be נור much used by the bucks of the present day to rap their boots withal. This account made me very naturally suppose that the nettles and thorns etherealised by the scholar's rotatory motion, and garnered in his head, thence flew after a process of fermentation against the luckless Salmasius and occasioned his well-known and unhappy end. What a happy thing it would be if we could settle our thoughts and make our minds up on any matter in five minutes, and remain content—that is, build a sort of mental cottage of feelings, quiet and pleasantto have a sort of Philosophical back-garden, and cheerful holiday-keeping front one-but alas! this never can be: for as the material cottager knows there are such places as France and Italy, and the Andes and burning mountains, so the spiritual Cottager has knowledge of the terra semi-incognita of things unearthly, and cannot for his life keep in the check-rein-or I should stop here quiet and comfortable in my theory of nettles. You will see, however, I am obliged to run wild being attracted by the load-stone concatenation. No sooner had I settled the knotty point of Salmasius, than the Devil put this whim into my head in the likeness of one of Pythagoras's questionings-Did Milton do more good or harm in the world? He wrote, let me inform you (for I have it from a friend, who had it of,) he wrote Lycidas, Comus, Paradise Lost and other Poems, with much delectable prose-He was moreover an active friend to man all his life, and has been since his death.-Very good-but, my dear Fellow, I must let you know that, as there is ever the same quantity of matter constituting this habitable globe-as the ocean notwithstanding the enormous changes and revolutions taking place in some or other of its demesnes-notwithstanding Waterspouts whirlpools and mighty rivers emptying themselves into it still is made up of the same bulk, nor ever varies the number of its atoms-and as a certain bulk of water was instituted at the creation-so very likely a certain portion of intellect was spun forth into the thin air, for You will see my the brains of man to prey upon it. That which is contained in the Pacific could not lie in the hollow of the Caspian-that which was in Milton's head could not find room in Charles the Second's-He like a Moon attracted intellect to its flow—it has not ebbed yet, but has left the shore-pebbles all bare-I mean all Bucks, Authors of Hengist, and Castlereaghs of the present day; who without Milton's gormandising might have been all wise men-Now forasmuch as I was very predisposed to a country I had heard you speak so highly of, I took particular notice of everything during my journey, and have bought some folio asses' skins for memorandums. I have seen everything but the wind-and that, they say, becomes visible by taking a dose of acorns, or sleeping one night in a hog-trough, with your tail to the SowSow-West. Some of the little Bar-maids look'd at me as if I knew Jem Rice. . . . Well, I can't tell! I hope you are showing poor Reynolds the way to get well. Send me a good account of him, and if I can, I'll send you one of Tom-Oh! for a day and all well! I went yesterday to Dawlish fair. Over the Hill and over the Dale, And over the Bourne to Dawlish, Where ginger-bread wives have a scanty sale, Tom's remembrances and mine to you all. JOHN KEATS. XLVI.-TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS. [Teignmouth, March 25, 1818.] My dear Reynolds-In hopes of cheering you through a Minute or two, I was determined will he nill he to send you some lines, so you will excuse the unconnected subject and careless verse. You know, I am sure, wish you may be The Rain is come Claude's Enchanted Castle,1 and I pleased with my remembrance of it. on again I think with me Devonshire stands a very poor chance. I shall damn it up hill and down dale, if it keep up to the average of six fine days in three weeks. Let me have better news of you. Tom's remembrances to you. Remember us to all. JOHN KEATS. Dear Reynolds! as last night I lay in bed, Things all disjointed come from north and south,— Old Socrates a-tying his cravat, And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth's cat; Few are there who escape these visitings,- The sacrifice goes on; the pontiff knife A white sail shows above the green-head cliff, 1 The famous picture now belonging to Lady Wantage, and exhibited at Burlington House in 1888. Whether Keats ever saw the original is doubtful (it was not shown at the British Institution in his time), but he must have been familiar with the subject as engraved by Vivarès and Woollett, and its suggestive power worked in his mind until it yielded at last the distilled poetic essence of the "magic casement" passage in the Ode to a Nightingale. It is interesting to note the theme of the Grecian Urn ode coming in also amidst the "unconnected subject and careless verse" of this rhymed epistle. Moves round the point, and throws her anchor stiff; The mariners join hymn with those on land. You know the Enchanted Castle,-it doth stand Upon a rock, on the border of a Lake, Nested in trees, which all do seem to shake From some old magic-like Urganda's Sword. O Phoebus! that I had thy sacred word To show this Castle, in fair dreaming wise, Unto my friend, while sick and ill he lies! You know it well enough, where it doth seem To smiles and frowns; they seem a lifted mound Part of the Building was a chosen See, Founded with many a mason-devil's groan. The doors all look as if they op'd themselves See! what is coming from the distance dim! A fear in the poor Herdsman, who doth bring O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake, Rather than shadow our own soul's day-time Beyond its proper bound, yet still confin'd, Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw Dear Reynolds ! I have a mysterious tale, And should have been most happy,-but I saw The greater on the less feeds evermore.— Of an eternal fierce destruction, And so from happiness I far was gone. Still am I sick of it, and tho' to-day, I've gather'd young spring-leaves, and flowers gay Of periwinkle and wild strawberry, Still do I that most fierce destruction see, The Shark at savage prey,-the Hawk at pounce,- Moods of one's mind! You know I hate them well. To some Kamtschatkan Missionary Church, Than with these horrid moods be left i' the lurch. |