Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends
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--a 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--
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!"[53] 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. I wish it was all done; for I want to forget it
and make my mind free for something new--Atkins the Coachman, Bartlett the
Surgeon, Simmons the Barber, and the Girls over at the Bonnet-shop, 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 Beaucoeur, 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.
XLIII.--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--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.[54] 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
good behaviour. I have enjoyed the most delightful Walks these three fine
days beautiful enough to make me content.
Here all the summer could I stay,
For there's Bishop's teign
And King's teign
And Coomb at the clear teign head--
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream
All spread upon barley bread.
There's arch Brook
And there's larch Brook
Both turning many a mill;
And cooling the drouth
Of the salmon's mouth,
And fattening his silver gill.
There is Wild wood,
A Mild hood
To the sheep on the lea o' the down,
Where the golden furze,
With its green, thin spurs,
Doth catch at the maiden's gown.
There is Newton marsh
With its spear grass harsh--
A pleasant summer level
Where the maidens sweet
Of the Market Street,
Do meet in the dusk to revel.
There's the Barton rich
With dyke and ditch
And hedge for the thrush to live in
And the hollow tree
For the buzzing bee
And a bank for the wasp to hive in.
And O, and O
The daisies blow
And the primroses are waken'd,
And the violets white
Sit in silver plight,
And the green bud's as long as the spike end.
Then who would go
Into dark Soho,
And chatter with dack'd hair'd critics,
When he can stay
For the new-mown hay,
And startle the dappled Prickets?
I know not if this rhyming fit has done anything--it will be safe with you
if worthy to put among my Lyrics. Here's some doggrel for you--Perhaps you
would like a bit of b----hrell--
Where be ye going, you Devon Maid?
And what have you there in the Basket?
Ye tight little fairy just fresh from the dairy,
Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?
I love your Meads, and I love your flowers,
And I love your junkets mainly,
But 'hind the door I love kissing more,
O look not so disdainly.
I love your hills, and I love your dales,
And I love your flocks a-bleating--
But O, on the heather to lie together,
With both our hearts a-beating!
I'll put your Basket all safe in a nook,
Your shawl I hang up on the willow,
And we will sigh in the daisy's eye
And kiss on a grass green pillow.
How does the work go on? I should like to bring out my "Dentatus"[55] 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--damn
me if I shouldn'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.
Yours affectionately
JOHN KEATS.
Remember me to all we know.
XLIV.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.
Teignmouth, Saturday Morn [March 21, 1818].
My dear Sirs--I had no idea of your getting on so fast--I thought of
bringing my 4th Book to Town all in good time for you--especially after
the late unfortunate chance.
I did not however for my own sake delay finishing the copy which was done
a few days after my arrival here. I send it off to-day, and will tell you
in a Postscript at what time to send for it from the Bull and Mouth or
other Inn. You will find the Preface and dedication and the title Page as
I should wish it to stand--for a Romance is a fine thing notwithstanding
the circulating Libraries. My respects to Mrs. Hessey and to Percy Street.
Yours very sincerely
JOHN KEATS.
_P.S._--I have been advised to send it to you--you may expect it on
Monday--for I sent it by the Postman to Exeter at the same time with this
Letter. Adieu!
XLV.--TO JAMES RICE.
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 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