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box to practise them in by myself. I think I had better always pay the postage of these Letters. I shall send you another book the first time I am in Town early enough to book it with one of the morning Walthamstow Coaches. You did not say a word about your Chilblains. Write me directly and let me know about them-Your Letter shall be answered like an echo.

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I have been employed lately in writing to George -I do not send him very short letters, but keep on day after day. There were some young Men I think I told you of who were going to the Settlement: they have changed their minds, and I am disappointed in my expectation of sending Letters by them.-I went lately to the only dance I have been to these twelve months or shall go to for twelve months again-it was to our Brother in laws' cousin's-She gave a dance for her Birthday and I went for the sake of Mrs. Wylie. I am waiting every day to hear from George-I trust there is no harm in the silence: other people are in the same expectation as we are. On looking at your seal I cannot tell whether it is done or not with a Tassi[e]'—it seems

1 Tassie's imitation gems were very popular in Keats's set. Shelley (Prose Works, Volume IV, page 198) writes to Peacock to go

to me to be paste. As I went through Leicester Square lately I was going to call and buy you some, but not knowing but you might have some I would not run the chance of buying duplicates. Tell me if you have any or if you would like any-and whether you would rather have motto ones like that with which I seal this letter; or heads of great Men such as Shakspeare, Milton &c.-or fancy pieces of Art; such as Fame, Adonis &c.-those gentry you read of at the end of the English Dictionary. Tell me also if you want any particular Book; or Pencils, or drawing paper-anything but live stock. Though I will not now be very severe on it, remembering how fond I used to be of Goldfinches, Tomtits, Minnows, Mice, Ticklebacks, Dace, Cock salmons and all the whole tribe of the Bushes and the Brooks: but verily they are better in the Trees and the water-though I must confess even now a partiality for a handsome Globe of gold-fish-then I would have it hold 10 pails of water and be fed continually fresh through a cool pipe with another pipe to let through the floor-well ventilated they would preserve all their beautiful silver and Crimson. Then I would put it before a handsome painted window and shade it all round with myrtles and Japonicas. I should like the window to open onto the Lake of Geneva-and there I'd sit and read all day like the picture of somebody reading. The weather now and then begins to feel like spring; and therefore I have begun my walks on the heath again. Mrs. Dilke is getting better than she has. been as she has at length taken a Physician's advice. She ever and anon asks after you and always bids me

to Leicester Square and get him two pounds' worth," among them, the head of Alexander"; and Hunt has a laudatory article on them in one of his publications.

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remember her in my Letters to you. She is going to leave Hampstead for the sake of educating their son Charles at the Westminster school. We (Mr. Brown and I) shall leave in the beginning of May; I do not know what I shall do or where be all the next summer. Mrs. Reynolds has had a sick house; but they are all well now. You see what news I can send you I do-we all live one day like the other as well as you do—the only difference is being sick and well-with the variations of single and double knocks, and the story of a dreadful fire in the Newspapers. I mentioned Mr. Brown's name -yet I do not think I ever said a word about him to you. He is a friend of mine of two years standing, with whom I walked through Scotland: who has been very kind to me in many things when I most wanted his assistance and with whom I keep house till the first of May-you will know him some day. The name of the young Man who came with me is William Haslam. Ever,

Your affectionate Brother
John.

LXXXIX.

To FANNY KEATS.

Rd. Abbey's Esq.,

Pancras Lane, Queen Street.

My dear Fanny,

[Postmark, Hampstead, 24 March 1819.]

It is impossible for me to call on you to day-for I have particular Business at the other end of the Town this morning, and must be back to Hampstead with all speed to keep a long agreed on appointment. Tomorrow I shall see you.

Your affectionate Brother

XC.

To JOSEPH SEVERN.

19 Frederick Place,

Goswell Street Road.

John

Wentworth Place

Monday-af1.

My dear Severn,

Your note gave me some pain, not on my own account, but on yours. Of course I should never suffer any petty vanity of mine to hinder you in any wise; and therefore I should say 'put the miniature in the exhibi

(xc) The subject of this letter places it before the Royal Academy exhibition of 1819, in which both the portrait of Keats and the picture of "Hermia and Helena" figured. Probably the last Monday in

tion' if only myself was to be hurt. But, will it not hurt you? What good can it do to any future picture. Even a large picture is lost in that canting place—what a drop of water in the ocean is a Miniature. Those who might chance to see it for the most part if they had ever heard of either of us and know what we were and of what years would laugh at the puff of the one and the vanity of the other. I am however in these matters a very bad judge -and would advise you to act in a way that appears to yourself the best for your interest. As your Hermia and Helena is finished send that without the prologue of a Miniature. I shall see you soon, if you do not pay me a visit sooner there's a Bull for you.

Yours ever sincerely
John Keats -

March (the 29th) would not be far from the date: indeed the letter bears an imperfect postmark in which 29 appears to be the figure for the day; and the 29th of March is the only feasible 29th that was a Monday. Severn's profession at that time was that of a miniature painter; and, as "The Cave of Despair" was only his second attempt at oil-painting, it follows that "Hermia and Helena" was his first. It figured in the Academy catalogue as Number 267, with a quotation from A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act III, Scene II, lines 203-11 :—

We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition ;

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem ;...

The portrait of Keats was Number 940 in the catalogue.

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