ment; some are good and some bad. Last Sunday I took a Walk towards Highgate and in the lane that winds by the side of Lord Mansfield's park I met Mr. Green our Demonstrator at Guy's in conversation with Coleridge - I joined them, after enquiring by a look whether it would be agreeable I walked with him at his alderman-after-dinner pace for near two miles I suppose. In those two Miles he broached a thousand things - let me see if I can give you a list Nightingales -Poetry-on Poetical Sensation - Metaphysics - Different genera and species of Dreams - Nightmare a dream accom It looks so much like rain I shall not go to town to-day: but put it off till to-morrow. Brown this morning is writing some Spenserian stanzas against Mrs., Miss Brawne and me; so I shall amuse myself with him a little in the manner of Spenser ['He is to weet a melancholy Carle,' p. 250.] This character would ensure him a situation in the establishment of patient Griselda. The servant has come for the little Browns this morning — they have been a toothache to me which I shall enjoy the riddance of Their little voices are like wasps' stings-Sometimes am I all wound with Browns.49 We had a claret feast some little while ago. There were Dilke, Reynolds, Skinner, Mancur, John Brown, I have been looking over the correspondence of the pretended Amena and Wells this evening I now see the whole cruel deception. I think Wells must have had an accomplice in it — Amena's letters are in a Man's language and in a Man's hand imitating a woman's. The instigations to this diabolical scheme were vanity, and the love of intrigue. It was no thoughtless hoax-but a cruel deception on a sanguine Temperament, with every show of friendship. I do not think death too bad for the villain. The world would look upon it in a different light should I expose it - they would call it a frolic so I must be wary but I consider it my duty to be prudently revengeful. I will hang over his head like a sword by a hair. I will be opium to his vanity if I cannot injure his interests He is a rat and he shall have ratsbane to his vanity- I will harm him all I possibly can-I have no doubt I shall be able to do Let us leave him to his misery alone, except when we can throw in a little more. The fifth canto of Dante pleases me more and more it is that one in which he meets with Paolo and Francesca. I had passed many days in rather a low state of mind, and in the midst of them I dreamt of being in that region of Hell. The dream was one of the most delightful enjoyments I ever had in my life. I floated about the whirling atmosphere, as it is described, with a beautiful figure, to whose lips mine were joined as it seemed for an age- and in the midst of all this cold and darkness I was warm - even flowery tree-tops sprung up, and we rested on them, sometimes with the lightness of a cloud, till the wind blew us away again. I tried a sonnet upon it - there are fourteen lines, but nothing of what I felt in it-O that I could dream it every night ['As Hermes once took to his feathers light,' p. 138.] -- I want very very much a little of your wit, my dear Sister- a Letter or two of yours just to bandy back a pun or two across the Atlantic, and send a quibble over the Floridas. Now you have by this time crumpled up your large Bonnet, what do you wear a cap? do you put your hair in papers of a night? do you pay the Miss Birkbecks a morning visit — have you any tea? or do you milk-and-water with them What place of Worship do you go to the Quakers, the Moravians, the Unitarians, or the Methodists? Are there any flowers in bloom you like any beautiful heaths any streets full of Corset Makers? What sort of shoes have you to fit those pretty feet of yours? Do you desire Compliments to one another? Do you ride on Horseback? What do you have for breakfast, dinner, and supper? without mentioning lunch and bever [a bite between meals] and wet and snack — and a bit to stay one's stomach? Do you get any Spirits now you might easily distill some whiskey and going into the woods, set up a whiskey shop for the Monkeys Do you and the Miss Birkbecks get groggy on anything -a little so-soish so as to be obliged to be seen home with a Lantern? You may perhaps have a game at puss in the corner Ladies are warranted to play at this game though they have not whiskers. Have you a fiddle in the Settlement at any rate a Jew's harp - which will play in spite of one's teeth- When you have nothing else to do for a whole day I tell you how you may employ it — First get up and when you are dressed, as it would be pretty early with a high wind in the woods, give George a cold Pig with my Compliments. Then you may saunter into the nearest coffee-house, and after taking a dram and a look at the Chronicle-go and frighten the wild boars upon the strength - you may as well bring one home for breakfast, serving up the hoofs garnished or are both set down to breakfast I advise you to eat your full share, but leave off immediately on feeling yourself inclined to anything on the other side of the puffy — avoid that, for it does not become young women-After you have eaten your breakfast keep your eye upon dinner - it is the safest way - You should keep a Hawk's eye over your dinner and keep hovering over it till due time then pounce taking care not to break any plates. While you are hovering with your dinner in prospect you may do a thousand things — put a hedgehog into George's hat — pour a little water into his rifle - soak his boots in a pail of water cut his jacket round into shreds like a Roman kilt or the back of my grandmother's stays-Sew off his buttons [Later, April 21 or 22.] Yesterday I could not write a line I was so fatigued, for the day before I went to town in the morning, called on your Mother, and returned in time for a few friends we had to dinner. These were Taylor, Woodhouse, Reynolds: we began cards at about 9 o'clock, and the night coming on, and continuing dark and rainy, they could not think of returning to town So we played at Cards till very daylight — and yesterday I was not worth a sixpence. Your Mother was very well but anxious for a Letter. We had half an hour's talk and no more, for I was obliged to be home. Mrs. and Miss Millar were well, and so was Miss Waldegrave. I have asked your Brothers here for next Sunday. When Reynolds was here on Monday he asked me to give Hunt a hint to take notice of his Peter Bell in the Examiner -the best thing I can do is to write a little notice of it myself, which I will do here, and copy out if it should suit my Purpose Peter Bell. There have been lately ad vertised two Books both Peter Bell by name; what stuff the one was made of might be seen by the motto 'I am the real Simon Pure.' This false Florimel has hurried from the press and obtruded herself into public notice, while for aught we know the real one may be still wandering about the woods and mountains. Let us hope she may soon appear and make good her right to the magic girdle. The Pamphleteering Archimage, we can perceive, has rather a splenetic love than a downright hatred to real Florimels-if indeed they had been so christened - or had even a pretention to play at bob cherry with Barbara Lewthwaite : but he has a fixed aversion to those three rhyming Graces Alice Fell, Susan Gale and Betty Foy; and now at length especially to Peter Bellfit Apollo. It may be seen from one or two Passages in this little skit, that the writer of it has felt the finer parts of Mr. Wordsworth, and perhaps expatiated with his more remote and sublimer muse. This as far as it relates to Peter Bell is unlucky. The more he may love the sad embroidery of the Excursion, the more he will hate the coarse Samplers of Betty Foy and Alice Fell; and as they come from the same hand, the better will he be able to imitate that which can be imitated, to wit Peter Bell as far as can be imagined from the obstinate Name. We repeat, it is very unlucky - this real Simon Pure is in parts the very Man - there is a pernicious likeness in the scenery, a 'pestilent humour' in the rhymes, and an inveterate cadence in some of the Stanzas, that must be lamented. If we are one part amused with this we are three parts sorry that an appreciator of Wordsworth should show so much temper at this really provoking name of Peter Bell-! Examiner — I meant to say I do not unsuit it and I believe I think what I say, nay I am sure I do—I and my conscience are in luck to-day - which is an excellent thing. The other night I went to the Play with Rice, Reynolds, and Martin — we saw a new dull and half-damn'd opera call'd the Heart of Midlothian,' that was on Saturday I stopt at Taylor's on Sunday with Woodhouse — and passed a quiet sort of pleasant day. I have been very much pleased with the Panorama of the Ship at the North Pole - with the icebergs, the Mountains, the Bears, the Wolves - the seals, the Penguins - and a large whale floating back above water—it is impossible to describe the place — Wednesday Evening [April 28]. [Here follows the poem for which see p. 139. The eighth stanza reads: She took me to her elfin grot And there she wept and sigh'd full sore, Why four kisses - you will say - why four, because I wish to restrain the head long impetuosity of my Muse she would have fain said 'score' without hurting the rhyme-but we must temper the Imagination, as the Critics say, with Judgment. I was obliged to choose an even number, that both eyes might have fair play, and to speak truly I think two a piece quite sufficient. Suppose I had said seven there would have been three and a half a piece - a very awkward affair, and well got out of on my side [Later.] CHORUS OF FAIRIES. 4- FIRE, AIR, EARTH, AND WATER SALAMANDER, ZEPHYR, DUSKETHA, BREAMA. [Keats here copies the verses given on pp. 140, 141.] I have been reading lately two very different books, Robertson's America and Voltaire's Siècle de Louis XIV. It is like walking arm and arm between Pizarro and the great-little Monarch. In how lamentable a case do we see the great body of the people in both instances; in the first, where Men might seem to inherit quiet of Mind from unsophisticated senses; from uncontamination of civilisation, and especially from their being, as it were, estranged from the mutual helps of Society and its mutual injuries-and thereby more immediately under the Protection of Providence even there they had mortal pains to bear as bad, or even worse than Bailiffs, Debts, and Poverties of civilised Life. The whole appears to resolve into this that Man is originally a poor forked creature subject to the same mischances as the beasts of the forest, destined to hardships and disquietude of some kind or other. If he improves by degrees his bodily accommodations and comfortsat each stage, at each ascent there are waiting for him a fresh set of annoyances he is mortal, and there is still a heaven with its Stars above his head. The most interesting question that can come before us is, How far by the persevering endeavours of a seldom appearing Socrates Mankind may be made happy I can imagine such happiness carried to an extreme, but what must it end in? Death- and who could in such a case bear with death? The whole troubles of life, which are now frittered away in a series of years, would then be accumulated for the last days of a being who instead of hailing its approach would leave this world as Eve left Paradise. But in truth I do not at all believe in this sort of perfectibility the nature of the world will not admit of it-the inhabitants of the world will correspond to itself. Let the fish Philosophise the ice away from the Rivers in winter time, and they shall be at continual play in the tepid delight of sumLook at the Poles and at the Sands of Africa, whirlpools and volcanoes Let men exterminate them and I will say that they may arrive at earthly Happiness. The mer. point at which Man may arrive is as far as the parallel state in inanimate nature, and no further. For instance suppose a rose to have sensation, it blooms on a beautiful morning, it enjoys itself, but then comes a cold wind, a hot sun it cannot escape it, it cannot destroy its annoyances - they are as native to the world as itself: no more can man be happy in spite, the worldly elements will prey upon his nature. The common cognomen of this world among the misguided and superstitious is 'a vale of tears,' from which we are to be redeemed by a certain arbitrary interposition of God and taken to Heaven- What a little circumscribed straightened notion ! Call the world if you please 'The vale of Soulmaking.' Then you will find out the use of the world (I am speaking now in the highest terms for human nature admitting it to be immortal which I will here take for granted for the purpose of showing a thought which has struck me concerning it) I say 'Soulmaking' - Soul as distinguished from an Intelligence. There may be intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself. Intelligences are atoms of perception they know and they see and they are pure, in short they are God how then are Souls to be made? How then are these sparks which are God to have identity given them as ever to possess a bliss peculiar to each one's individual existence? How, but by the medium of a world like this? This point I sincerely wish to consider because I think it a grander system of salvation than the Christian religion or rather it is a system of Spirit-creation - This is effected by three grand materials acting the one upon the other for a series of years These three Materials are the Intelligence SO the human heart (as distinguished from intelligence or Mind), and the World or Elemental space suited for the proper action of Mind and Heart on each other for the purpose of forming the Soul or Intelligence destined to possess the sense of Identity. I can scarcely express what I but dimly perceive and yet I think I perceive it that you may judge the more clearly I will put it in the most homely form possible. I will call the world a School instituted for the purpose of teaching little children to read - I will call the human heart the horn Book used in that School and I will call the Child able to read, the Soul made from that School and its horn book. Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and - must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways. Not merely is the Heart a Hornbook, It is the Mind's Bible, it is the Mind's experience, it is the text from which the Mind or Intelligence sucks its identity. As various as the Lives of Men are - so various become their souls, and thus does God make individual beings, Souls, Identical Souls of the sparks of his own essence. This appears to me a faint sketch of a system of Salvation which does not offend our reason and humanity I am convinced that many difficulties which Christians labour under would vanish before it - there is one which even now strikes me - the salvation of Children. In them the spark or intelligence returns to God without any identity - it having had no time to learn of and be altered by the heart or seat of the human Passions. It is pretty generally suspected that the Christian scheme has been copied from the ancient Persian and Greek Philosophers. Why may they not have made this simple thing even more simple for common apprehension by introducing Mediators and Personages, in the same manner as in the heathen mythology abstractions are personified? Seriously I think it probable that this system of Soul-making may have been the Parent of all the more palpable and personal schemes of Redemption among the Zoroastrians the Christians and the Hindoos. For as one part of the human species must have their carved Jupiter; so another part must have the palpable and named Mediator and Saviour, their Christ, their Oromanes, and their Vishnu. If what I have said should not be plain enough, as I fear it may not be, I will put you in the place where I began in this series of thoughts - I mean I began by seeing how man was formed by circumstances and what are circumstances but touchstones of his heart? and what are touchstones but provings of his heart, but fortifiers or alterers of his nature? and what is his altered nature but his Soul? — and his altered, a soul before it out into the world and had these provings and alterations and perfectionings ? — An intelligence without Identity—and how is this Identity to be made? Through the medium of the Heart? and how is the heart to become this Medium but in a world of Circumstances? There now I think what with Poetry and Theology, you may thank your stars that my pen is not very long-winded. Yesterday I received two Letters from your Mother and Henry, which I shall send by young Birkbeck with this. Friday, April 30. Brown has been here rummaging up some of my old sins that is to say sonnets. I do not think you remember them, so I will copy them out, as well as two or three lately written. I have just written one on Fame which Brown is transcribing and he has his book and mine. I must employ myself perhaps in a sonnet on the same subject. — [Here are given the two sonnets on Fame, and the one To Sleep, p. 142.] The following Poem- the last I have written is the first and the only one with which I have taken even moderate pains. I have for the most part dash'd off my lines in a hurry. This I have done leisurelyI think it reads the more richly for it, and will I hope encourage me to write other things in even a more peaceable and healthy spirit. You must recollect that Psyche was |