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not without meaning. Leigh Hunt says that Keats never spoke of the livery-stable, and thinks it was "out of a personal soreness which the world had exasperated." If this suspicion of Hunt's be correct, the less man Keats. Let us not seek our answer too far, with Abbey's ugly communication staring us in the face, but even supposing that it contains some grains of truth, Keats's reticence is more likely to have been caused by a feeling of sacredness toward his dead parents than to any sudden revelation of regrettable traits in his mother's character. Knowing how much he loved her, we may suspect a grief with which harness buckles have nothing to do, and a bereavement too deep to be chattered about.

Stepping out of the bounds of immediate descent, Keats's relations appear to have been few and to have played no part at all in his life. On the authority of Clarke, we learn that he had two uncles, brothers of his mother. Our information concerning one of them stops at the mere facts of his existence and early death; the other was a Lieutenant of Marines, Midgley John Jennings, who is supposed to have served in Admiral Duncan's flagship in the action off Camperdown. A family legend has it that this gentleman, being very tall, was a special target for the enemy, who, in spite of his height, failed to hit him. Tales of his valour during the engagement seem to have been current in his old school. I am told by Mr. Holman that naval records? show no such person in the roster of the ship's company of the "Venerable," Duncan's flagship. At that time, Jennings was a Second Lieutenant, his promotion to First Lieutenant came in 1799, and he was made Captain in 1808. He survived his promotion to a captaincy by a few months only, as he died on October eighth, 1808. By what inaccuracy his name fails to appear among those serving in the "Venerable," we do not know. His whereabouts dur

1 Lord Byron and his Contemporaries, by Leigh Hunt.

2 Memorandum from Public Records Office. June 24, 1913.

ing the engagement has not been traced in the Marine Office Commission Books, but there is a gap in them from 1796 to 1800. That Second Lieutenant Midgley John Jennings, Royal Marine officer, was present at the battle off Camperdown, if not in the "Venerable," then in some other vessel of the fleet, there is no reason whatever to doubt. Edward Holmes, a school-fellow, remembers that 1 "Jennings their sailor relation was always in the thoughts of the brothers, and they determined to keep up the family reputation for courage." Years seem to have dimmed the brightness of the gallant lieutenant's appeal, for he is never once alluded to in the letters, not even when his widow threatens to bring a lawsuit against Abbey, which threat had the effect of seriously incommoding his niece and nephews for some time.

Not long after his daughter's marriage, Mr. Jennings retired from active business, and, leaving his stable in the competent hands of his son-in-law, went to live at Ponders End. For some time after this, Thomas Keats and his wife continued to live at the Swan and Hoop, but before long, probably owing to an increasing prosperity, they moved to Craven Street, City Road. As this new house was only half a mile North of the stable, it was both convenient for business and one of those evident rises in the world so dear to Thomas Keats's heart. From living over a stable to living in a separate house at some distance was no mean gain in those days, and we can imagine the rejoicing which the move occasioned. Some of the younger children, I do not know how many, were born in the Craven Street house.

Of Keats's childhood, we know practically nothing; for I cannot take much stock in the only anecdotes which have come down to us. One derives from Haydon, who dresses it up in his melodramatic style until it loses all semblance of reality. Boiled down to probable fact, the story is that

1 Life of John Keats, by Sir Sidney Colvin.

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once, when Mrs. Keats was ill and had been ordered perfect quiet, John, having got hold of an old sword somewhere, mounted guard in front of her door and would allow no one to go into her room. The other tale, also recorded by Haydon, but with less flourish and furor, he says he got from George Keats. An old lady, whom Haydon1 identifies as a Mrs. Grafty of Craven Street, Finsbury, who had known the boys when they were children, encountering George on some occasion asked him the natural question: "What is John doing?" On George's telling her that John had determined to be a poet, the old lady remarked that such a decision was very odd, because, when he could only just speak, he had a habit of ignoring questions asked him and instead would make a rhyme to the last word spoken by the questioner, after which astonishing behaviour he Fould laugh as though mightily pleased with himself. In a child of two or three this would surely be remarkable, if it were true. I, for one, do not believe a word of it. It is just the kind of thing that old ladies always recollect of children in after years, but affection and the usual desire of the old to link themselves to the young are the sources of memory I have already mentioned that Thomas Keats aspired to Harrow as the school for his sons, but here his imagination outran his pocket. Try as he would, his income would not stretch to such a flight. We can understand with what disappointed reluctance he abandoned the ambitious scheme and decided to follow his father-in-law's example and send his sons to the excellent school kept by Mr. John Clarke at Enfield, ten miles from London. So to Enfield John went in 1803, and either with him, or immediately after, went George.

it's a biography

It was a charming place, architecturally, this Enfield school. Cowden Clarke begins his paper on Keats with a description of it:

1 Autobiography and Journals of Benjamin Robert Haydon, edited by Tom Taylor.

From a sketch by Mario Gigliucci in the possession of F. Holland Day, Esq.