Souls of Poets dead and gone, Than the merry mermaid Tavern ?1 I will call on you at 4 to-morrow, and we will trudge together, for it is not the thing to be a stranger in the Land of Harpsicols. I hope also to bring you my 2nd Book. In the hope that these Scribblings will be some amusement for you this Evening, I remain, copying on the Hill, Your sincere friend and Co-scribbler JOHN KEATS. XXXV.-TO JOHN TAYLOR. Fleet Street, Thursday Morn [February 5, 1818]. And My dear Taylor-I have finished copying my Second Book-but I want it for one day to overlook it. moreover this day I have very particular employ in the affair of Cripps-so I trespass on your indulgence, and take advantage of your good nature. You shall hear from me or see me soon. I will tell Reynolds of your engagement to-morrow. Yours unfeignedly JOHN KEATS. XXXVI.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS. Hampstead, Saturday Night [February 14, 1818]. My dear Brothers-When once a man delays a letter beyond the proper time, he delays it longer, for one or two reasons-first, because he must begin in a very common-place style, that is to say, with an excuse; and secondly things and circumstances become so jumbled in his mind, that he knows not what, or what not, he has said in his last-I shall visit you as soon as I have copied my poem all out, I am now much beforehand with the printer, they have done none yet, and I am 1 Both the Robin Hood and the Mermaid lines as afterwards printed vary in several places from these first drafts. half afraid they will let half the season by before the printing. I am determined they shall not trouble me when I have copied it all.-Horace Smith has lent me his manuscript called "Nehemiah Muggs, an exposure of the Methodists"—perhaps I may send you a few extracts -Hazlitt's last Lecture was on Thomson, Cowper, and Crabbe, he praised Thomson and Cowper but he gave Crabbe an unmerciful licking-I think Hunt's article of Fazio -no it was not, but I saw Fazio the first night, it hung rather heavily on me-I am in the high way of being introduced to a squad of people, Peter Pindar, Mrs. Opie, Mrs. Scott-Mr. Robinson a great friend of Coleridge's called on me. Richards tells me that my poems are known in the west country, and that he saw a very clever copy of verses, headed with a Motto from my Sonnet to George-Honours rush so thickly upon me that I shall not be able to bear up against them. What think you-am I to be crowned in the Capitol, am I to be made a Mandarin-No! I am to be invited, Mrs. Hunt tells me, to a party at Ollier's, to keep Shakspeare's birthday—Shakspeare would stare to see me there.2 The Wednesday before last Shelley, Hunt and I wrote each a Sonnet on the River Nile, some day you shall read them all. I saw a sheet of Endymion, and have all reason to suppose they will soon get it done, there shall be nothing wanting on my part. I have been writing at intervals many songs and Sonnets, and I long to be at Teignmouth, to read them over to you: however I think I had better wait till this Book is off my mind; it will not be long first. Reynolds has been writing two very capital articles, in the Yellow Dwarf, on popular Preachers-All the talk here is about Dr. Croft the Duke of Devon etc. Your most affectionate Brother 1 Henry Crabb Robinson, author of the Diaries. JOHN. 2 The Olliers (Shelley's publishers) had brought out Keats's Poems the previous spring, and the ill success of the volume had led to a sharp quarrel between them and the Keats brothers. XXXVII.—TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS. [Hampstead, February 19, 1818.] My dear Reynolds-I had an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life in this manner-Let him on a certain day read a certain page of full Poesy or distilled Prose, and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, and reflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dream upon it: until it becomes stale-But when will it do so? Never-When Man has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect any one grand and spiritual passage serves him as a starting-post towards all "the two-and-thirty Palaces." How happy is such a voyage of conception, what delicious diligent indolence! A doze upon a sofa does not hinder it, and a nap upon Clover engenders ethereal finger-pointings-the prattle of a child gives it wings, and the converse of middle-age a strength to beat them—a strain of music conducts to "an odd angle of the Isle,” and when the leaves whisper it puts a girdle round the earth.-Nor will this sparing touch of noble Books be any irreverence to their Writers-for perhaps the honors paid by Man to Man are trifles in comparison to the benefit done by great works to the Spirit and pulse of good" by their mere passive existence. Memory should not be called Knowledge—Many have original minds who do not think it—they are led away by Custom. Now it appears to me that almost any Man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel—the points of leaves and twigs on which the │ spider begins her work are few, and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting. Man should be content with as few points to tip with the fine Web of his Soul, and weave a tapestry empyrean-full of symbols for his spiritual eye, of softness for his spiritual touch, of space for his wandering, of distinctness for his luxury. But the minds of mortals are so different and bent on such diverse journeys that it may at first appear impossible for any common taste and fellowship to exist between two or three under these suppositions. It is however quite the contrary. Minds would leave each other in contrary directions, traverse each other in numberless points, and at last greet each other at the journey's end. An old man and a child would talk together and the old man be led on his path and the child left thinking. Man should not dispute or assert, but whisper results to his Neighbour, and thus by every germ of spirit sucking the sap from mould ethereal every human might become great, and humanity instead of being a wide heath of furze and briars, with here and there a remote Oak or Pine, would become a grand democracy of forest trees. It has been an old comparison for our urging on -the beehive-however it seems to me that we should rather be the flower than the Bee-for it is a false notion that more is gained by receiving than giving-no, the receiver and the giver are equal in their benefits. The flower, I doubt not, receives a fair guerdon from the Bee -its leaves blush deeper in the next spring-and who shall say between Man and Woman which is the most delighted? Now it is more noble to sit like Jove than to fly like Mercury:-let us not therefore go hurrying about and collecting honey, bee-like, buzzing here and there impatiently from a knowledge of what is to be arrived at. But let us open our leaves like a flower, and be passive and receptive; budding patiently under the eye of Apollo and taking hints from every noble insect that favours us with a visit-Sap will be given us for meat, and dew for drink. I was led into these thoughts, my dear Reynolds, by the beauty of the morning operating on a sense of Idleness. I have not read any Books-the Morning said I was right—I had no idea but of the Morning, and the Thrush said I was right-seeming to say, "O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind, To thee the Spring will be a harvest-time- And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens And he's awake who thinks himself asleep." Now I am sensible all this is a mere sophistication (however it may neighbour to any truths), to excuse my own indolence-So I will not deceive myself that Man should be equal with Jove-but think himself very well off as a sort of scullion-Mercury or even a humble-bee. It is no matter whether I am right or wrong either one way or another, if there is sufficient to lift a little time from your shoulders Your affectionate friend JOHN KEATS. XXXVIII.-TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS. Hampstead, Saturday [February 21, 1818]. My dear Brothers-I am extremely sorry to have given you so much uneasiness by not writing; however, you know good news is no news or vice versa. I do not like to write a short letter to you, or you would have had one long before. The weather although boisterous to-day has been very much milder; and I think Devonshire is not the last place to receive a temperate Change. I have been abominably idle since you left, but have just turned over a new leaf, and used as a marker a letter of excuse to an invitation from Horace Smith. The occasion of my writing to-day is the enclosed letter-by Postmark from Miss W- 1 Does she expect you in town George? I received a letter the other day from Haydon, in which he says, his Essays on the Elgin Marbles are being translated into Italian, the which he superintends. I did not 1 Georgiana Wylie, to whom George Keats was engaged. |