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cold in me, not to put it to the account of heartlessness, but abstraction; for I assure you I sometimes feel not the influence of a passion or affection during a whole week; and so long this sometimes continues, I begin to suspect myself, and the genuineness of my feelings at other times, thinking them a few barren tragedy-tears.

My brother Tom is much improved-he is going to Devonshire-whither I shall follow him. At present, I am just arrived at Dorking, to change the scene, change the air, and give me a spur to wind up my poem, of which there are wanting 500 lines. I should have been here a day sooner, but the Reynoldses persuaded me to stop in town to meet your friend Christie.' There were Rice and Martin. We talked about ghosts. I will have some talk with Taylor, and let you know when, please God, I come down at Christmas. I will find the "Examiner," if possible. My best regards to Gleig, my brothers, to you, and Mrs. Bentley.

Your affectionate friend,

John Keats.

I want to say much more to you-a few hints will set me going.

1 Mr. Dilke notes- 66 This Christie was I think Lockhart's friend -who was unhappily drawn into Lockhart's quarrel with John Scott and killed him. Strange that this quarrel and the consequent loss of life of Scott, the Editor of the London Magazine, is not once alluded to [in the Life, Letters &c.], although the quarrel originated in the attack on Lockhart as the writer of the articles on the Cockney School, or as Editor of Blackwood. Christie I had met before and have since the duel: and he appeared to be a mild amiable man."

XXI.

To BENJAMIN BAILEY.

My dear Bailey,

[No Date.]

For this fortnight
Saturday evening

So you have got a Curacy-good, but I suppose you will be obliged to stop among your Oxford favourites during Term time. Never mind. When do you preach your first sermon ?—tell me, for I shall propose to the two R.'s to hear it, so don't look into any of the old corner oaken pews, for fear of being put out by us. Poor Johnny Moultrie can't be there. He is ill, I expect—but that's neither here nor there. All I can say, I wish him as well through it as I am like to be. I have been confined at Hampstead. was my first day in town, when I went to Rice's, as we intend to do every Saturday till we know not when. We hit upon an old gent we had known some few years ago, and had a veiry pleasante daye. In this world there is no quiet,—nothing but teazing and snubbing and vexation. My brother Tom looked very unwell yesterday, and I am for shipping him off to Lisbon. Perhaps I ship there with him. I have not seen Mrs. Reynolds since I left you, wherefore my conscience smites me. I think of seeing her to-morrow; have you any message? I hope Gleig came soon after I left. I don't suppose I've

2

1 Lord Houghton has as in place of do, which I have substituted on the ground that the two words are often alike in Keats's writing, and do makes the better sense.

2 The Rev. George Robert Gleig, author of The Subaltern, and many other well-known works, and until recently Chaplain General of the Forces.

written as many lines as you have read volumes, or at least chapters, since I saw you. However, I am in a fair way now to come to a conclusion in at least three weeks, when I assure you I shall be glad to dismount for a month or two; although I'll keep as tight a rein as possible till then, nor suffer myself to sleep. I will copy for you the opening of the Fourth Book, in which you will see from the manner I had not an opportunity of mentioning any poets, for fear of spoiling the effect of the passage by particularizing them.

Thus far had I written when I received your last, which made me at the sight of the direction caper for despair; but for one thing I am glad that I have been neglectful, and that is, therefrom I have received a proof of your utmost kindness, which at this present I feel very much, and I wish I had a heart always open to such sensations; but there is no altering a man's nature, and mine must be radically wrong, for it will lie dormant a whole month. This leads me to suppose that there are no men thoroughly wicked, so as never to be self-spiritualized into a kind of sublime misery; but, alas! 'tis but for an hour. He is the only Man "who has kept watch on man's mortality," who has philanthropy enough to overcome the disposition to an indolent enjoyment of intellect, who is brave enough to volunteer for uncomfortable hours. You remember in Hazlitt's essay on commonplace people he says, "they read the Edinburgh and Quarterly, and think as they do." Now, with respect to Wordsworth's "Gipsy," I think he is right, and yet I think Hazlitt is right, and yet I think Wordsworth is rightest. If Wordsworth had not been idle, he had not been without his task; nor had the "Gipsies "—they in the visible world had been as picturesque an object as he in the invisible. The smoke of their fire, their attitudes,

their voices, were all in harmony with the evenings. It is a bold thing to say-and I would not say it in printbut it seems to me that if Wordsworth had thought a little deeper at that moment, he would not have written the poem at all. I should judge it to have been written in one of the most comfortable moods of his life-it is a kind of sketchy intellectual landscape, not a search after truth, nor is it fair to attack him on such a subject; for it is with the critic as with the poet; had Hazlitt thought a little deeper, and been in a good temper, he would never have spied out imaginary faults there. The Sunday before last I asked Haydon to dine with me, when I thought of settling all matters with him in regard to Cripps, and let you know about it. Now, although I engaged him a fortnight before, he sent illness as an excuse. He never will come. I have not been well enough to stand the chance of a wet night, and so have not seen him, nor been able to expurgatorize more masks for you; but I will not speak-your speakers are never doers. Then Reynolds,-every time I see him and mention you, he puts his hand to his head and looks like a son of Niobe's; but he'll write soon. Rome, you know, was not built in a day. I shall be able, by a little perseverance, to read your letters off-hand. I am afraid your health will suffer from over study before your examination. I think you might regulate the thing according to your own pleasure,—and I would too. They were talking of your being up at Christmas. Will it be before you have passed? There is nothing, my dear Bailey, I should rejoice at more than to see you comfortable with a little Pæona wife; an affectionate wife, I have a sort of confidence, would do you a great happiness. May that be one of the many blessings I wish you. Let me be but the one-tenth of one to you, and I shall think it great.

My brother George's kindest wishes to you. My dear Bailey, I am,

Your affectionate friend,

John Keats.

I should not like to be pages in your way; when in a tolerable hungry mood you have no mercy. Your teeth are the Rock Tarpeian down which you capsize epic poems like mad. I would not for forty shillings be Coleridge's Lays in your way. I hope you will soon get through this abominable writing in the schools, and be able to keep the terms with more comfort in the hope of retiring to a comfortable and quiet home out of the way of all Hopkinses and black beetles. When you are settled, I will come and take a peep at your church, your house; try whether I shall have grown too lusty for my chair by the fireside, and take a peep at my earliest bower. A question is the best beacon towards a little speculation. Then ask me after my health and spirits. This question ratifies in my mind what I have said above. Health and spirits can only belong unalloyed to the selfish man-the man who thinks much of his fellows can never be in spirits. You must forgive, although I have only written three hundred lines; they would have been five, but I have been obliged to go to town. Yesterday I called at Lamb's. St. Jane looked very flush when I first looked in, but was much better before I left.

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