and got insulted, which I ought to remember to forget to tell any Body;
for I did not fight, and as yet have had no redress--"Lie thou there,
sweetheart!"[53] I wrote to Bailey yesterday, obliged to speak in a high
way, and a damme who's afraid--for I had owed him so long; however, he
shall see I will be better in future. Is he in town yet? I have directed
to Oxford as the better chance. I have copied my fourth Book, and shall
write the Preface soon. I wish it was all done; for I want to forget it
and make my mind free for something new--Atkins the Coachman, Bartlett the
Surgeon, Simmons the Barber, and the Girls over at the Bonnet-shop, say we
shall now have a month of seasonable weather--warm, witty, and full of
invention--Write to me and tell me that you are well or thereabouts, or by
the holy Beaucoeur, which I suppose is the Virgin Mary, or the repented
Magdalen (beautiful name, that Magdalen), I'll take to my Wings and fly
away to anywhere but old or Nova Scotia--I wish I had a little innocent
bit of Metaphysic in my head, to criss-cross the letter: but you know a
favourite tune is hardest to be remembered when one wants it most and you,
I know, have long ere this taken it for granted that I never have any
speculations without associating you in them, where they are of a pleasant
nature, and you know enough of me to tell the places where I haunt most,
so that if you think for five minutes after having read this, you will
find it a long letter, and see written in the Air above you,
Your most affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
Remember me to all. Tom's remembrances to you.
XLIII.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Teignmouth, Saturday Morn [March 21, 1818].
My dear Haydon--In sooth, I hope you are not too sanguine about that
seal--in sooth I hope it is not Brumidgeum--in double sooth I hope it is
his--and in triple sooth I hope I shall have an impression.[54] Such a
piece of intelligence came doubly welcome to me while in your own County
and in your own hand--not but I have blown up the said County for its
urinal qualifications--the six first days I was here it did nothing but
rain; and at that time having to write to a friend I gave Devonshire a
good blowing up--it has been fine for almost three days, and I was coming
round a bit; but to-day it rains again--with me the County is yet upon its
good behaviour. I have enjoyed the most delightful Walks these three fine
days beautiful enough to make me content.
Here all the summer could I stay,
For there's Bishop's teign
And King's teign
And Coomb at the clear teign head--
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream
All spread upon barley bread.
There's arch Brook
And there's larch Brook
Both turning many a mill;
And cooling the drouth
Of the salmon's mouth,
And fattening his silver gill.
There is Wild wood,
A Mild hood
To the sheep on the lea o' the down,
Where the golden furze,
With its green, thin spurs,
Doth catch at the maiden's gown.
There is Newton marsh
With its spear grass harsh--
A pleasant summer level
Where the maidens sweet
Of the Market Street,
Do meet in the dusk to revel.
There's the Barton rich
With dyke and ditch
And hedge for the thrush to live in
And the hollow tree
For the buzzing bee
And a bank for the wasp to hive in.
And O, and O
The daisies blow
And the primroses are waken'd,
And the violets white
Sit in silver plight,
And the green bud's as long as the spike end.
Then who would go
Into dark Soho,
And chatter with dack'd hair'd critics,
When he can stay
For the new-mown hay,
And startle the dappled Prickets?
I know not if this rhyming fit has done anything--it will be safe with you
if worthy to put among my Lyrics. Here's some doggrel for you--Perhaps you
would like a bit of b----hrell--
Where be ye going, you Devon Maid?
And what have you there in the Basket?
Ye tight little fairy just fresh from the dairy,
Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?
I love your Meads, and I love your flowers,
And I love your junkets mainly,
But 'hind the door I love kissing more,
O look not so disdainly.
I love your hills, and I love your dales,
And I love your flocks a-bleating--
But O, on the heather to lie together,
With both our hearts a-beating!
I'll put your Basket all safe in a nook,
Your shawl I hang up on the willow,
And we will sigh in the daisy's eye
And kiss on a grass green pillow.
How does the work go on? I should like to bring out my "Dentatus"[55] at
the time your Epic makes its appearance. I expect to have my Mind soon
clear for something new. Tom has been much worse: but is now getting
better--his remembrances to you. I think of seeing the Dart and
Plymouth--but I don't know. It has as yet been a Mystery to me how and
where Wordsworth went. I can't help thinking he has returned to his
Shell--with his beautiful Wife and his enchanting Sister. It is a great
Pity that People should by associating themselves with the finest things,
spoil them. Hunt has damned Hampstead and masks and sonnets and Italian
tales. Wordsworth has damned the lakes--Milman has damned the old
drama--West has damned----wholesale. Peacock has damned satire--Ollier has
damn'd Music--Hazlitt has damned the bigoted and the blue-stockinged; how
durst the Man?! he is your only good damner, and if ever I am damn'd--damn
me if I shouldn't like him to damn me. It will not be long ere I see you,
but I thought I would just give you a line out of Devon.
Yours affectionately
JOHN KEATS.
Remember me to all we know.
XLIV.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.
Teignmouth, Saturday Morn [March 21, 1818].
My dear Sirs--I had no idea of your getting on so fast--I thought of
bringing my 4th Book to Town all in good time for you--especially after
the late unfortunate chance.
I did not however for my own sake delay finishing the copy which was done
a few days after my arrival here. I send it off to-day, and will tell you
in a Postscript at what time to send for it from the Bull and Mouth or
other Inn. You will find the Preface and dedication and the title Page as
I should wish it to stand--for a Romance is a fine thing notwithstanding
the circulating Libraries. My respects to Mrs. Hessey and to Percy Street.
Yours very sincerely
JOHN KEATS.
_P.S._--I have been advised to send it to you--you may expect it on
Monday--for I sent it by the Postman to Exeter at the same time with this
Letter. Adieu!
XLV.--TO JAMES RICE.
Teignmouth, Tuesday [March 24, 1818].
My dear Rice--Being in the midst of your favourite Devon, I should not, by
rights, pen one word but it should contain a vast portion of Wit, Wisdom
and learning--for I have heard that Milton ere he wrote his answer to
Salmasius came into these parts, and for one whole month, rolled himself
for three whole hours (per day?), in a certain meadow hard by us--where
the mark of his nose at equidistances is still shown. The exhibitor of the
said meadow further saith, that, after these rollings, not a nettle sprang
up in all the seven acres for seven years, and that from the said time, a
new sort of plant was made from the whitethorn, of a thornless nature,
very much used by the bucks of the present day to rap their boots withal.
This account made me very naturally suppose that the nettles and thorns
etherealised by the scholar's rotatory motion, and garnered in his head,
thence flew after a process of fermentation against the luckless Salmasius
and occasioned his well-known and unhappy end. What a happy thing it would
be if we could settle our thoughts and make our minds up on any matter in
five minutes, and remain content--that is, build a sort of mental cottage
of feelings, quiet and pleasant--to have a sort of Philosophical
back-garden, and cheerful holiday-keeping front one--but alas! this never
can be: for as the material cottager knows there are such places as France
and Italy, and the Andes and burning mountains, so the spiritual Cottager
has knowledge of the terra semi-incognita of things unearthly, and cannot
for his life keep in the check-rein--or I should stop here quiet and
comfortable in my theory of nettles. You will see, however, I am obliged
to run wild being attracted by the load-stone concatenation. No sooner had
I settled the knotty point of Salmasius, than the Devil put this whim into
my head in the likeness of one of Pythagoras's questionings--Did Milton do
more good or harm in the world? He wrote, let me inform you (for I have it
from a friend, who had it of ----,) he wrote Lycidas, Comus, Paradise Lost
and other Poems, with much delectable prose--He was moreover an active
friend to man all his life, and has been since his death.--Very good--but,
my dear Fellow, I must let you know that, as there is ever the same
quantity of matter constituting this habitable globe--as the ocean
notwithstanding the enormous changes and revolutions taking place in some
or other of its demesnes--notwithstanding Waterspouts whirlpools and
mighty rivers emptying themselves into it--still is made up of the same
bulk, nor ever varies the number of its atoms--and as a certain bulk of
water was instituted at the creation--so very likely a certain portion of
intellect was spun forth into the thin air, for the brains of man to prey
upon it. You will see my drift without any unnecessary parenthesis. That
which is contained in the Pacific could not lie in the hollow of the
Caspian--that which was in Milton's head could not find room in Charles
the Second's--He like a Moon attracted intellect to its flow--it has not
ebbed yet, but has left the shore-pebbles all bare--I mean all Bucks,
Authors of Hengist, and Castlereaghs of the present day; who without
Milton's gormandising might have been all wise men--Now forasmuch as I was
very predisposed to a country I had heard you speak so highly of, I took
particular notice of everything during my journey, and have bought some
folio asses' skins for memorandums. I have seen everything but the
wind--and that, they say, becomes visible by taking a dose of acorns, or
sleeping one night in a hog-trough, with your tail to the Sow Sow-West.
Some of the little Bar-maids look'd at me as if I knew Jem Rice.... Well,
I can't tell! I hope you are showing poor Reynolds the way to get well.
Send me a good account of him, and if I can, I'll send you one of Tom--Oh!
for a day and all well!
I went yesterday to Dawlish fair.
Over the Hill and over the Dale,
And over the Bourne to Dawlish,
Where ginger-bread wives have a scanty sale,
And ginger-bread nuts are smallish, etc. etc.
Tom's remembrances and mine to you all.
Your sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
XLVI.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[Teignmouth, March 25, 1818.]
My dear Reynolds--In hopes of cheering you through a Minute or two, I was
determined will he nill he to send you some lines, so you will excuse the
unconnected subject and careless verse. You know, I am sure, Claude's
Enchanted Castle,[56] and I wish you may be pleased with my remembrance of
it. The Rain is come on again--I think with me Devonshire stands a very
poor chance. I shall damn it up hill and down dale, if it keep up to the
average of six fine days in three weeks. Let me have better news of you.
Tom's remembrances to you. Remember us to all.
Your affectionate friend,
JOHN KEATS.
Dear Reynolds! as last night I lay in bed,
There came before my eyes that wonted thread
Of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances,
That every other minute vex and please:
Things all disjointed come from north and south,--
Two Witch's eyes above a Cherub's mouth,
Voltaire with casque and shield and habergeon,
And Alexander with his nightcap on;
Old Socrates a-tying his cravat,
And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth's cat;
And Junius Brutus, pretty well so so,
Making the best of's way towards Soho.
Few are there who escape these visitings,--
Perhaps one or two whose lives have patent wings,
And thro' whose curtains peeps no hellish nose,
No wild-boar tushes, and no Mermaid's toes;
But flowers bursting out with lusty pride,
And young Aeolian harps personify'd;
Some Titian colours touch'd into real life,--
The sacrifice goes on; the pontiff knife
Gleams in the Sun, the milk-white heifer lows,
The pipes go shrilly, the libation flows:
A white sail shows above the green-head cliff,
Moves round the point, and throws her anchor stiff;
The mariners join hymn with those on land.
You know the Enchanted Castle,--it doth stand
Upon a rock, on the border of a Lake,
Nested in trees, which all do seem to shake
From some old magic-like Urganda's Sword.
O Phoebus! that I had thy sacred word
To show this Castle, in fair dreaming wise,
Unto my friend, while sick and ill he lies!
You know it well enough, where it doth seem
A mossy place, a Merlin's Hall, a dream;
You know the clear Lake, and the little Isles,
The mountains blue, and cold near neighbour rills,
All which elsewhere are but half animate;
There do they look alive to love and hate,
To smiles and frowns; they seem a lifted mound
Above some giant, pulsing underground.
Part of the Building was a chosen See,
Built by a banish'd Santon of Chaldee;
The other part, two thousand years from him,
Was built by Cuthbert de Saint Aldebrim;
Then there's a little wing, far from the Sun,
Built by a Lapland Witch turn'd maudlin Nun;
And many other juts of aged stone
Founded with many a mason-devil's groan.
The doors all look as if they op'd themselves
The windows as if latch'd by Fays and Elves,
And from them comes a silver flash of light,
As from the westward of a Summer's night;
Or like a beauteous woman's large blue eyes
Gone mad thro' olden songs and poesies.
See! what is coming from the distance dim!
A golden Galley all in silken trim!
Three rows of oars are lightening, moment whiles
Into the verd'rous bosoms of those isles;
Towards the shade, under the Castle wall,
It comes in silence,--now 'tis hidden all.
The Clarion sounds, and from a Postern-gate
An echo of sweet music doth create
A fear in the poor Herdsman, who doth bring
His beasts to trouble the enchanted spring,--
He tells of the sweet music, and the spot,
To all his friends, and they believe him not.
O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,
Would all their colours from the sunset take:
From something of material sublime,
Rather than shadow our own soul's day-time
In the dark void of night. For in the world
We jostle,--but my flag is not unfurl'd
On the Admiral-staff,--and so philosophise
I dare not yet! Oh, never will the prize,
High reason, and the love of good and ill,
Be my award! Things cannot to the will
Be settled, but they tease us out of thought;
Or is it that imagination brought
Beyond its proper bound, yet still confin'd,
Lost in a sort of Purgatory blind,
Cannot refer to any standard law
Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw
In happiness, to see beyond our bourn,--
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.
Dear Reynolds! I have a mysterious tale,
And cannot speak it: the first page I read
Upon a Lampit rock of green sea-weed
Among the breakers; 'twas a quiet eve,
The rocks were silent, the wide sea did weave
An untumultuous fringe of silver foam
Along the flat brown sand; I was at home
And should have been most happy,--but I saw
Too far into the sea, where every maw
The greater on the less feeds evermore.--
But I saw too distinct into the core
Of an eternal fierce destruction,
And so from happiness I far was gone.
Still am I sick of it, and tho' to-day,
I've gather'd young spring-leaves, and flowers gay
Of periwinkle and wild strawberry,
Still do I that most fierce destruction see,--
The Shark at savage prey,--the Hawk at pounce,--
The gentle Robin, like a Pard or Ounce,
Ravening a worm,--Away, ye horrid moods!
Moods of one's mind! You know I hate them well.
You know I'd sooner be a clapping Bell
To some Kamtschatkan Missionary Church,
Than with these horrid moods be left i' the lurch.
XLVII.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Wednesday, [Teignmouth, April 8, 1818].
My dear Haydon--I am glad you were pleased with my nonsense, and if it so
happen that the humour takes me when I have set down to prose to you I
will not gainsay it. I should be (God forgive me) ready to swear because I
cannot make use of your assistance in going through Devon if I was not in
my own Mind determined to visit it thoroughly at some more favourable time
of the year. But now Tom (who is getting greatly better) is anxious to be
in Town--therefore I put off my threading the County. I purpose within a
month to put my knapsack at my back and make a pedestrian tour through the
North of England, and part of Scotland--to make a sort of Prologue to the
Life I intend to pursue--that is to write, to study and to see all Europe
at the lowest expence. I will clamber through the Clouds and exist. I will
get such an accumulation of stupendous recollections that as I walk
through the suburbs of London I may not see them--I will stand upon Mount
Blanc and remember this coming Summer when I intend to straddle Ben
Lomond--with my soul!--galligaskins are out of the Question. I am nearer
myself to hear your "Christ" is being tinted into immortality. Believe me
Haydon your picture is part of myself--I have ever been too sensible of
the labyrinthian path to eminence in Art (judging from Poetry) ever to
think I understood the emphasis of painting. The innumerable compositions
and decompositions which take place between the intellect and its thousand
materials before it arrives at that trembling delicate and snail-horn
perception of beauty. I know not your many havens of intenseness--nor ever
can know them: but for this I hope not you achieve is lost upon me[57]:
for when a Schoolboy the abstract Idea I had of an heroic painting--was
what I cannot describe. I saw it somewhat sideways, large, prominent,
round, and colour'd with magnificence--somewhat like the feel I have of
Anthony and Cleopatra. Or of Alcibiades leaning on his Crimson Couch in
his Galley, his broad shoulders imperceptibly heaving with the Sea. That
passage in Shakspeare is finer than this--
See how the surly Warwick mans the Wall.
I like your consignment of Corneille--that's the humour of it--they shall
be called your Posthumous Works.[58] I don't understand your bit of
Italian. I hope she will awake from her dream and flourish fair--my
respects to her. The Hedges by this time are beginning to leaf--Cats are
becoming more vociferous--young Ladies who wear Watches are always looking
at them. Women about forty-five think the Season very backward--Ladies'
Mares have but half an allowance of food. It rains here again, has been
doing so for three days--however as I told you I'll take a trial in June,
July, or August next year.
I am afraid Wordsworth went rather huff'd out of Town--I am sorry for
it--he cannot expect his fireside Divan to be infallible--he cannot expect
but that every man of worth is as proud as himself. O that he had not fit
with a Warrener[59]--that is dined at Kingston's. I shall be in town in
about a fortnight and then we will have a day or so now and then before I
set out on my northern expedition--we will have no more abominable
Rows--for they leave one in a fearful silence--having settled the
Methodists let us be rational--not upon compulsion--no--if it will out
let it--but I will not play the Bassoon any more deliberately. Remember me
to Hazlitt, and Bewick--
Your affectionate friend,
JOHN KEATS.
XLVIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Thy. morng., [Teignmouth, April 9, 1818].
My dear Reynolds--Since you all agree that the thing[60] is bad, it must
be so--though I am not aware there is anything like Hunt in it (and if
there is, it is my natural way, and I have something in common with Hunt).
Look it over again, and examine into the motives, the seeds, from which
any one sentence sprung--I have not the slightest feel of humility towards
the public--or to anything in existence,--but the eternal Being, the
Principle of Beauty, and the Memory of great Men. When I am writing for
myself for the mere sake of the moment's enjoyment, perhaps nature has its
course with me--but a Preface is written to the Public; a thing I cannot
help looking upon as an Enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings
of Hostility. If I write a Preface in a supple or subdued style, it will
not be in character with me as a public speaker--I would be subdued before
my friends, and thank them for subduing me--but among Multitudes of Men--I
have no feel of stooping, I hate the idea of humility to them.
I never wrote one single Line of Poetry with the least Shadow of public
thought.
Forgive me for vexing you and making a Trojan horse of such a Trifle, both
with respect to the matter in Question, and myself--but it eases me to
tell you--I could not live without the love of my friends--I would jump
down Aetna for any great Public good--but I hate a Mawkish Popularity. I
cannot be subdued before them--My glory would be to daunt and dazzle the
thousand jabberers about Pictures and Books--I see swarms of Porcupines
with their Quills erect "like lime-twigs set to catch my Winged Book," and
I would fright them away with a torch. You will say my Preface is not much
of a Torch. It would have been too insulting "to begin from Jove," and I
could not set a golden head upon a thing of clay. If there is any fault in
the Preface it is not affectation, but an undersong of disrespect to the
Public--if I write another Preface it must be done without a thought of
those people--I will think about it. If it should not reach you in four or
five days, tell Taylor to publish it without a Preface, and let the
Dedication simply stand--"inscribed to the Memory of Thomas Chatterton."
I had resolved last night to write to you this morning--I wish it had been
about something else--something to greet you towards the close of your
long illness. I have had one or two intimations of your going to Hampstead
for a space; and I regret to see your confounded Rheumatism keeps you in
Little Britain where, I am sure the air is too confined. Devonshire
continues rainy. As the drops beat against the window, they give me the
same sensation as a quart of cold water offered to revive a half-drowned
devil--no feel of the clouds dropping fatness; but as if the roots of the
earth were rotten, cold, and drenched. I have not been able to go to
Kent's cave at Babbicombe--however on one very beautiful day I had a fine
Clamber over the rocks all along as far as that place. I shall be in Town
in about Ten days--We go by way of Bath on purpose to call on Bailey. I
hope soon to be writing to you about the things of the north, purposing to
wayfare all over those parts. I have settled my accoutrements in my own
mind, and will go to gorge wonders. However, we'll have some days together
before I set out--
I have many reasons for going wonder-ways: to make my winter chair free
from spleen--to enlarge my vision--to escape disquisitions on Poetry and
Kingston Criticism; to promote digestion and economise shoe-leather. I'll
have leather buttons and belt; and, if Brown holds his mind, over the
Hills we go. If my Books will help me to it, then will I take all Europe
in turn, and see the Kingdoms of the Earth and the glory of them. Tom is
getting better, he hopes you may meet him at the top o' the hill. My Love
to your nurses. I am ever
Your affectionate Friend
JOHN KEATS.
XLIX.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[Teignmouth,] Friday [April 10, 1818].
My dear Reynolds--I am anxious you should find this Preface tolerable. If
there is an affectation in it 'tis natural to me. Do let the Printer's
Devil cook it, and let me be as "the casing air."
You are too good in this Matter--were I in your state, I am certain I
should have no thought but of discontent and illness--I might though be
taught patience: I had an idea of giving no Preface; however, don't you
think this had better go? O, let it--one should not be too timid--of
committing faults.
The climate here weighs us down completely; Tom is quite low-spirited. It
is impossible to live in a country which is continually under hatches. Who
would live in a region of Mists, Game Laws, indemnity Bills, etc., when
there is such a place as Italy? It is said this England from its Clime
produces a Spleen, able to engender the finest Sentiments, and cover the
whole face of the isle with Green--so it ought, I'm sure.--I should still
like the Dedication simply, as I said in my last.