letters in a hotbed. I could not feel comfortable in making sentences for you. I am your debtor; I must ever remain so; nor do I wish to be clear of my rational debt there is a comfort in throwing oneself on the charity of one's friends-'tis like the albatross sleeping on its wings. I will be to you wine in the cellar, and the more modestly, or rather, indolently, I retire into the backward bin, the more Falerne will I be at the drinking. There is one thing I must mention: my brother talks of sailing in a fortnight; if so, I will most probably be with you a week before I set out for Scotland. The middle of your first page should be sufficient to rouse me. What I said is true, and I have dreamt of your mention of it, and my not answering it has weighed on me since. If I come, I will bring your letter, and hear more fully your sentiments on one or two points. I will call about the Lectures at Taylor's, and at Little Britain, to-morrow. Yesterday I dined with Hazlitt, Barnes, and Wilkie, at Haydon's. The topic was the Duke of Wellingtonvery amusingly pro-and-con'd. Reynolds has been getting much better; and Rice may begin to crow, for he got a little so-so at a party of his, and was none the worse for it the next morning. I hope I shall soon see you, for we must have many new thoughts and feelings to analyse, and to discover whether a little more knowledge has not made us more ignorant. Yours affectionately John Keats XLVIII. To BENJAMIN BAILEY. London, My dear Bailey, 10 June 1818. I have been very much gratified and very much hurt by your letters in the Oxford Paper; because, independent of that unlawful and mortal feeling of pleasure at praise, there is a glory in enthusiasm ; and because the world is malignant enough to chuckle at the most honourable simplicity. Yes, on my soul, my dear Bailey, you are too simple for the world, and that idea makes me sick of it. How is it that, by extreme opposites, we have, as it were, got discontented nerves? You have all your life (I think so) believed everybody. I have suspected everybody. And, although you have been so deceived, you make a simple appeal. The world has something else to do, and I am glad of it. Were it in my choice, I would reject a Petrarchal coronation-on account of my dying day, and because women have cancers. I should not, by rights, speak in this tone to you, for it is an incendiary spirit that would do so. Yet I am not old enough or magnanimous enough to annihilate self-and it would, perhaps, be paying you an ill compliment. I was in hopes, some little time back, to be able to relieve your dulness by my spirits-to point out things in the world worth your enjoyment-and now I am never alone without rejoicing that there is such a thing as deathwithout placing my ultimate in the glory of dying for a great human purpose. Perhaps if my affairs were in a different state I should not have written the above-you shall judge: I have two brothers; one is driven, by the "burden of society," to America; the other, with an exquisite love of life, is in a lingering state. My love for my brothers, from the early loss of our parents, and even from earlier misfortunes, has grown into an affection, passing the love of women." I have been ill-tempered with them, I have vexed them, but the thought of them has always stifled the impression that any woman might otherwise have made upon me. I have a sister too; and may not follow them either to America or to the grave. Life must be undergone; and I certainly derive some consolation from the thought of writing one or two more poems before it ceases. I have heard some hints of your retiring to Scotland. I should like to know your feeling on it: it seems rather remote. Perhaps Gleig will have a duty near you. I am not certain whether I shall be able to go any journey, on account of my brother Tom and a little indisposition of my own. If I do not, you shall see me soon, if not on my return, or I'll quarter myself on you next winter. I had known my sister-in-law some time before she was my sister, and was very fond of her. I like her better and better. She is the most disinterested woman I ever knew that is to say, she goes beyond degree in it. To see an entirely disinterested girl quite happy is the most pleasant and extraordinary thing in the world. It depends upon a thousand circumstances. On my word it is extraordinary. Women must want imagination, and they may thank God for it; and so may we, that a delicate being can feel happy without any sense of crime. It puzzles me, and I have no sort of logic to comfort me: I shall think it over. I am not at home, and your letter being there I cannot look it over to answer any particular-only, I must say I feel that passage of Dante. If I take any book with me it shall be those minute volumes of Carey, for they will go into the aptest corner. Reynolds is getting, I may say, robust. His illness. has been of service to him. Like every one just recovered, he is high-spirited. I hear also good accounts of Rice. With respect to domestic literature, the "Edinburgh Magazine," in another blow-up against Hunt, calls me "the amiable Mister Keats," and I have more than a laurel from the "Quarterly Reviewers," for they have smothered me in "Foliage." I want to read you my "Pot of Basil." If you go to Scotland, I should much like to read it there to you, among the snows of next winter. My brother's remembrances to you. Your affectionate friend John Keats Number 36 of The Quarterly Review, published in June 1818, contained a review of the volume of Poems just then issued by Leigh Hunt under the title of Foliage; and the "other blow-up" was one of the series of articles on the "Cockney School," which was appearing in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Keats is not expressly mentioned in the Quarterly article; but there are covert references both to him and to Shelley-indicating that the shameful articles on Laon and Cythna and Endymion were probably already in contemplation. As to "Carey," see foot-note at page 197 of the present volume. XLIX. To THOMAS KEATS. Keswick, My dear Tom, June 29 [1818]. I cannot make my journal as distinct and actual as I could wish, from having been engaged in writing to George, and therefore I must tell you, without circumstance, that we proceeded from Ambleside to Rydal, saw the waterfalls there, and called on Wordsworth, who was not at home, nor was any one of his family. I wrote a note and left it on the mantel-piece. Thence, on we came to the foot of Helvellyn, where we slept, but could not ascend it for the mist. I must mention that from Rydal we passed Thirlswater, and a fine pass in the mountains. From Helvellyn we came to Keswick on Derwent Water. The approach to Derwent Water surpassed Windermere: it is richly wooded, and shut in with richtoned mountains. From Helvellyn to Keswick was eight miles to breakfast, after which we took a complete circuit Lord Houghton makes the following observations before the letters from the North published by his Lordship :-" The agreeable diversion to his somewhat monotonous life by a walking-tour through the Lakes and Highlands with his friend Mr. Brown, was now put into execution. They set off in the middle of June for Liverpool, where they parted with George Keats, who embarked with his wife for America. On the road he stopped to see a former fellow-student at Guy's, who was settled as a surgeon in a country town, and whom he informed that he had definitely abandoned that profession and intended to devote himself to poetry. Mr. Stephens remembers that he seemed much delighted with his new sister-in-law, who was a person of most agreeable appearance, and introduced her with evident satisfaction. From Lancaster they started on foot, and |