all, each distinct in his excellence-A, B and C. A is the foolishest, B is the sulkiest and C is the negative; A makes you yawn, B makes you hate, and as for C, you never see him at all, though he were six feet high; I bear the first, I forbear the second, I am not certain that the third is; the first is gruel, the second ditch-water, and the third is spilt and ought to be wiped up; A is inspired by Jack of the Clock, B has been drilled by a Russian sergeant, C they say is not his mother's true child, but that she bought him of the man who cries "Young lambs to sell." There are very many pretty pickings for me in George's letters about the prairie settlements if I had had any taste to turn them to account in England. 1 Friday, 27th [28 January 1820]. I wish you would call me names: I deserve them so much. I have only written two sheets for you, to carry by George, and those I forgot to bring to town and have therefore to forward them to Liverpool. George went this morning at 6 o'clock by the Liverpool coach. His being on his that a gentleman (for so Moore is in station and connections) should so descend as to exhibit the Prince Regent and the Emperor of Russia at a boxing match, under the names of Porpus and Long Sandy. The boxing cant language does not amuse me, even in Moore's gravely burlesque lines." The epithet Tom Cribean might be applied to Reynolds's clever jeu d'esprit, The Fancy; but it 'is curious to note how the objects with which these three wits are compared come out on the whole to the advantage of the other two as against Reynolds, the only one who has left any mark. It is a pity Keats has not recorded any sample of Richards's wit. Of Rice's we have one touch—that about the ham at page 311 of Volume III. 1 The contributor to The Philobiblion in an introductory paragraph to this passage, speaks of the "first half of the sheet being lost." It seems, rather, that the whole passage was written upon a half sheet in which to enclose the two sheets already written and left at home. journey to you prevents my regretting his short stay. I have no news of any sort to tell you. Henry is wife bound in Cambden Town; there is no getting him out. I am sorry he has not a prettier wife: indeed 'tis a shame : she is not half a wife. I think I could find some of her relations in Buffon, or Capt" Cook's voyages or the hierogueglyphics in Moor's Almanack, or upon a Chinese clock door, the shepherdesses on her own mantlepiece, or in a cruel sampler in which she may find herself worsted, or in a Dutch toy shop window, or one of the daughters in the ark,' or in any picture shop window. As I intend to retire into the country where there will be no sort of news, I shall not be able to write you very long letters. Besides I am afraid the postage comes to too much; which till now I have not been aware of. 2 People in military bands are generally seriously occupied. None may or can laugh at their work but the Kettle Drum, Long Drum, Do. Triangle and Cymbals. Thinking you might want a rat catcher I put your mother's old quaker-colour'd cat into the top of your bonnet. She's wi' kitten, so you may expect to find a whole family. I hope the family will not grow too large for its lodging. I shall send you a close written sheet on the first of next month, but for fear of missing the Liverpool Post I must finish here. God bless you and your little girl. Your affectionate Brother, John Keats. 1 It would seem from this description that Mr. Henry Wylie was constant to his preference for the young lady described by Keats nearly a year before. See Volume III, page 278. My dear Sister, CXXIV. To FANNY KEATS. Rd. Abbey's Esq., Queen Street, Cheapside. Wentworth Place Sunday Morning. [Postmark, 7 February 1820.] I should not have sent those Letters without some notice if Mr. Brown had not persuaded me against it on account of an illness with which I was attack'd on Thursday. After that I was resolved not to write till I should be on the mending hand; thank God, I am now so. From imprudently leaving off my great coat in the thaw I caught cold which flew to my Lungs. Every remedy that has been applied has taken the desired effect, and I have nothing now to do but stay within doors for some Thursday the 3rd of February 1820 was the date upon which Keats was taken ill; and by Sunday the 6th he was writing this letter to his sister. Lord Houghton's account of the beginning of the attack is as follows :-" One night, about eleven o'clock, Keats returned home in a state of strange physical excitement-it might have appeared to those who did not know him, one of fierce intoxication. He told his friend he had been outside the stage-coach, had received a severe chill, was a little fevered, but added, 'I don't feel it now.' He was easily persuaded to go to bed, and as he leapt into the cold sheets, before his head was on the pillow, he slightly coughed and said, 'That is blood from my mouth; bring me the candle; let me see this blood.' He gazed steadfastly for some moments at the ruddy stain, and then looking in his friend's face with an expression of sudden calmness never to be forgotten, said, 'I know the colour of that blood,-it is arterial blood-I cannot be deceived in that colour; that drop is my death-warrant. I must time. If I should be confined long I shall write to Mr. Abbey to ask permission for you to visit me. George has been running great chance of a similar attack, but I hope the sea air will be his Physician in case of illnessthe air out at sea is always more temperate than on land -George mentioned, in his Letters to us, something of Mr. Abbey's regret concerning the silence kept up in his house. It is entirely the fault of his Manner. You must be careful always to wear warm cloathing not only in frost but in a Thaw. I have no news to tell you. The half built houses opposite us stand just as they were and seem dying of old age before they are brought up. The grass looks very dingy, the Celery is all gone, and there is nothing to enliven one but a few Cabbage Sta[l]ks that seem fix'd on the supera[n]nuated List. Mrs. Dilke has been ill but is better. Several of my friends have been to see me. Mrs. Reynolds was here this morning and the two Mr. Wylie's. Brown has been very alert about me, though a little wheezy himself this weather. Every body is ill. Yesterday evening Mr. Davenport, a gentleman of Hampstead, sent me an invitation to supper, instead of his coming to see us, having so bad a cold he could not stir out-so you [see] 'tis the weather and I am among a thousand. Whenever you have an inflam[m]atory fever never mind about eating. The day on which I was getting ill I felt this fever to a great height, and therefore almost entirely abstained from food the whole day. I have no doubt experienc'd a benefit from so doing-The Papers I see are full of anecdotes of the late King': how he nodded to a Coal 1 George III. died on the 29th of January 1820. Dr. Wolcot had, I believe, died over a year before that date,-according to Chambers's Encyclopædia on the 14th of January 1819. heaver and laugh'd with a Quaker and lik'd boiled Leg of Mutton. Old Peter Pindar is just dead: what will the old King and he say to each other? Perhaps the King may confess that Peter was in the right, and Peter maintain himself to have been wrong. You shall hear from me again on Tuesday. I had a slight return of fever last night, which terminated favourably, and I am now tolerably well, though weak from [the] small quantity of food to which I am obliged to confine myself: I am sure a mouse would starve upon it. Mrs. Wylie came yesterday. I have a very pleasant room for a sick person. A Sopha bed is made up for me in the front Parlour which looks on to the grass plot as you remember Mrs. Dilke's does. How much more comfortable than a dull room up stairs, where one gets tired of the pattern of the bed curtains. Besides I see all that passes-for instance now, this morning—if I had been in my own room I should not have seen the coals brought in. On sunday between the hours of twelve and one I descried a Pot boy. I |