Also an advertisement of my new appearance as poet (bard, rather) and
hartis on wood. The cut represents the Hero and the Eagle, and is
emblematic of Cortez first viewing the Pacific Ocean, which (according
to the bard Keats) it took place in Darien. The cut is much admired for
the sentiment of discovery, the manly proportions of the voyager, and
the fine impression of tropical scenes and the untrodden WASTE, so aptly
rendered by the hartis.
I would send you the book; but I declare I'm ruined. I got a penny a cut
and a halfpenny a set of verses from the flint-hearted publisher, and
only one specimen copy, as I'm a sinner. ---- was apostolic alongside of
Osbourne.
I hope you will be able to decipher this, written at steam speed with a
breaking pen, the hotfast postman at my heels. No excuse, says you.
None, sir, says I, and touches my 'at most civil (extraordinary
evolution of pen, now quite doomed--to resume--) I have not put pen to
the Bloody Murder yet. But it is early on my list; and when once I get
to it, three weeks should see the last bloodstain--maybe a fortnight.
For I am beginning to combine an extraordinary laborious slowness while
at work, with the most surprisingly quick results in the way of
finished manuscripts. How goes Gray? Colvin is to do Keats. My wife is
still not well.--Yours ever,