Teignmouth, Saturday [March 14, 1818]. DEAR REYNOLDS - I escaped being blown over and blown under and trees and house being toppled on me. I have since hearing of, Brown's accident had an aversion to a dose of parapet, and being also a lover of antiquities I would sooner have a harmless piece of Herculaneum sent me quietly as a present than ever so modern a chimney-pot tumbled on to my head Being agog to see some Devonshire, I would have taken a walk the first day, but the rain would not let me; and the second, but the rain would not let me; and the third, but the rain forbade it. Ditto 4- ditto 5 – ditto - so I made up my Mind to stop indoors, and catch a sight flying between the showers: and, behold I saw a pretty valley -pretty cliffs, pretty Brooks, pretty Meadows, pretty trees, both standing as they were created, and blown down as they are uncreated- The green is beautiful, as they say, and pity it is that it is amphibious mais! but alas! the flowers here wait as naturally for the rain twice a day as the Mussels do for the Tide; so we look upon a brook in these parts as you look upon a splash in your Country. There must be something to support this - aye, fog, hail, snow, rain, Mist blanketing up three parts of the year. This Devonshire is like Lydia Languish, very entertaining when it smiles, but cursedly subject to sympathetic moisture. You have the sensation of walking under one great Lamplighter: and you

can't go on the other side of the ladder to keep your frock clean, and cosset your superstition. Buy a girdle- put a pebble in your mouth - loosen your braces — for I am going among scenery whence I intend to tip you the Damosel Radcliffe — I'll cavern you, and grotto you, and waterfall you, and wood you, and water you, and immense-rock you, and tremendous-sound you, and solitude you. I'll make a lodgment on your glacis by a row of Pines, and storm your covered way with bramble Bushes. I'll have at you with hip and haw small-shot, and cannonade you with Shingles- I'll be witty upon salt-fish, and impede your cavalry with clotted cream. But ah Coward! to talk at this rate to a sick man, or, I hope, to one that was sick - for I hope by this you stand on your right foot. If you are not that's all, I intend to cut all sick people if they do not make up their minds to cut Sickness fellow to whom I have a complete aversion, and who strange to say is harboured and countenanced in several houses where I visit he is sitting now quite impudent between me and Tom-He insults me at poor Jem Rice's — and you have seated him before now between us at the Theatre, when I thought he looked with a longing eye at poor Kean. I shall say, once for all, to my friends generally and severally, cut that fellow, or I cut you

-a

I went to the Theatre here the other night, which I forgot to tell George, and got insulted, which I ought to remember to forget to tell any Body; for I did not fight, and as yet have had no redress 'Lie thou there, sweetheart!' I wrote to Bailey yesterday, obliged to speak in a high way, and a damme who's afraid - for I had owed him so long; however, he shall see I will be better in future. Is he in town yet? I have directed to Oxford as the better chance. I have copied my fourth Book, and shall write the Preface soon. wish it was all done; for I want to forget it and make my mind free for something

I

new

- Atkins the Coachman, Bartlett the Surgeon, Simmons the Barber, and the Girls over at the Bonnetshop, say we shall now have a month of seasonable weather warm, witty, and full of invention - Write to me and tell me that you are well or thereabouts, or by the holy Beaucœur, which I suppose is the Virgin Mary, or the repented Magdalen (beautiful name, that Magdalen), I'll take to my Wings and fly away to anywhere but old or Nova Scotia

- I wish I had a little innocent bit of Metaphysic in my head, to criss-cross the letter: but you know a favourite tune is hardest to be remembered when one wants it most and you, I know, have long ere this taken it for granted that I never have any speculations without associating you in them, where they are of a pleasant nature, and you know enough of me to tell the places where I haunt most, so that if you think for five minutes after having read this, you will find it a long letter, and see written in the Air above you,

Your most affectionate friend

JOHN KEATS. Remember me to all. Tom's remembrances to you.

42. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON

Teignmouth, Saturday Morn [March 21, 1818]. MY DEAR HAYDON- In sooth, I hope you are not too sanguine about that seal 33 - in sooth I hope it is not Brumidgeum in double sooth I hope it is his and in triple sooth I hope I shall have an impression. Such a piece of intelligence came doubly welcome to me while in your own County and in your own hand - not but I have blown up the said County for its urinal qualifications the six first days I was here it did nothing but rain; and at that time having to write to a friend I gave Devonshire a good blowing up-it has been fine for almost three days, and I was coming round a bit; but to-day it rains again with me the County is yet upon its

How does the work go on? I should like to bring out my Dentatus' at the time your Epic makes its appearance. I expect to have my Mind soon clear for something new. Tom has been much worse: but is now getting better- his remembrances to you. I think of seeing the Dart and Plymouth-but I don't know. It has as yet been a Mystery to me how and where Wordsworth went. I can't help thinking he has returned to his Shell with his beautiful Wife and his enchanting Sister. It is a great Pity that People should by associating themselves with the finest things, spoil them. Hunt has damned Hampstead and masks and sonnets and Italian tales. Wordsworth has damned the lakes - Milman has damned the old drama - West has damned wholesale. Peacock has damned satire - Ollier has damn'd Music Hazlitt has damned the bigoted and the blue-stockinged; how durst the Man? he is your only good damner, and if ever I am damn'd - damın me if I should n't like him to damn me. It will not be long ere I see you, but I thought I would just give you a line out of Devon.

Teignmouth, Tuesday [March 24, 1818]. MY DEAR RICE — Being in the midst of your favourite Devon, I should not, by rights, pen one word but it should contain a vast portion of Wit, Wisdom and learning for I have heard that Milton ere he wrote his answer to Salmasius came into these parts, and for one whole month, rolled himself for three whole hours (per day ?), in a certain meadow hard by us where the mark of his nose at equidistances is still shown. The exhibitor of the said meadow further saith, that, after these rollings, not a nettle sprang up in all the seven acres for seven years, and that from the said time, a new sort of plant was made from the whitethorn, of a thornless nature, very 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 pleasant to 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 the brains of man to prey upon it. You will see my drift without any unnecessary parenthesis. 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 intel

lect 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 Sow-Sow-West. Some of the little Bar-maids look'd at me as if I knew Jem Rice, but when I took (cherry?) Brandy they were quite convinced. One asked whether you preserved (?) a secret she gave you on the nail - Another, how many buttons of your coat were buttoned in general. I told her it used to be four - But since you had become acquainted with one Martin you had reduced it to three, and had been turning this third one in your mind and would do so with finger and thumb only you had taken to snuff. I have met with a brace or twain of little Long-heads not a bit o' the German. All in the neatest little dresses, and avoiding all the puddles, but very fond of peppermint drops, laming ducks and ... 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, And ginger-bread nuts are smallish, etc. etc.

Tom's remembrances and mine to you ail. Your sincere friend

JOHN KEATS.

45. 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, Claude's Enchanted Castle,35 and I wish you may be pleased with my remembrance of it. The Rain is come 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.

Your affectionate friend, JOHN Keats. [The letter concludes with the lines given on p. 241.]

46. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON

Wednesday, [Teignmouth, April 8, 1818]. MY DEAR HAYDON-I am glad you were pleased with my nonsense, and if it so happen that the humour takes me when I have set down to prose to you I will not gainsay it. I should be (God forgive me) ready to swear because I cannot make use of your assistance in going through Devon if I was not in my own Mind determined to visit it thoroughly at some more favourable time of the year. But now Tom (who is getting greatly better) is anxious to be in Town-therefore I put off my threading the County. I purpose within a month to put my knapsack at my back and make a pedestrian tour through the North of England, and part of Scotland to make a sort of Prologue to the Life I intend to pursue that is to write, to study and to see all Europe at the lowest expence. I will clamber through the Clouds and exist. I will get such an accumulation of stupendous recollections that as I walk through the suburbs of London I may not see them — I