gotten and found new in a second reading,—which may be food for a week's stroll in the summer?" Do not they like this better than what they can read through before Mrs. Williams comes down stairs?-a morning's work at most. Besides, a long poem is a test of invention, which I take to be the polar star of poetry, as Fancy is the sails, and Imagination the rudder. Did our great poets ever write short pieces? I mean, in the shape of Tales. This same invention seems indeed of late years to have been forgotten as a poetical excellence.' But enough of this— I put on no laurels till I shall have finished "Endymion," and I hope Apollo is not angered at my having made mockery of him at Hunt's. The little mercury I have taken has corrected the poison and improved my health-though I feel from my employment that I shall never again be secure in robustness. Would that you were as well as Your sincere friend and brother, John Keats. 1 If invention were the only thing to desire in a romantic poem, Endymion would probably stand at the head of modern romance poetry, its wealth in that particular being surpassingly great. 2 Speaking of Keats's health during the winter of 1817-18, Lord Houghton says "His health does not seem to have prevented him from indulging somewhat in that dissipation which is the natural outlet for the young energies of ardent temperaments, unconscious how scanty a portion of vital strength had been allotted him; but a strictly regulated and abstinent life would have appeared to him pedantic and sentimental. He did not, however, to any serious extent, allow wine to usurp on his intellect, or games of chance to impair his means, for, in his letters to his brothers, he speaks of having drunk too much as a rare piece of joviality, and of having won 10l. at cards as a great hit." XVII. To BENJAMIN BAILEY. [October, 1817.] There has been a flaming attack upon Hunt in the Edinburgh Magazine." I never read anything so virulent, -accusing him of the greatest crimes, depreciating his wife, his poetry, his habits, his company, his conversation. These philippics are to come out in numbers— called, "The Cockney School of Poetry." There has been but one number published-that on Hunt-to which they have prefixed a motto from one Cornelius Webb, " Poetaster"-who, unfortunately, was of our party occasionally at Hampstead, and took it into his head to write the following something about, "We'll talk on Wordsworth, Byron, a theme we never tire on;" and so forth till he comes to Hunt and Keats. In the motto they have put Lord Houghton gives this passage as the "Outside sheet of a letter to Mr. Bailey," and places it immediately after the letter to Mrs. Wylie at the end of the Scotch series; but it clearly belongs to October 1817, as that is the sole month in which one and only one of the articles on "The Cockney School" had appeared. Mr. Dykes Campbell has a copy of Keats's Poems (1817) with an inscription believed to be in Cornelius Webb's writing :-" This Book was given me by John Keats himself when published in 1817, he living at the time in lodgings near the Poultry of all places in the world for a descriptive poet!" It must have been some nine or ten months after writing the letter to Bailey that Keats received in Scotland the invitation referred to by Lord Houghton in the following passage:-"Some mutual friend had forwarded him an invitation from Messrs. Blackwood, injudiciously adding the suggestion, that it would be very advisable for him to visit the Modern Athens, and endeavour to conciliate his literary enemies in that quarter. The sensibility and moral dignity of Keats were outraged by this pro Hunt and Keats in large letters. I have no doubt that the second number was intended for me, but have hopes of its non-appearance, from the following advertisement in last Sunday's Examiner:-"To Z.-The writer of the article signed Z., in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, for October, 1817, is invited to send his address to the printer of the Examiner, in order that justice may be executed on the proper person." I don't mind the thing much-but if he should go to such lengths with me as he has done with Hunt, I must infallibly call him to an account, if he be a human being, and appears in squares and theatres, where we might "possibly meet." I don't relish his abuse. posal it may be imagined what answer he returned, and also that this circumstance may not have been unconnected with the article on him which appeared in the August number of the 'Edinburgh Magazine,' as part of a series that had commenced the previous year, and concerning which he had already expressed himself freely." Lord Houghton gives Brown as his authority concerning the invitation, but adds "Mr. Robert Blackwood, son of the Mr. Blackwood of that time, thinks the circumstance very improbable, and that Mr. Brown must have been mistaken or misinformed. It does, however, appear that in the July of 1818 Mr. Bailey met, at Bishop Gleig's, in Scotland, a leading contributor to 'Blackwood's Magazine,' with whom he had much conversation respecting Keats, especially about his relations with Leigh Hunt, and Mr. Bailey thought his confidence had been abused." Somebody's confidence was certainly abused in the most open and shameless manner; and why not Mr. Bailey's? The magazine at that time teemed with the frowsy and unsavoury personal gibes of which the possession of "Christopher North" gave it a monopoly. XVIII. To CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. My dear Dilke, [November 1817.] Mrs. Dilke or Mr. Wm. Dilke, whoever of you shall receive this present, have the kindness to send pr. bearer "Sibylline Leaves," and you[r] petitioner shall ever pray as in duty bound. Given under my hand this Wednesday morning of Novr. 1817. Vivant Rex et Regina-amen. John Keats XIX. To JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS. My dear Reynolds, Leatherhead, 22 November 1817. There are two things which teaze me here-one of them 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 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. It will all blow over. God knows, my dear Reynolds, I should not talk any sorrow to you-you must have enough vexation, 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 judge. Why 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, |