Devonshire-whither I shall follow him. At present, I am just arrived at Dorking-to change the Scene-change the Air, and give me a spur to wind up my Poem, of which there are wanting 500 lines. I should have been here a day sooner, but the Reynoldses persuaded me to stop in Town to meet your friend Christie. There were Rice and Martin- -we talked about Ghosts. I will have some Talk with Taylor and let you know,-when please God I come down at Christmas. I will find that Examiner if possible. My best regards to Gleig, my Brothers' to you and Mrs. Bentley. Your affectionate Friend JOHN KEATS. I want to say much more to you-a few hints will set me going. Direct Burford Bridge near Dorking. XXIII. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS. [Burford Bridge,] November 22, 1817. My dear Reynolds-There are two things which tease me here—one of them Cripps, and the other that I cannot go with Tom into Devonshire. However, I hope to do my duty to myself in a week or so; and then I'll try what I can do for my neighbour-now, is not this virtuous? On returning to Town I'll damm all Idleness—indeed, in superabundance of employment, I must not be content to run here and there on little two-penny errands, but turn Rakehell, i.e. go a masking, or Bailey will think me just as great a Promise Keeper as he thinks you; for myself I do not, and do not remember above one complaint against you for matter o' that. Bailey writes so abominable a hand, to give his Letter a fair reading requires a little time so I had not seen, when I saw you last, his invitation to Oxford at Christmas. I'll go with you. You know how poorly Rice was. I do not think it was all corporeal,-bodily pain was not used to keep him silent. I'll tell you what; he was hurt at what your Sisters said about his joking with your Mother, he was, It will all blow over. God knows, my soothly to sain. dear Reynolds, I should not talk any sorrow to you—you must have enough vexations—so I won't any more. If I ever start a rueful subject in a letter to you—blow me! Why don't you?—now I am going to ask you a very silly Question neither you nor anybody else could answer, under a folio, or at least a Pamphlet you shall judgewhy don't you, as I do, look unconcerned at what may be called more particularly Heart-vexations? They never surprise me—lord! a man should have the fine point of his soul taken off to become fit for this world. I like this place very much. There is Hill and Dale and a little River. I went up Box hill this Evening after the Moon-"you a' seen the Moon"-came down, and wrote some lines. Whenever I am separated from you, and not engaged in a continued Poem, every letter shall bring you a lyric—but I am too anxious for you to enjoy the whole to send you a particle. One of the three books I have with me is Shakspeare's Poems: I never found so many beauties in the sonnets-they seem to be full of fine things said unintentionally-in the intensity of working out conceits. Is this to be borne? Hark ye! When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, Which erst from heat did canopy the head, Borne on the bier with white and bristly head. He has left nothing to say about nothing or anything: for look at snails-you know what he says about Snailsyou know when he talks about "cockled Snails "—well, in one of these sonnets, he says-the chap slips intono! I lie! this is in the Venus and Adonis: the simile brought it to my Mind. As the snail, whose tender horns being hit, Shrinks back into his shelly cave with pain, He overwhelms a genuine Lover of poesy with all manner of abuse, talking about— Which, by the bye, will be a capital motto for my poem, won't it? He speaks too of "Time's antique pen ”—and 'April's first-born flowers "—and "Death's eternal cold.” -By the Whim-King! I'll give you a stanza, because it is not material in connection, and when I wrote it I wanted you to give your vote, pro or con.— Crystalline Brother of the belt of Heaven, Two liquid pulse-streams, 'stead of feather'd wings-- Dissolve the frozen purity of air; Let thy white shoulders, silvery and bare, Show cold through wat'ry pinions: make more bright Haste, haste away! I see there is an advertisement in the Chronicle to Poets-he is so over-loaded with poems on the "late Princess." I suppose you do not lack-send me a few— lend me thy hand to laugh a little-send me a little pullet-sperm, a few finch-eggs-and remember me to each of our card-playing Club. When you die you will all be turned into Dice, and be put in pawn with the devil: for cards, they crumple up like anything. I rest Your affectionate friend JOHN KEATS. Give my love to both houses-hinc atque illinc. XXIV. TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS. Hampstead, December 22, 1817. My dear Brothers-I must crave your pardon for not having written ere this. . . I saw Kean return to the public in Richard III., and finely he did it, and, at the request of Reynolds, I went to criticise his Duke in Richdthe critique is in to-day's Champion, which I send you with the Examiner, in which you will find very proper lamentation on the obsoletion of Christmas Gambols and pastimes: but it was mixed up with so much egotism of that drivelling nature that pleasure is entirely lost. Hone the publisher's trial, you must find very amusing, and as Englishmen very encouraging: his Not Guilty is a thing, which not to have been, would have dulled still more Liberty's Emblazoning — Lord Ellenborough has been paid in his own coin-Wooler and Hone have done us an essential service. I have had two very pleasant evenings with Dilke yesterday and to-day, and am at this moment just come from him, and feel in the humour to go on with this, begun in the morning, and from which he came to fetch me. I spent Friday evening with Wells1 and went next morning to see Death on the Pale horse. It is a wonderful picture, when West's age is considered; but there is nothing to be intense upon, no women one feels mad to kiss, no face swelling into reality. The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth-Examine King Lear, and you will find this exemplified throughout; but in this picture we have unpleasantness without any momentous depth of speculation excited, in which to bury its repulsivenessThe picture is larger than Christ rejected. I dined with Haydon the Sunday after you left, and had a very pleasant day, I dined too (for I have been out too much lately) with Horace Smith and met his two Brothers with Hill and Kingston and one Du Bois, they only served to convince me how superior humour is to wit, in respect to enjoyment-These men say things which make one start, without making one feel, they are 1 Charles Wells, a schoolmate of Tom Keats; afterwards author of Stories after Nature and Joseph and his Brethren. For Keats's subsequent cause of quarrel with him see below, Letter XCII. all alike; their manners are alike; they all know fashionables; they have all a mannerism in their very eating and drinking, in their mere handling a Decanter. They talked of Kean and his low company-would I were with that company instead of yours said I to myself! I know such like acquaintance will never do for me and yet I am going to Reynolds, on Wednesday. Brown and Dilke walked with me and back from the Christmas pantomime. I had not a dispute, but a disquisition, with Dilke upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakspeare possessed so enormously-I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery,1 from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration. Shelley's poem 2 is out and there are words about its being objected to, as much as Queen Mab was. Poor Shelley I think he has his Quota of good qualities, in sooth la! Write soon to your most sincere friend and affectionate Brother JOHN. XXV.-TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS. Featherstone Buildings,3 Monday [January 5, 1818]. My dear Brothers-I ought to have written before, and you should have had a long letter last week, but I 1 An admirable phrase !-if only penetralium were Latin. 2 Laon and Cythna, presently changed to The Revolt of Islam. The family of Charles Wells lived at this address. |