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[Illustration: JOHN KEATS.
Portrait by Joseph Severn in the National Portrait Gallery.]
LETTERS OF JOHN KEATS TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS
Edited by Sidney Colvin
With Frontispiece
Macmillan and Co., Limited
St. Martin's Street, London
1925
Copyright
First Edition (Globe 8vo) June 1891
Reprinted October 1891, 1918, 1921
Reprinted (Crown 8vo) 1925
Printed in Great Britain
CONTENTS
LETTER DATE PAGE
PREFACE xi
1. TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE Oct. 13, 1816 1
2. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Nov. 20, 1816 1
3. " " Nov. 20, 1816 2
4. TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE Dec. 17, 1816 2
5. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Mar. 2, 1817? 3
6. " " Mar. 17, 1817 4
7. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS April 15, 1817 4
8. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS April 17, 1817 6
9. TO LEIGH HUNT May 10, 1817 10
10. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON May 10, 1817 13
11. TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY May 16, 1817 17
12. " " July 8, 1817 19
13. TO MARIANE AND JANE REYNOLDS Sept. 5, 1817 19
14. TO FANNY KEATS Sept. 10, 1817 21
15. TO JANE REYNOLDS Sept. 14, 1817 24
16. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Sept. 21, 1817 28
17. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Sept. 28, 1817 32
18. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Oct. 8, 1817 33
19. " " About Nov. 1, 1817 36
20. " " Nov. 5, 1817 39
21. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Nov. 1817 40
22. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Nov. 22, 1817 40
23. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Nov. 22, 1817 44
24. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Dec. 22, 1817 46
25. " " Jan. 5, 1818 48
26. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Jan. 10, 1818 53
27. TO JOHN TAYLOR Jan. 10, 1818 53
28. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Jan. 13-20, 1818 54
29. TO JOHN TAYLOR Jan. 23, 1818 56
30. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Jan. 23, 1818 57
31. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Jan. 23, 1818 61
32. TO JOHN TAYLOR Jan. 30, 1818 64
33. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Jan. 31, 1818 65
34. " " Feb. 3, 1818 67
35. TO JOHN TAYLOR Feb. 5, 1818 71
36. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Feb. 14, 1818 71
37. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Feb. 19, 1818 73
38. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS Feb. 21, 1818 75
39. TO JOHN TAYLOR Feb. 27, 1818 77
40. TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY Mar. 1818? 78
41. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Mar. 13, 1818 78
42. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Mar. 14, 1818 82
43. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Mar. 21, 1818 85
44. TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY Mar. 21, 1818 88
45. TO JAMES RICE Mar. 24, 1818 88
46. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Mar. 25, 1818 90
47. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON April 8, 1818 94
48. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS April 9, 1818 96
49. " " April 10, 1818 98
50. TO JOHN TAYLOR April 24, 1818 99
51. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS April 27, 1818 100
52. " " May 3, 1818 103
53. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY May 28, 1818 109
54. " " June 10, 1818 111
55. TO JOHN TAYLOR June 21, 1818 114
56. TO THOMAS KEATS June 29-July 2, 1818 114
57. TO FANNY KEATS July 2-4, 1818 118
58. TO THOMAS KEATS July 2-9, 1818 123
59. " " July 10-14, 1818 127
60. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS July 11-13, 1818 132
61. TO THOMAS KEATS July 17-21, 1818 136
62. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY July 18-22, 1818 142
63. TO THOMAS KEATS July 23-26, 1818 147
64. " " Aug. 3, 1818 153
65. TO MRS. WYLIE Aug. 6, 1818 158
66. TO FANNY KEATS Aug. 18, 1818 161
67. " " Aug. 25, 1818 162
68. TO JANE REYNOLDS Sept. 1, 1818 162
69. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Sept. 21, 1818 163
70. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS About Sept. 22, 1818 165
71. TO FANNY KEATS Oct. 9, 1818 166
72. TO JAMES AUGUSTUS HESSEY Oct. 9, 1818 167
73. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS Oct. 13-31, 1818 168
74. TO FANNY KEATS Oct. 16, 1818 182
75. " " Oct. 26, 1818 183
76. TO RICHARD WOODHOUSE Oct. 27, 1818 183
77. TO FANNY KEATS Nov. 5, 1818 185
78. TO JAMES RICE Nov. 24, 1818 186
79. TO FANNY KEATS Dec. 1, 1818 187
80. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS {About Dec. 18,
{1818-Jan. 4, 1819 187
81. TO RICHARD WOODHOUSE Dec. 18, 1818 210
82. TO MRS. REYNOLDS Dec. 22, 1818 211
83. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Dec. 22, 1818 211
84. TO JOHN TAYLOR Dec. 24, 1818 212
85. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Dec. 27, 1818 213
86. TO FANNY KEATS Dec. 30, 1818 213
87. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Jan. 4, 1819 214
88. " " {Between Jan. 7
{and 14, 1819 214
89. " " Jan. 1819 215
90. TO FANNY KEATS Jan. 1819 215
91. " " Feb. 11, 1819 216
92. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS Feb. 14-May 3, 1819 217
93. TO FANNY KEATS Feb. 27, 1819 262
94. " " Mar. 13, 1819 263
95. " " Mar. 24, 1819 264
96. TO JOSEPH SEVERN Mar. 29? 1819 265
97. TO FANNY KEATS April 13, 1819 265
98. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON April 13, 1819 267
99. TO FANNY KEATS April 17, 1819? 268
100. " " May 13, 1819 270
101. " " May 26, 1819 270
102. " " June 9, 1819 271
103. TO JAMES ELMES June 12, 1819 272
104. TO FANNY KEATS June 14, 1819 272
105. " " June 16, 1819 273
106. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON June 17, 1819 274
107. TO FANNY KEATS July 6, 1819 275
108. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS July 11, 1819 276
109. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE July 31, 1819 277
110. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Aug. 15, 1819 280
111. TO JOHN TAYLOR Aug. 23, 1819 281
112. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Aug. 25, 1819 282
113. TO FANNY KEATS Aug. 28, 1819 283
114. TO JOHN TAYLOR Sept. 1, 1819 286
115. " " Sept. 5, 1819 286
116. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS Sept. 17-27, 1819 290
117. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Sept. 22, 1819 319
118. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Sept. 22, 1819 322
119. TO CHARLES BROWN Sept. 23, 1819 325
120. " " Sept. 23, 1819 327
121. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Oct. 1, 1819 328
122. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Oct. 3, 1819 328
123. TO FANNY KEATS Oct. 16, 1819 331
124. TO JOSEPH SEVERN Oct. 27? 1819 332
125. TO JOHN TAYLOR Nov. 17, 1819 333
126. TO FANNY KEATS Nov. 17, 1819 334
127. TO JOSEPH SEVERN Dec. 6? 1819 334
128. TO JAMES RICE Dec. 1819 335
129. TO FANNY KEATS Dec. 20, 1819 335
130. " " Dec. 22, 1819 337
131. TO GEORGIANA KEATS Jan. 13-28, 1820 338
132. TO FANNY KEATS Feb. 6, 1820 347
133. " " Feb. 8, 1820 348
134. " " Feb. 11, 1820 350
135. " " Feb. 14, 1820 350
136. TO JAMES RICE Feb. 16, 1820 350
137. TO FANNY KEATS Feb. 19, 1820 352
138. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Feb. 23 or 25, 1820 352
139. TO FANNY KEATS Feb. 24, 1820 353
140. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE Mar. 4, 1820 354
141. TO FANNY KEATS Mar. 20, 1820 355
142. " " April 1, 1820 356
143. " " April 1820 357
144. " " April 12, 1820 357
145. " " April 21, 1820 357
146. " " May 4, 1820 358
147. TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE May 1820 359
148. TO JOHN TAYLOR June 11, 1820 360
149. TO CHARLES BROWN June 1820 360
150. TO FANNY KEATS June 26, 1820 362
151. " " July 5, 1820 363
152. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON July 1820 363
153. TO FANNY KEATS July 22, 1820 364
154. " " Aug. 14, 1820 364
155. TO PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Aug. 1820 365
156. TO JOHN TAYLOR Aug. 14, 1820 367
157. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Aug. 1820 367
158. TO CHARLES BROWN Aug. 1820 368
159. TO FANNY KEATS Aug. 23, 1820 368
160. TO CHARLES BROWN Aug. 1820 370
161. " " Sept. 28, 1820 370
162. TO MRS. BRAWNE Oct. 24, 1820 372
163. TO CHARLES BROWN Nov. 1, 2, 1820 374
164. " " Nov. 30, 1820 376
PREFACE
The object of the present volume is to supply the want, which many readers
must have felt, of a separate and convenient edition of the letters of
Keats to his family and friends. He is one of those poets whose genius
makes itself felt in prose-writing almost as decisively as in verse, and
at their best these letters are among the most beautiful in our language.
Portions of them lent an especial charm to a book charming at any
rate--the biography of the poet first published more than forty years ago
by Lord Houghton. But the correspondence as given by Lord Houghton is
neither accurate nor complete. He had in few cases the originals before
him, but made use of copies, some of them quite fragmentary, especially
those supplied him from America; and moreover, working while many of the
poet's friends were still alive, he thought it right to exercise a degree
of editorial freedom for which there would now be neither occasion nor
excuse. While I was engaged in preparing the life of Keats for Mr.
Morley's series some years since, the following materials for an improved
edition of his letters came into my hands:--
(1) The copies made by Richard Woodhouse, a few years after Keats's death,
of the poet's correspondence with his principal friends, viz. the
publishers, Messrs. Taylor and Hessey; the transcriber, Woodhouse himself,
who was a young barrister of literary tastes in the confidence of those
gentlemen; John Hamilton Reynolds, solicitor, poet, humourist, and critic
(born 1796, died 1852); Jane and Mariane Reynolds, sisters of the
last-named, the former afterwards Mrs. Tom Hood; James Rice, the bosom
friend of Reynolds, and like him a young solicitor; Benjamin Bailey,
undergraduate of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, afterwards Archdeacon of Colombo
(1794?-1852), and one or two more.
(2) The imperfect copies of the poet's letters to his brother and
sister-in-law in America, which were made by the sister-in-law's second
husband, Mr. Jeffrey of Louisville, and sent by him to Lord Houghton, who
published them with further omissions and alterations of his own.
(3) Somewhat later, after the publication of my book, the autograph
originals of some of these same letters to America were put into my hands,
including almost the entire text of Nos. lxiii. lxxiii. lxxx. and xcii. in
the present edition. The three last are the long and famous
journal-letters written in the autumn of 1818 and spring of 1819, and
between them occupy nearly a quarter of the whole volume. I have shown
elsewhere[1] how much of their value and interest was sacrificed by Mr.
Jeffrey's omissions.
Besides these manuscript sources, I have drawn largely on Mr. Buxton
Forman's elaborate edition of Keats's works in four volumes (1883),[2] and
to a much less extent on the edition published by the poet's American
grand nephew, Mr. Speed (1884)[3]. Even thus, the correspondence is still
probably not quite complete. In some of the voluminous journal-letters
there may still be gaps, where a sheet of the autograph has gone astray;
and since the following pages have been in print, I have heard of the
existence in private collections of one or two letters which I have not
been able to include. But it is not a case in which absolute completeness
is of much importance.
In matters of the date and sequence of the letters, I have taken pains to
be more exact than previous editors, especially in tracing the daily
progress and different halting-places of the poet on his Scotch tour
(which it takes some knowledge of the ground to do), and in dating the
successive parts, written at intervals sometimes during two or three
months, of the long journal-letters to America. On these particulars Keats
himself is very vague, and his manuscript sometimes runs on without a
break at points where the sense shows that he has dropped and taken it up
again after a pause of days or weeks.[4] Again, I have in all cases given
in full the verse and other quotations contained in the correspondence,
where other editors have only indicated them by their first lines. It is
indeed from these that the letters derive a great part of their character.
Writing to his nearest relatives or most intimate friends, he is always
quoting for their pleasure poems of his own now classical, then warm from
his brain, sent forth uncertain whether to live or die, or snatches of
doggrel nonsense as the humour of the moment takes him. The former,
familiar as we may be with them, gain a new interest and freshness from
the context: the latter are nothing apart from it, and to print them
gravely, as has been done, among the Poetical Works, is to punish the
levities of genius too hard.
As to the text, I have followed the autograph wherever it was possible,
and in other cases the manuscript or printed version which I judged
nearest the autograph; with this exception, that I have not thought it
worth while to preserve mere slips of the pen or tricks of spelling. The
curious in such matters will find them religiously reproduced by Mr.
Buxton Forman wherever he has had the opportunity. The poet's punctuation,
on the other hand, and his use of capitals, which is odd and full of
character, I have preserved. As is well known, his handwriting is as a
rule clear and beautiful, quite free from unsteadiness or sign of fatigue;
and as mere specimens for the collector, few autographs can compare with
these close-written quarto (or sometimes extra folio) sheets, in which the
young poet has poured out to those he loved his whole self
indiscriminately, generosity and fretfulness, ardour and despondency,
boyish petulance side by side with manful good sense, the tattle of
suburban parlours with the speculations of a spirit unsurpassed for native
poetic gift and insight.
The editor of familiar correspondence has at all times a difficult task
before him in the choice what to give and what to withhold. In the case of
Keats the difficulty is greater than in most, from the ferment of opposing
elements and impulses in his nature, and from the extreme unreserve with
which he lays himself open alike in his weakness and his strength. The
other great letter-writers in English are men to some degree on their
guard: men, if not of the world, at least of some worldly training and
experience, and of characters in some degree formed and set. The phase of
unlimited youthful expansiveness, of enthusiastic or fretful outcry, they
have either escaped or left behind, and never give themselves away
completely. Gray is of course an extreme case in point. With a masterly
breadth of mind he unites an even finicking degree of academic
fastidiousness and personal reserve, and his correspondence charms, not
by impulse or openness, but by urbanity and irony, by ripeness of judgment
and knowledge, by his playful kindliness towards the few intimates he has,
and the sober wistfulness with which he looks out, from his Pisgah-height
of universal culture, over regions of imaginative delight into which it
was not given to him nor his contemporaries to enter fully. To take others
differing most widely both as men and poets: Cowper, whether
affectionately "chatting and chirping" to his cousin Lady Hesketh, or
confiding his spiritual terrors to the Rev. John Newton, that unwise
monitor who would not let them sleep,--Cowper is a letter-writer the most
unaffected and sincere, but has nevertheless the degree of reticence
natural to his breeding, as well as a touch of staidness and formality
proper to his age. Byron offers an extreme contrast; unrestrained he is,
but far indeed from being unaffected; the greatest attitudinist in
literature as in life, and the most brilliant of all letter-writers after
his fashion, with his wit, his wilfulness, his flash, his extraordinary
unscrupulousness and resource, his vulgar pride of caste, his everlasting
restlessness and egotism, his occasional true irradiations of the divine
fire. Shelley, again--but he, as has been justly said, must have his
singing robes about him to be quite truly Shelley, and in his
correspondence is little more than any other amiable and enthusiastic
gentleman and scholar on his travels. To the case of Keats, at any rate,
none of these other distinguished letter-writers affords any close
parallel. That admirable genius was from the social point of view an
unformed lad in the flush and rawness of youth. His passion for beauty,
his instinctive insight into the vital sources of imaginative delight in
nature, in romance, and in antiquity, went along with perceptions
painfully acute in matters of daily life, and nerves high-strung in the
extreme. He was moreover almost incapable of artifice or disguise. Writing
to his brothers and sister or to friends as dear, he is secret with them
on one thing only, and that is his unlucky love-passion after he became a
prey to it: for the rest he is open as the day, and keeps back nothing of
what crosses his mind, nothing that vexes or jars on him or tries his
patience. His character, as thus laid bare, contains elements of rare
nobility and attraction--modesty, humour, sweetness, courage, impulsive
disinterestedness, strong and tender family affection, the gift of
righteous indignation, the gift of sober and strict self-knowledge. But it
is only a character in the making. A strain of hereditary disease, lurking
in his constitution from the first, was developed by over-exertion and
aggravated by mischance, so that he never lived to be himself; and from
about his twenty-fourth birthday his utterances are those of one
struggling in vain against a hopeless distemper both of body and mind.
If a selection could be made from those parts only of Keats's
correspondence which show him at his best, we should have an anthology
full of intuitions of beauty, even of wisdom, and breathing the very
spirit of generous youth; one unrivalled for zest, whim, fancy, and
amiability, and written in an English which by its peculiar alert and
varied movement sometimes recalls, perhaps more closely than that of any
other writer (for the young Cockney has Shakspeare in his blood), the
prose passages of _Hamlet_ and _Much Ado about Nothing_. Had the
correspondence never been printed before, were it there to be dealt with
for the first time, this method of selection would no doubt be the
tempting one to apply to it. But such a treatment is now hardly possible,
and in any case would hardly be quite fair; since the object, or at all
events the effect, of publishing a man's correspondence is not merely to
give literary pleasure--it is to make the man himself known; and the
revelation, though it need not be wholly without reserve, is bound to be
just and proportionate as far as it goes. Even as an artist, in the work
which he himself published to the world, Keats was not one of those of
whom it could be said, "his worst he kept, his best he gave." Rather he
gave promiscuously, in the just confidence that among the failures and
half-successes of his inexperienced youth would be found enough of the
best to establish his place among the poets after his death. Considering
all things, the nature of the man, the difficulty of separating the
exquisite from the common, the healthful from the diseased, in his mind
and work, considering also the use that has already been made of the
materials, I have decided in this edition to give the correspondence
almost unpruned; omitting a few passages of mere crudity, hardly more than
two pages in all, but not attempting to suppress those which betray the
weak places in the writer's nature, his flaws of taste and training, his
movements of waywardness, irritability, and morbid suspicion. Only the
biographer without tact, the critic without balance, will insist on these.
A truer as well as more charitable judgment will recognise that what was
best in Keats was also what was most real, and will be fortified by
remembering that to those who knew him his faults were almost unapparent,
and that no man was ever held by his friends in more devoted or more
unanimous affection while he lived and afterwards.
There is one thing, however, which I have not chosen to do, and that is to
include in this collection the poet's love-letters to Fanny Brawne. As it
is, the intimate nature of the correspondence must sometimes give the
reader a sense of eavesdropping, of being admitted into petty private
matters with which he has no concern. If this is to some extent
inevitable, it is by no means inevitable that the public should be farther
asked to look over the shoulder of the sick and presently dying youth
while he declares the impatience and torment of his passion to the object,
careless and unresponsive as she seems to have been, who inspired it.
These letters too have been printed. As a matter of feeling I cannot put
myself in the place of the reader who desires to possess them; while as a
matter of literature they are in a different key from the rest,--not
lacking passages of beauty, but constrained and painful in the main, and
quite without the genial ease and play of mind which make the letters to
his family and friends so attractive. Therefore in this, which I hope may
become the standard edition of his correspondence, they shall find no
place.
As to the persons, other than those already mentioned, to whom the letters
here given are addressed:--Shelley of course needs no words; nor should
any be needed for the painter Haydon (1786-1846), or the poet and critic
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). Theirs were the chief inspiring influences which
determined the young medical student, about his twentieth year, at the
time when this correspondence opens, to give up his intended profession
for poetry. Both were men of remarkable gifts and strong intellectual
enthusiasm, hampered in either case by foibles of character which their
young friend and follower, who has left so far more illustrious a name,
was only too quick to detect. Charles Cowden Clarke (1787-1877), the son
of Keats's schoolmaster at Enfield, had exercised a still earlier
influence on the lad's opening mind, and was himself afterwards long and
justly distinguished as a Shakspearean student and lecturer and essayist
on English literature. Charles Wentworth Dilke (1789-1864), having begun
life in the Civil Service, early abandoned that calling for letters, and
lived to be one of the most influential of English critics and
journalists; he is chiefly known from his connection with the _Athenaeum_,
and through the memoir published by his grandson. Charles Brown,
afterwards styling himself Charles Armitage Brown (1786-1842), who became
known to Keats through Dilke in the summer of 1817, and was his most
intimate companion during the two years June 1818 to June 1820, had begun
life as a merchant in St. Petersburg, and failing, came home, and took, he
also, to literature, chiefly as a contributor to the various periodicals
edited by Leigh Hunt. He lived mostly in Italy from 1822 to 1834, then
for six years at Plymouth, and in 1841 emigrated to New Zealand, where he
died the following year. Joseph Severn (1793-1879) was the son of a
musician, himself beginning to practise as a painter when Keats knew him.
His devoted tendance of the poet during the last sad months in Italy was
the determining event of Severn's career, earning him the permanent regard
and gratitude of all lovers of genius. He established himself for good in
Rome, where he continued to practise his art, and was for many years
English consul, and one of the most familiar figures in the society of the
city.
Lastly, of the poet's own relations, George Keats (1799-1842) after his
brother's death continued to live at Louisville in America, where he made
and lost a fortune in business before he died. His widow (born Georgiana
Augusta Wylie), so often and affectionately addressed in these letters, by
and by took a second husband, a Mr. Jeffrey, already mentioned as the
correspondent of Lord Houghton. Frances Mary Keats (1803-1889), always
called Fanny in the delightful series of letters which her brother
addressed to her as a young girl,[5] in course of time married a Spanish
gentleman, Senor Llanos, and lived in Madrid to a great old age. Several
other members of the poet's circle enjoyed unusual length of days--Mr.
William Dilke, for instance, dying a few years ago at ninety, and Mr.
Gleig, long Chaplain-General of the Forces, at ninety-two. But with the
death of his sister a year and a half ago, passed away probably the last
survivor of those who could bear in memory the voice and features of
Adonais.
S. C.
_May 1891._
LETTERS OF JOHN KEATS TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS
I.--TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE.
[London, October 31, 1816.]
MY DAINTIE DAVIE--I will be as punctual as the Bee to the Clover. Very
glad am I at the thoughts of seeing so soon this glorious Haydon and all
his creation. I pray thee let me know when you go to Ollier's and where he
resides--this I forgot to ask you--and tell me also when you will help me
waste a sullen day--God 'ield you[6]--
J. K.
II.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
[London,] November 20, 1816.
My dear Sir--Last evening wrought me up, and I cannot forbear sending you
the following--
Yours unfeignedly,
JOHN KEATS.
Removed to 76 Cheapside.
Great spirits now on earth are sojourning;
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake,
Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing:
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,
The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:
And lo!--whose stedfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.
And other spirits there are standing apart
Upon the forehead of the age to come;
These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings in the human mart?
Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb.[7]
III.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
[London,] Thursday afternoon, November 20, 1816.
My dear 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 eye upon one
horizon. My feelings entirely fall in with yours in regard to the
Ellipsis, and I glory in it. The Idea of your sending it to Wordsworth put
me out of breath--you know with what Reverence I would send my Well-wishes
to him.
Yours sincerely
JOHN KEATS.
IV.--TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE.
[London,] Tuesday [December 17, 1816].
My dear Charles--You may now look at Minerva's Aegis with impunity, seeing
that my awful Visage[8] did not turn you into a John Doree. You have
accordingly a legitimate title to a Copy--I will use my interest to
procure it for you. I'll tell you what--I met Reynolds at Haydon's a few
mornings since--he promised to be with me this Evening and Yesterday I had
the same promise from Severn and I must put you in mind that on last All
hallowmas' day you gave me your word that you would spend this Evening
with me--so no putting off. I have done little to Endymion lately[9]--I
hope to finish it in one more attack. I believe you I went to
Richards's--it was so whoreson a Night that I stopped there all the next
day. His Remembrances to you. (Ext. from the common place Book of my
Mind--Mem.--Wednesday--Hampstead--call in Warner Street--a sketch of Mr.
Hunt.)--I will ever consider you my sincere and affectionate friend--you
will not doubt that I am yours.
God bless you--
JOHN KEATS.
V.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[London,] Sunday Evening [March 2, 1817?].[10]
My dear Reynolds--Your kindness affects me so sensibly that I can merely
put down a few mono-sentences. Your Criticism only makes me extremely
anxious that I should not deceive you.
It's the finest thing by God as Hazlitt would say. However I hope I may
not deceive you. There are some acquaintances of mine who will scratch
their Beards and although I have, I hope, some Charity, I wish their Nails
may be long. I will be ready at the time you mention in all Happiness.
There is a report that a young Lady of 16 has written the new Tragedy, God
bless her--I will know her by Hook or by Crook in less than a week. My
Brothers' and my Remembrances to your kind Sisters.
Yours most sincerely
JOHN KEATS.
VI.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[London, March 17, 1817.]
My dear Reynolds--My Brothers are anxious that I should go by myself into
the country--they have always been extremely fond 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 pleasure of living 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, true Jack Health--Banish health and banish all
the world. I must ... if I come this evening, I shall horribly commit
myself elsewhere. So I will send my excuses to them and Mrs. Dilke by my
brothers.
Your sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
VII.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
[Southampton,] Tuesday Morn [April 15, 1817].
My dear Brothers--I am safe at Southampton--after having ridden three
stages outside and the rest in for it began to be very cold. I did not
know the Names of any of the Towns I passed through--all I can tell you is
that sometimes I saw dusty Hedges--sometimes Ponds--then nothing--then a
little Wood with trees look you like Launce's Sister "as white as a Lily
and as small as a Wand"--then came houses which died away into a few
straggling Barns--then came hedge trees aforesaid again. As the Lamplight
crept along the following things were discovered--"long heath broom
furze"--Hurdles here and there half a Mile--Park palings when the Windows
of a House were always discovered by reflection--One Nymph of
Fountain--_N.B. Stone_--lopped Trees--Cow ruminating--ditto Donkey--Man
and Woman going gingerly along--William seeing his Sisters over the
Heath--John waiting with a Lanthorn for his Mistress--Barber's
Pole--Doctor's Shop--However after having had my fill of these I popped my
Head out just as it began to Dawn--_N.B. this Tuesday Morn saw the Sun
rise_--of which I shall say nothing at present. I felt rather lonely this
Morning at Breakfast so I went and unbox'd a Shakspeare--"There's my
Comfort."[11] I went immediately after Breakfast to Southampton Water
where I enquired for the Boat to the Isle of Wight as I intend seeing that
place before I settle--it will go at 3, so shall I after having taken a
Chop. I know nothing of this place but that it is long--tolerably
broad--has bye streets--two or three Churches--a very respectable old Gate
with two Lions to guard it. The Men and Women do not materially differ
from those I have been in the Habit of seeing. I forgot to say that from
dawn till half-past six I went through a most delightful Country--some
open Down but for the most part thickly wooded. What surprised me most was
an immense quantity of blooming Furze on each side the road cutting a most
rural dash. The Southampton water when I saw it just now was no better
than a low Water Water which did no more than answer my expectations--it
will have mended its Manners by 3. From the Wharf are seen the shores on
each side stretching to the Isle of Wight. You, Haydon, Reynolds, etc.
have been pushing each other out of my Brain by turns. I have conned over
every Head in Haydon's Picture--you must warn them not to be afraid should
my Ghost visit them on Wednesday--tell Haydon to Kiss his Hand at Betty
over the Way for me yea and to spy at her for me. I hope one of you will
be competent to take part in a Trio while I am away--you need only
aggravate your voices a little and mind not to speak Cues and all--when
you have said Rum-ti-ti--you must not be rum any more or else another will
take up the ti-ti alone and then he might be taken God shield us for
little better than a Titmouse. By the by talking of Titmouse Remember me
particularly to all my Friends--give my Love to the Miss Reynoldses and to
Fanny who I hope you will soon see. Write to me soon about them all--and
you George particularly how you get on with Wilkinson's plan. What could I
have done without my Plaid? I don't feel inclined to write any more at
present for I feel rather muzzy--you must be content with this fac simile
of the rough plan of Aunt Dinah's Counterpane.
Your most affectionate Brother
JOHN KEATS.
Reynolds shall hear from me soon.
VIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Carisbrooke, April 17th [1817].
My dear Reynolds--Ever since I wrote to my Brothers 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 corner, pinned
up Haydon, Mary Queen of Scots, and Milton 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 Carisbrooke.
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 their steps down to the sands. But the sea,
Jack, the sea--the little waterfall--then the white cliff--then St.
Catherine's Hill--"the sheep in the meadows, the cows in the corn." Then,
why are you at Carisbrooke? say you. Because, in the first place, I should
be at twice the Expense, and three times the inconvenience--next that from
here I can see your continent--from a little hill close by the whole north
Angle of the Isle of Wight, with the water between us. In the 3rd place, I
see Carisbrooke Castle from my window, and have found several delightful
wood-alleys, and copses, and quick freshes.[12] As for primroses--the
Island ought to be called Primrose Island--that is, if the nation of
Cowslips 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 surpass 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, 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--"O Isle spoilt
by the mil_a_tary!..."
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.
ON THE SEA
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be mov'd for days from where it sometime fell,
When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.
O ye! who have your eye-balls vex'd and tir'd,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
O ye! whose Ears are dinn'd with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody--
Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth, and brood
Until ye start as if the sea Nymphs quired--[13]
April 18th.
Will you have the goodness to do this? Borrow a Botanical Dictionary--turn
to the words Laurel and Prunus, show the explanations to your sisters and
Mrs. Dilke and without more ado let them send me the Cups Basket and Books
they trifled and put off and off while I was in town. Ask them what they
can say for themselves--ask Mrs. Dilke wherefore she does so distress
me--let me know how Jane has her health--the Weather is unfavourable for
her. Tell George and Tom to write. I'll tell you what--on the 23d was
Shakspeare born. Now if I should receive a letter from you and another
from my Brothers on that day 'twould be a parlous good thing. Whenever you
write say a word or two on some Passage in Shakspeare 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,
"Urchins
_Shall, for the 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 Poetry--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 overleaf 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 him to write to me about Hunt,
if it be only ten lines--I hope all is well--I shall forthwith begin my
Endymion, which I hope I shall have got some way with by the time 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--to
George and Tom. Remember me to Rice, Mr. and Mrs. Dilke and all we know.
Your sincere Friend
JOHN KEATS.
Direct J. Keats, Mrs. Cook's, New Village, Carisbrooke.
IX.--TO LEIGH HUNT.
Margate, May 10, 1817.
My dear Hunt--The little gentleman that sometimes lurks in a gossip's
bowl, ought to have come in the very likeness of a _roasted_ crab, and
choaked me outright for not answering your letter ere this: however, you
must not suppose that I was in town to receive it: no, it followed me to
the Isle of Wight, and I got it just as I was going to pack up for
Margate, for reasons which you anon shall hear. On arriving at this
treeless affair, I wrote to my brother George to request C. C. C.[14] to
do the thing you wot of respecting Rimini; and George tells me he has
undertaken it with great pleasure; so I hope there has been an
understanding between you for many proofs: C. C. C. is well acquainted
with Bensley. Now why did you not send the key of your cupboard, which, I
know, was full of papers? We would have locked them all in a trunk,
together with those you told me to destroy, which indeed I did not do, for
fear of demolishing receipts, there not being a more unpleasant thing in
the world (saving a thousand and one others) than to pay a bill twice.
Mind you, old Wood's a "very varmint," shrouded in covetousness:--and now
I am upon a horrid subject--what a horrid one you were upon last Sunday,
and well you handled it. The last Examiner[15] was a battering-ram against
Christianity, blasphemy, Tertullian, Erasmus, Sir Philip Sidney; and then
the dreadful Petzelians and their expiation by blood; and do Christians
shudder at the same thing in a newspaper which they attribute to their God
in its most aggravated form? What is to be the end of this? I must mention
Hazlitt's Southey.[16] O that he had left out the grey hairs; or that
they had been in any other paper not concluding with such a thunderclap!
That sentence about making a page of the feeling of a whole life, appears
to me like a whale's back in the sea of prose. I ought to have said a word
on Shakspeare's Christianity. There are two which I have not looked over
with you, touching the thing: the one for, the other against: that in
favour is in Measure for Measure, Act II. Scene ii.--
_Isab._ Alas, alas!
Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the 'vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy.
That against is in Twelfth Night, Act III. Scene ii.--
_Maria._ For there is no Christian that means to be saved by
believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of
grossness.
Before I come to the Nymphs,[17] I must get through all disagreeables. I
went to the Isle of Wight, thought so much about poetry, so long together,
that I could not get to sleep at night; and, moreover, I know not how it
was, I could not get wholesome food. By this means, in a week or so, I
became not over capable in my upper stories, and set off pell-mell for
Margate, at least a hundred and fifty miles, because, forsooth, I fancied
that I should like my old lodging here, and could contrive to do without
trees. Another thing, I was too much in solitude, and consequently was
obliged to be in continual burning of thought, as an only resource.
However, Tom is with me at present, and we are very comfortable. We
intend, though, to get among some trees. How have you got on among them?
How are the Nymphs? I suppose they have led you a fine dance. Where are
you now?--in Judea, Cappadocia, or the parts of Libya about Cyrene?
Stranger from "Heaven, Hues, and Prototypes," I wager you have given
several new turns to the old saying, "Now the maid was fair and pleasant
to look on," as well as made a little variation in "Once upon a time."
Perhaps, too, you have rather varied, "Here endeth the first lesson." Thus
I hope you have made a horseshoe business of "unsuperfluous life," "faint
bowers," and fibrous roots. I vow that I have been down in the mouth
lately at this work. These last two days, however, I have felt more
confident--I have asked myself so often why I should be a poet more than
other men, seeing how great a thing it is,--how great things are to be
gained by it, what a thing to be in the mouth of Fame,--that at last the
idea has grown so monstrously beyond my seeming power of attainment, that
the other day I nearly consented with myself to drop into a Phaethon. Yet
'tis a disgrace to fail, even in a huge attempt; and at this moment I
drive the thought from me. I began my poem about a fortnight since, and
have done some every day, except travelling ones. Perhaps I may have done
a good deal for the time, but it appears such a pin's point to me, that I
will not copy any out. When I consider that so many of these pin-points go
to form a bodkin-point (God send I end not my life with a bare bodkin, in
its modern sense!), and that it requires a thousand bodkins to make a
spear bright enough to throw any light to posterity, I see nothing but
continual uphill journeying. Now is there anything more unpleasant (it may
come among the thousand and one) than to be so journeying and to miss the
goal at last? But I intend to whistle all these cogitations into the sea,
where I hope they will breed storms violent enough to block up all exit
from Russia. Does Shelley go on telling strange stories of the deaths of
kings?[18] Tell him, there are strange stories of the deaths of poets.
Some have died before they were conceived. "How do you make that out,
Master Vellum?" Does Mrs. S. cut bread and butter as neatly as ever? Tell
her to procure some fatal scissors, and cut the thread of life of all
to-be-disappointed poets. Does Mrs. Hunt tear linen as straight as ever?
Tell her to tear from the book of life all blank leaves. Remember me to
them all; to Miss Kent and the little ones all.
Your sincere Friend
JOHN KEATS _alias_ JUNKETS.
You shall hear where we move.
X.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Margate, Saturday Eve [May 10, 1817].
My dear Haydon,
"Let Fame, that all pant after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,
And so grace us in the disgrace of death:
When spite of cormorant devouring Time
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That Honour which shall bate his Scythe's keen edge
And make us heirs of all eternity."[19]
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 as if you have not been
teased with that Money affair, that bill-pestilence. However, I must think
that difficulties 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 mentioned to you what I have
lately said in my Letters to him--truth is I have been in such a state of
Mind as to read over my Lines and hate them. I am one that "gathers
Samphire, dreadful trade"--the Cliff of Poesy towers above me--yet when
Tom who meets with some of Pope's Homer in Plutarch's Lives reads some of
those to me they seem like Mice 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 arduously where I leave off,
notwithstanding occasional depressions; and I hope for the support of a
High Power while I climb this little eminence, and especially in my Years
of more momentous Labour. I remember your saying that you had notions of a
good Genius presiding over you. I have of late had the same thought, for
things which I do half at Random are afterwards confirmed by my judgment
in a dozen features of Propriety. Is it too daring to fancy Shakspeare
this Presider? When in the Isle of Wight I met with a Shakspeare 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 is
ominous of good? I am glad you say every man of great views is at times
tormented as I am.
Sunday after [May 11].
This Morning I received a letter from George by which it appears that
Money Troubles are to follow us up for some time to come--perhaps for
always--these 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 the 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 everything will leave not a wrack behind. You tell me never
to despair--I wish it was as easy for me to observe the saying--truth is I
have a horrid Morbidity of Temperament which has shown itself at
intervals--it is I have no doubt the greatest Enemy and stumbling-block I
have to fear--I may even say that it is likely to be the cause of my
disappointment. However every ill has its share of good--this very bane
would at any time enable me to look with an obstinate eye on the Devil
Himself--aye to be as proud of being the lowest of the human race as
Alfred could be in being of the highest. I feel confident I should have
been a rebel angel had the opportunity been mine. I am very sure 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
sensible of the turmoil and anxiety, the sacrifice of all what is called
comfort, the readiness to measure time by what is done and to die in six
hours could plans be brought to conclusions--the looking upon the Sun, the
Moon, the Stars, the Earth and its contents, as materials to form greater
things--that is to say ethereal things--but here I am talking like a
Madman,--greater things than our Creator himself made!!