a friend to Mr. Brown even before you know him.—My lodgings for two or three days were close in the neighbourhood of Mrs. Dilke who never sees me but she enquires after you—I have had letters from George lately which do not contain, as I think I told you in my last, the best news-I have hopes for the best-I trust in a good termination to his affairs which you please God will soon hear of-It is better you should not be teased with the particulars. The whole amount of the ill news is that his mercantile speculations have not had success in consequence of the general depression of trade in the whole province of Kentucky and indeed all America.-I have a couple of shells for you you will call pretty. Your affectionate Brother Either your joke about staying at home is a very old one or I really call'd. I don't remember doing so. I am glad to hear you have finish'd the Picture and am (CXVI) The next letter in order of date is that of the 19th of October 1819 to Fanny Brawne. (CXVII) The original letter bears no legible dated postmark; but it is inscribed " 1819" in Severn's writing. If, as would seem to be likely, it relates to "The Cave of Despair," it probably belongs to the end of October 1819: see foot-note to Letter CXIX. more anxious to see it than I have time to spare: for I have been so very lax, unemployed, unmeridian'd, and objectless these two months that I even grudge indulging' (and that is no great indulgence considering the Lecture is not over till 9 and the lecture room seven miles from Wentworth Place) myself by going to Hazlitt's Lecture. If you have hours to the amount of a brace of dozens to throw away you may sleep nine of them here in your little Crib and chat the rest. When your Picture is up and in a good light I shall make a point of meeting you at the Academy if you will let me know when. If you should be at the Lecture tomorrow evening I shall see you-and congratulate you heartily-Haslam I know "is very Beadle to an amorous sigh."' 2 Your sincere friend John Keats. 1 In the original, indulding. 2 Misquoted from a speech of Biron's in Love's Labour's Lost (Act III, Scene 1, lines 176-7)— And I, forsooth in love! I, that have been love's whip; but it is not clear in what way Keats means to apply the wordswhether in Biron's sense or the reverse,-probably the reverse, if Haslam was the person referred to as "H" and not "a pattern for lovers" in the Winchester letter to George Keats (page 7 of this volume). CXVIII. To FANNY KEATS. Rd. Abbey's Esq., Queen Street, Cheapside. My dear Fanny, Wednesday Morn. [Postmark, 17 November 1819.] I received your letter yesterday Evening and will obey it to morrow. I would come to day-but I have been to Town so frequently on George's Business it makes me wish to employ to day at Hampstead. So I say Thursday without fail. I have no news at all entertaining and if I had I should not have time to tell them as I wish to send this by the morning Post. Your affectionate Brother John. CXIX. To JOHN TAYLOR. My dear Taylor, Wentworth Place, Hampstead, 17 November [1819]. I have come to a determination not to publish anything I have now ready written: but, for all that, to publish a poem before long, and that I hope to make a fine one. As the marvellous is the most enticing, and the surest guarantee of harmonious numbers, I have been endeavouring to persuade myself to untether Fancy, and to let her manage for herself. I and myself cannot agree about this at all. Wonders are no wonders to me. I am more at home amongst men and women. I would rather read Chaucer than Ariosto. The little dramatic skill I may as yet have, however badly it might show in a drama, would, I think, be sufficient for a poem. I wish to diffuse the colouring of St. Agnes' Eve throughout a poem in which character and sentiment would be the figures to such drapery. Two or three such poems, if God should spare me, written in the course of the next six years, would be a famous Gradus ad Parnassum altissimum. I mean they would nerve me up to the writing of a few fine plays-my greatest ambition, when I do feel ambitious. I am sorry to say that is very seldom. The subject we have once or twice talked of appears a promising one-the Earl of Leicester's history. I am this morning reading Holingshed's "Elizabeth." You had some books awhile ago, you promised to send me, illustrative of my subject. If you can lay hold of them, or any others which may be serviceable to me, I know you will encourage my low-spirited muse by sending them, or rather by letting me know where our errand-cart man shall call with my little box. I will endeavour to set myself selfishly at work on this poem that is to be. I am very sorry that on Tuesday I have an appointment in the City of an undeferable nature; and Brown on the same day has some business at Guildhall. I have not been able to figure your manner of executing the Cave of despair, therefore it will be at any rate a novelty and surprise to me-I trust on the right side. I shall call upon you some morning shortly (cxx) This letter is given from a manuscript without date, address, or postmark; but I think there can be no doubt the proposed visit to the Academy was for the purpose of seeing Severn's "Cave of Despair" "hung up for the prize." If so, probably the Monday on which the letter was written was the 6th of December 1819; for among Severn's Keats relics was an outside leaf of a letter bearing a Hampstead postmark of that date, addressed by Keats to "Joseph Severn Esqre., 6 Goswell Street Road, Near Northampton Square," and probably belonging to this very letter. pictures for the "Cave of Despair" competition were to be in the Academy by the 1st of November 1819; and some one from The Literary Gazette had seen them by the 10th of December, the day on which the premiums were to be distributed. The critic professes not to know the decision, but gives his voice in favour of "a Mr. The |