of his society. In those days of hard opinion, which we of a freer and worthier time look upon with indignation and surprise, Mr. Hunt had been imprisoned for the pub- lication of phrases which, at the most, were indecorous expressions of public feeling, and became a traitor or a martyr according to the temper of the spectator. The heart of Keats leaped towards him in human and poetic brotherhood, and the earnest Sonnet on the day he left his prison riveted the connexion. They read and walked together, and wrote verses in competition on a given subject. " No imaginative JOHN KEATS. 21 pleasure," characteristically observes Mr. Hunt, " was left unnoticed by us or unenjoyed, from the recol- lection of the bards and patinots of old, to the luxury of a summer rain at oui" windows, or the clicking of the coal in winter time." Thus he became intimate with Hazlitt, Shelley, Haydon, and Godwin, with Mr. Basil Montague and his distinguished family, and with Mr. Oilier, a young publisher, himself a poet, who, out of sheer admiration, offered to publish a volume of his productions. The poem with which it commences was suggested to Keats by a delightful sum- mers-day, as he stood beside the gate that leads from the Battery, on Hampstead Heath, into a field by Caen Wood; and the last, " Sleep and Poetry," was occasioned by his sleeping in Mr. Hunt's pretty cottage, in the vale of Health, in the same quarter. These two pieces, being of considerable length, tested the strength of the young poet's fancy, and it did not fail. For the masters of song will not only rise lark-like with quivering wings in the sunlight, but must train their powers to sustain a calm and pro- tracted flight, and pass, as if poised in air, over the heads of mankind. Yet it was to be expected that the apparent faults of Keats's style would be here more manifest than in his shorter efforts ; poetry to him was not yet an Art ; the irregularities of his own and other verse were no more to him than the 22 LIFE AND LETTERS OF inequalities of that nature, of which he regarded himself as the interpreter ; " For what has made the sage or poet write, But the fair paradise of Nature's light ? In the calm grandeur of a soher line We see the waving of the mountain pine. And when a tale is beautifully staid, We feel the safety of a hawthorn glade." He had yet to learn that Art should purify and elevate the Nature that it comprehends, and that the ideal loses nothing of its truth hy aiming at perfection of form as well as of idea. Neither did he like to regard poetry as a matter of study and anxiety, or as a representative of the struggles and troubles of the mind and heart of men. He said most exquisitely, that— " a di-ainless shower Of light is Poesy — 'tis the supreme of power ; 'Tis Might half-slumbering on its own right arm." He thought that — " strength alone, though of the Muses born. Is like a fallen angel — trees uptorn. Darkness and worms and shrouds and sepulchres Delight it — for it feeds upon the burrs And thorns of life, forgetting the great end Of Poesy, that it should be a friend To soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of men." And yet Keats did not escape the charge of sacrificing beauty to supposed intensity, and of merging the abiding grace of his song in the passionate fantasies of JOHN KEATS. 23 the moment. Words indeed seem to have been often selected by him rather for their force and their harmony, than according to any just rules of diction ; if he met with a word anywhei'e in an old writer that took his fancy he inserted it in his verse on the first opportunity; and one has a kind of impression that he must have thought aloud as he was writing, so that many an ungainly phrase has acquired its place by its assonance or harmony, or capability to rhyme, (for he took great pleasure in fresh and original rhymes) rather than for its grammatical correctness or even justness of expression. And when to this is added the example set him by his great master Spenser, of whom a noted man of letters has been heard irre- verently to assert " that eveiy Englishman might be thankful that Spenser's gibberish had never become part and parcel of the language," the wonder is rather that he sloughed off so fast so many of his offending peculiarities, and in his third volume attained so great a purity and concinnity of phraseology, that little was left to designate either his poetical education or his literaiy associates. At the completion of the matter for this first volume he gave a striking proof of his facility in composition ; he was engaged with a lively circle of friends when the last proof-sheet was brought in, and he was re- quested by the printer to send the Dedication dix*ectly, f 24 LIFE AND LETTEES OF if he intended to have one : he went to a side-table, and while all around were noisily conversing, he sat down and wrote the sonnet — " Glory and loveliness have passed away," &c. &c. which, but for the insertion of one epithet of doubtful taste, is excellent in itself, and curious, as showing how he already had possessed himself with the images of Pagan beauty, and was either mourning over their decay and extinction, or attempting, in his own way, to bid them live again. For in him was realised the mediaeval legend of the Venus-worshipper, without its melancholy moral ; and while the old Gods rewarded him for his love with powers and perceptions that a Greek might have envied, he kept his affections high and pure above these sensuous influences, and led a temperate and honest life in an ideal world that knows nothing of duty and repels all images that do not please. This little book, the beloved first-born of so great a genius, scarcely touched the public attention. If, indeed, it had become notable, it would only have been to the literary formalist the sign of the existence of a new Cockney poet whom he was bound to criticise and annihilate, and to the political bigot the production of a fresh member of a revolutionary Propaganda to be hunted down with ridicule or obloquy, as the case JOHN KEATS. 25 might require. But these honours were reserved for maturer labour's ; beyond the circle of ardent friends and admirers, -which comprised most of the most remarkable minds of the period, it had hardly a purchaser ; and the contrast between the admiration he had, perhaps in excess, enjoyed among his immediate acquaintance, and the entire apathy of mankind with- out, must have been a hard lesson to his sensitive spirit. It is not sui^prising therefore, that he attributed his want of success to the favourite scape-goat of un- happy authors, an inactive publisher, and incurred the additional affliction of a breach of his friendship with Mr. OlUer. Mr. Haydon, Mr. Dilke, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Wood- house, Mr. Rice, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Hessey, Mr. Bailey, and Mr. Haslam, were his chief companions and cor- respondents at this period. The first name of this list now excites the most painful associations : it recals a life of long struggle without a prize, of persevering hope stranded on despair ; high talents laboriously applied earning the same catastrophe as waits on abilities vainly wasted ; frugality, self-denial, and simple habits, leading to the penalties of profligacy and the death of distraction ; an mdependent genius starving on the crumbs of ungenial patronage, and even these failing him at the last ! It might be that Haydon did not so realise his conceptions as to / 26 LIFE AND LETTERS OF make them to other men -what they were to himself; it might be that he over-estimated his own aesthetic, powers, and underrated those provinces of art in which some of his contemporaries excelled ; but surely a man should not have been so left to perish, whose passion for lofty art, notwithstanding all discouragements, must have made him dear to artists, and whose capabilities were such as in any other coimtry would have assured him at least competence and reputation — perhaps wealth and fame. But at this time the destiny of Haydon seemed to be spread out very differently before him; if ever stern presentiments came across his soul, Art and Youth had then colours bright enough to chase them all away. His society seems to have been both agree- able and instructive to Keats. It is easy to conceive what a revelation of greatness the Elgin Marbles must have been to the yoimg poets mind, when he saw them for the first time, in March, 1817. The following Sonnets on the occasion were written directly after, and published in the " Examiner." With more polish they might have been worthy of the theme, but as it is, the diction, of the first especially, is obscure though vigorous, and the thought does not come out in the clear unity becoming the Sonnet, and attained by Keats so successfully on many other subjects : — JOHN KEATS. Q7 ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES. My spirit is too weak ; mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep, That I have not the cloudy winds to keep Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye. Such dim-conceived glories of the brain, Bring round the heart an indescribable feud ; So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old Time — with a billowy main A sun, a shadow of a magnitude. The image of the " Eagle " is beautiful in itself, and interesting in its application. TO HAYDON. (with the above.) Haydon ! forgive me that I cannot speak Definitively of these mighty things ; Forgive me, that I have not eagle's wings, That what I want I know not where to seek. And think that I would not be over-meek. In rolling out upfoUowed thunderings, Even to the steep of Heliconian springs. Were I of ample strengtli for such a freak. Think, too, that all these numbers should be thine ; Whose else ? In this who touch thy vesture's hem ? 28 LIFE AND LETTEES OF For, when men stared at what was most divine With brainless idiotism and o'erwise phlegm, Thou hadst beheld the full Hesperian shine Of their star in the east, and gone to worship them ! Ill the previous autumn Keats was in the habit of frequently passing the evening in his friend's paint- ing-room, "where many men of genius were wont to meet, and, sitting before some picture on which he was engaged, criticise, argue, defend, attack, and quote their favourite writers. Keats used to call it " Making us wings for the night." The morning after one of these innocent and happy symposia, Haydon received a note inclosing the picturesque Sonnet " Great Spirits now on Earth are sojourning," &c. Keats adding, that the preceding evening had wrought him up, and he could not forbear sending it. Haydon in his acknowledgment, suggested the omission of part of it ; and also mentioned that he would forward it to Wordsworth ; he received this reply : — My deab Sir, Your letter has filled me with a proud pleasure, and shall be kept by me as a stimulus to exertion. I begin to fix my eyes on an horizon. My feelings entirely fall in with yours with regard to the ellipsis, and I glory in it. The idea of your JOHN KEATS. 29 sending it to Wordsworth puts me out of breath — you know with what reverence I would send my well- wishes to him. Yours sincerely, John Keats. It should here be remembered that Wordsworth was not then what he is now, that he was confounded with much that was thought ridiculous and unmanly in the new school, and that it was something for so young a student to have torn away the veil of prejudice then hanging over that now-honoured name, and to have proclaimed his reverence in such earnest words, while so many men of letters could only scorn or jeer. The imcongenial profession to which Keats had attached himself now became every day more repul- sive. A book of very careful annotations, preserved by Mr. Dilke, attests his diligence, although a fellow- student,- who lodged in the same house, describes him at the lectures as scribbling doggerel rhymes among the notes, particularly if he got hold of another student's syllabus. Of course, his peculiar tastes did not find much sympathy in that society. Whenever he showed his graver poetry to his companions, it was pretty sure to be ridiculed and severely handled. They were therefore surprised when, on presenting * Mr. H. Stephens. 30 LIFE AND LETTERS OF himself for examination at Apothecaries' Hall, he passed his examination with considerable credit. When, however, he entered on the practical part of his business, although successful in all his operations, he found his mind so oppressed during the task with an over-wrought apprehension of the possibility of doing harm, that he came to the determined conviction that he was unfit for the line of life on which he had ex- pended so many years of his study and a considerable part of his property. " My dexterity," he said, " used to seem to me a miracle, and I resolved never to take up a surgical mstrament again," and thus he found himself on his first entrance into manhood thrown on the world almost without the means of daily subsist- ence, but with many friends interested in liis for- tunes, and with the faith in the future which generally accompanies the highest genius. Mr. Haydou seems to have been to him a wise and prudent counsellor, and to have encouraged him to brace his powers by undistracted study, while he advised him to leave London for awhile, and take more care of his health. The following note, written in March, shows that Keats did as he was recommended : — My Dear Reynolds, My brothers are anxious that I should go by myself into the countiy ; they have always been JOHN KEATS. 81 ex-tremely foud of me, and now that Haydon has pointed out how necessary it is that I should be alone to improve myself, they give up the temporary plea- sure of being with me continually for a great good which I hope will follow ; so I shall soon be out of town. You must soon bring all your present troubles to a close, and so must I, but we must, like the Fox, prepare for a fresh swarm of flies. Banish money — Banish sofas — Banish wine — Banish music ; but right Jack Health, honest Jack Health, tnie Jack Health. Banish Health and banish all the world. Your sincere friend, John Keats. During his absence he wrote the following letters. The correspondence with Mr. Reynolds will form so considerable a portion of this volume, and will so dis- tinctly enunciate the invaluable worth of his friend- ship to Keats, that one can only regret that both portions of it are not preserved.* * It is also to be lamented that Mr, Reynolds's own remark- able verse is not better known. Lord Byron speaks with praise of several pieces, and attributes some to Moore. " The Fancy," published under the name of Peter Corcoran, and " The Garden of Florence," under that of John Hamilton, are full of merit, espe- cially the former, to which is prefixed one of the liveliest specimens of fictitious biography I know. 32 life and letters of Carisbrooke, April nth, 1817. My Dear Keynolds, Ever since I wrote to my brother from Southampton, I have been in a taking, and at this moment I am about to become settled, for I have unpacked my books, put them into a snug comer, pinned up Hay don, Mary Queen [of] Scots, and Mil- ton with his daughters in a row. In the passage I found a head of Shakspeare, which I had not before seen. It is most likely the same that George spoke so well of, for I like it extremely. Well, this head I have hung over my books, just above the three in a row, having first discarded a French Ambassador ; now this alone is a good morning's work. Yesterday I went to Shanklin, which occasioned a great debate in my mind whether I should live there or at Caris- brooke. Shanklin is a most beautiful place ; sloping wood and meadow ground reach round the Chine, which is a cleft between the cliffs, of the depth of nearly 300 feet at least. This cleft is filled with trees and bushes in the narrow part ; and as it widens becomes bare, if it were not for primroses on one side, which spread to the very verge of the sea, and some fishermen's huts on the other, perched midway in the balustrades of beautiful green hedges along the steps down to the sands. But the sea, Jack, the JOHN KEATS. 33 sea, the little waterfall, then the white cliflf, then St. Catherine's Hill, " the sheep in the meadows, the cows in the corn." Then why are you at Caris- brooke ? say you. Because, in the first place, I should be at twice the expense, and three times the incon- venience ; next, that from here I can see your conti- nent from a little hill close by, the whole 'north angle of the Isle of Wight, with the water between us ; in the third place, I see Carisbrooke Castle from my window, and have found several delightful wood alleys, and copses, and quiet freshes ; as for prim- roses, the Island ought to be called Primrose Island, that is, if the nation of Cowshps agree thereto, of which there are divers clans just beginning to lift up their heads. Another reason of my fixing is, that I am more in reach of the places around me. I intend to walk over the Island, east, west, north, south. I have not seen many specimens of ruins. I don't think, however, I shall ever see one to sur- pass Carisbrooke Castle. The trench is overgrown with the smoothest turf, and the walls with ivy. The Keep within side is one bower of ivy ; a colony of jackdaws have been there for many years. I dare say I have seen many a descendant of some old cawer who peeped through the bars at Charles the First, when he was there in confinement. On the road from Cowes to Newport I saw some extensive Barracks, VOL. I. D 34 LIFE AND LETTERS OF which disgusted me extremely with the Government for placing such a nest of debauchery in so beautiful a place. I asked a man on the coach about this, and he said that the people had been spoiled. In the room where I slept at Newport, I found this on the window ; — " Isle spoilt by the milatary ! " The wind is in a sulky fit, and I feel that it would be no bad thing to be the favourite of some Fairy, who would give one the power of seeing how our friends got on at a distance. I should like, of all loves, a sketch of you, and Tom, and George in ink : which Haydon will do if you tell him how I want them. From want of regular rest I have been rather narvus, and the passage in Lear, " Do you not hear the sea ! " has haunted me intensely. " It keeps eternal whisperings around,'" &c,* April, 18th. 1 11 tell you what — on the 23 rd was Shakespeare born. Now if I should receive a letter from you, and another from my brother on that day, 'twould be a parlous good thing. Whenever you write, say a word or two on some passage in Shakespeare that may have come rather new to you, which must be continually happening, notwithstanding that we read the same play forty times — ^for instance, the following from the Tempest never struck me so forcibly as at present : — * See the "Literary Remains." JOHN KEATS. 35 "Urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee." How can I help bringing to your mind the line — " In the dark backward and abysm of time." I find I cannot exist -without Poetry — without eternal Poetiy ; half the day will not do the whole of it. I began with a little, but habit has made me a leviathan. I had become all in a tremble from not having written anything of late : the Sonnet over-leaf (i. e. on the preceding page) did me good; I slept the better last night for it ; this morning, however, I am nearly as bad again. Just now I opened Spenser, and the first lines I saw were these — " The noble heart that harbours virtuous thought. And is with child of glorious great intent. Can never rest until it forth have brought Th' eternal brood of glory excellent." Let me know particularly about Haydon, ask laim to write to me about Hunt, if it be only ten lines. I hope all is well. I shall forthwith begin my " Endy- mion," which I hope I shall have got some way with before you come, when we will read our verses in a delightful place, I have set my heart upon, near the Castle. Give my love to your sisters severally. Your sincere friend, John Keats. 36 LIFE AND LETTERS OF (Without date, but written early in May, 1817). Margate. My dear Haydon, " Let Fame, that all pant after in their lives, Live registered upon our brazen tombs, And so grace us in the disguise of death ; When, spite of cormorant devouring Time, The endeavour of this present breath may bring That honor vphich shall bate his scythe's keen edge, And make us heirs of all eternity." To think that I have no right to couple myself with you in this speech would be death to me, so I have e'en written it, and I pray God that our " brazen tombs " be nigh neighbours.* It cannot be long first ; the " endeavour of this present breath " will soon be over, and yet it is as well to breathe freely during our sojourn — it is as well if you have not been teased \?ith that money affair, that bill-pestilence. However, I must think that diffi- culties nerve the spirit of a man ; they make our prime objects a refuge as well as a passion ; the trumpet of Fame is as a tower of strength, the ambitious bloweth it, and is safe. I suppose, by your telling me not to give way to forebodings, George has been telling you what I have lately said in my * To the copy of this letter, given me by Mr. Haydon on the 14th of May, 1846, a note was affixed at this place, in the words " Perhaps they may be." — Alas ! no. JOHN KEATS. 37 letters to him ; truth is, I have been in such a state of miud as to read over my lines and to hate them. I am one that " gathereth samphire, dreadful trade;" the cUff of Poetry towers above me ; yet when my brother reads some of Pope's Homer, or Plutarch's Lives, they seem like music to mine. I read and write about eight hours a-day. There is an old saying, " Well begun is half done; " 'tis a bad one ; I would use instead, " Not begun at all till half done ;" so, according to that, I have not begun my Poem, and consequently, a priori, can say nothing about it ; thank God, I do begin ardently, when I leave off, notwithstanding my occasional depressions, and I hope for the support of a high power while I climb this little emmence, and especially in my years of more momentous laboui*. I remember your saying that you had notions of a good Genius presiding over you. I have lately had the same thought, for things which, done half at random, are afterwards confirmed by my judgment in a dozen features of propriety. Is it too daring to fancy Shakespeare this presider ? when in the Isle of Wight I met ^vith a Shakespeare in the passage of the house at which I lodged. It comes nearer to my idea of him than any I have seen ; I was but there a week, yet the old woman made me take it with me, though I went off in a hurry. Do you not think this ominous of good ? I 3B LIFE AND LETTERS OF ain glad you say every man of gi'eat %dews is at times tormented as I am. (Sunday after). This morning I received a letter from George, by wliich it appears that money troubles are to follow up for some time to come — perhaps for always : those vexations are a great hindrance to one ; they are not, like envy and detraction, stimulants to further exertion, as being immediately relative and reflected on at the same time with the prime object ; but rather like a nettle-leaf or two in your bed. So now I revoke my promise of finishing my Poem by autumn, which I should have done had I gone on as I have done. But I cannot write while my spirit is fevered in a contrary direction, and I am now sure of having plenty of it this summer ; at this moment I am in no enviable situation. I feel that I am not in a mood to write any to-day, and it appears that the loss of it is the beginning of all sorts of irregularities. I am extremely glad that a time must come when everj-thing will leave not a wrack behind. You tell me never to despair. I wish it was as easy for me to observe this saying : truth is, T have a horrid mor- bidity of temperament, which has shown itself at intervals ; it is, I have no doubt, the greatest stum- bling-block I have to fear ; I may surer say, it is likely to be the cause of my disappointment. How- ever, every Ul has its share of good ; this, my bane, JOHN KEATS. 39 would at any time enable me to look with au obstinate eye on the very devil himself; or, to be as proud to be the lowest of the human race, as Alfred would be in being of the highest. I am very sm'e that you do love me as your very brother. I have seen it in your continual anxiety for me, and I assure you that your welfare and fame is, and will be, a chief pleasure to me all my life. I know no one but you who can be fully aware of the turmoil and anxiety, the sacrifice of all that is called comfort, the readiness to measure time by what is done, and to die in sLx hom's, could plans be brought to conclusions ; the looking on the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, and its contents, as mateiials to form greater things, that is to say, ethereal things — but here I am talking like a mad- man, — greater things than our Creator himself made. I wi'ote to yesterday : scarcely know what I said in it ; I could not talk about poetry in the way I should have liked, for I was not in humour with either his or mine. There is no greater sin, after the seven deadly, than to flatter one's self into the idea of being a great poet, or one of those beings who are privileged to wear out their lives in the pursuit of honour. How comfortable a thing it is to feel that such a crime must bring its heavy penalty, that if one be a self-deluder, accounts must be balanced ! I am glad you are hard at work ; it will now soon be 40 LIFE AND LETTERS OF done. I long to see Wordsworth's, as well as to have mine in ; but I would rather not show my face in town till the end of the year, if that would be time enough ; if not, I shall be disappointed if you do not write me ever when you think best. I never quite despair, and I read Shakespeare, — indeed, I shall, I think, never read any other book much ; now this might lead me into a very long confab, but I desist. I am very near agreeing with HazHtt, that Shake- speare is enough for us. By-the-bye, what a tremen- dous Southean article this last was. I wish he had left out " grey hairs." It was very gratifying to meet your remarks on the manuscript. I was reading Antony and Cleopatra when I got the paper, and there are several passages applicable to the events you commentate. You say that he arrived by degrees, and not by any single struggle, to the height of his ambition, and that his life had been as common in particular as other men's. Shakespeare makes Enobarbus say, " Where 's Antony ? Eros. He 's walking in the g