will I mention a word of my affairs-only that "I Rab am here" but shall not be here more than a Week more, as I purpose to settle in Town and work my way with the rest. I hope I shall never be so silly as to injure my health and industry for the future by speaking, writing or fretting about my non-estate. I have no quarrel, I assure you, of so weighty a nature, with the world, on my own account as I have on yours. I have done nothing-except for the amusement of a few people who refine upon their feelings till any thing in the ununderstandable way will go down with them-people predisposed for sentiment. I have no cause to complain because I am certain any thing really fine will in these days be felt. I have no doubt that if I had written Othello I should have been cheered by as good a mob as Hunt.' So would you be now if the operation of painting was as universal as that of Writing. It is not: and therefore it did behove men I could mention among whom I must place Sir George Beaumont to have lifted you up above sordid cares. That this has not been done is a disgrace to the country. I know very little of Painting, yet your pictures follow me into the Country. When I am tired of reading I often think them over and as often condemn the spirit of modern Connoisseurs. Upon the whole, indeed, you have no complaint to make, being able to say what so few Men can, "I have succeeded." On sitting down to write a few lines to you these are the 1 Lord Houghton in giving an extract with variations from this letter omits the reference to Hunt-perhaps thinking of Leigh Hunt, and taking the words cheered by as good a mob as metaphorical; but the account of Henry Hunt's entry into London in the letter to George Keats (page 14) makes it clear that the reference is to the real mob who actually did cheer the hero of "Peterloo." uppermost in my mind, and, however I may be beating about the arctic while your spirit has passed the line, you may lay to a minute and consider I am earnest as far as I can see. Though at this present "I have great dispositions to write" I feel every day more and more content to read. Books are becoming more interesting and valuable to me. I may say I could not live without them. If in the course of a fortnight you can procure me a ticket to the British Museum I will make a better use of it than I did in the first instance. I shall go on with patience in the confidence that if I ever do any thing worth remembering the Reviewers will no more be able to stumble-block me than the Royal Academy could you. They have the same quarrel with you that the Scotch nobles had with Wallace. The fame they have lost through you is no joke to them. been for you Fuseli would have been not as but maximus domo. What Reviewers can put a hindrance to must be-a nothing-or mediocre which is worse. I am sorry to say that since I saw you I have been guilty of a practical joke upon Brown which has had all the success of an innocent Wildfire among people.1 Some day in the next week you shall hear it from me by word of Mouth. I have [not] seen the portentous Book which was skummer'd' at you just as I 1 See the account of this at page 23. Had it not he is major 2 The middle of this word has been torn away with the seal of the letter; but I have no doubt it was the expressive provincialism restored in the text, used in much the same sense as in the lines from John Davies' Commendatory Verses,— And for a monument to after-commers Their picture shall continue (though Time scummers Mr. Frank Scott Haydon has identified the book for me,-A Desul left town. It may be light enough to serve you as a Cork Jacket and save you for awhile the trouble of swimming. I heard the Man went raking and rummaging about like any Richardson. That and the Memoirs of Menage are the first I shall be at. From Sr. G. B's, Lord Ms1 and particularly Sr. John Leicesters good lord deliver us. I shall expect to see your Picture plumped out like a ripe Peach-you would not be very willing to give me a slice of it. I came to this place in the hopes of meeting with a Library but was disappointed. The High Street is as quiet as a Lamb. The knockers are dieted to three raps per diem. The walks about are interesting from the many old Buildings and archways. The view of the High Street through the Gate of the City in the beautiful September evening light has amused me frequently. The bad singing of the Cathedral I do not care to smoke-being by myself I am not very coy in my taste. At St. Cross' there is an tory Exposition of an Anti-British System of Incendiary Publication, &c. (London, 1819). The author, William Carey, appears to have been an art-critic, and to have criticized Haydon's Dentatus in The Champion. The book is described by Mr. F. S. Haydon as an answer to certain statements in the Annals of the Fine Arts,” · containing "a very fair, though bitter, criticism of the tone of that remarkable periodical, and of the misstatements in it a thorough exposure." 66 1 Sir George Beaumont and Lord Mulgrave. Perhaps Haydon had been recalling the rejection of the picture of Macbeth commissioned some ten years before-an affair concerning which he declared thirty-one years after its occurrence that he was "still suffering from its fatal effects." Lord Mulgrave and Sir John Leicester were both among Haydon's patrons; but I do not know what particular offence they had committed in Keats's eyes in 1819. 2 Not at Mr. Cross's, as given in Lord Houghton's extract from this letter. interesting picture of Albert Dürer's-who living in such warlike times perhaps was forced to paint in his Gauntlets so we must make all allowances. I am my dear Haydon Yours ever John Keats Brown has a few words to say to you and will cross this.1 1 Brown's few words are as follows : My dear Sir, I heard yesterday you had written to me at Hampstead. I have not recd. your letter. You must, I think, accuse me of neglect, but indeed I do not merit it. This many worded Keats has left me no room to say more.—I shall be in Town in a few days.— Your's truly Chas. Brown. Between this and the next letter in the present series, the student will probably read the two to Fanny Brawne sent from College Street, Westminster, on the 11th and 13th of October 1819. My dear Fanny, CXVI. To FANNY KEATS. Rd. Abbey's Esq., Walthamstow. Wentworth Place [Postmark, 16 October 1819.] My Conscience is always reproaching me for neglecting you for so long a time. I have been returned from Winchester this fortnight and as yet I have not seen you. I have no excuse to offer-I should have no excuse. I shall expect to see you the next time I call on Mr. A about George's affairs which perplex me a great deal-I should have to day gone to see if you were in town-but as I am in an industrious humour (which is so necessary to my livelihood for the future) I am loath to break through it though it be merely for one day, for when I am inclined I can do a great deal in a day-I am more fond of pleasure than study (many men have prefer'd the latter) but I have become resolved to know something which you will credit when I tell you I have left off animal food that my brains may never henceforth be in a greater mist than is theirs by nature-I took lodgings in Westminster for the purpose of being in the reach of Books, but am now returned to Hampstead being induced to it by the habit I have acquired in this room I am now in and also from the pleasure of being free from paying any petty attentions to a diminutive house-keeping. Mr. Brown has been my great friend for some time—without him I should have been in, perhaps, personal distress—as I know you love me though I do not deserve it, I am sure you will take pleasure in being |