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My dear Fanny,

CXXIX.

To FANNY KEATS.

Rd. Abbey's Esq.,

Pancras Lane,

Queen Street, Cheapside.

[Postmark, 19 February 1820.]

Being confined almost entirely to vegetable food and the weather being at the same time so much against me, I cannot say I have much improved since I wrote last. The Doctor tells me there are no dangerous Symptoms about me and quietness of mind and fine weather will restore me. Mind my advice to be very careful to wear warm cloathing in a thaw. I will write again on Tuesday when I hope to send you good news.

Your affectionate Brother

John

This brotherly insistence on prudence in the matter of dress is quite in character with the tender considerateness of the whole series of letters to his sister. At page 69 this subject is resumed.

CXXX.

To JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

My dear Reynolds,

[Postmark, 23 or 25 February 1820.]

I have been improving since you saw me: my nights are better which I think is a very encouraging thing. You mention your cold in rather too slighting a manner-if you travel outside have some flannel against the wind-which I hope will not keep on at this rate when you are in the Packet boat. Should it rain do not stop upon deck though the Passengers should vomit themselves inside out. Keep under Hatches from all sort of wet.

I am pretty well provided with Books at present, when you return I may give you a commission or two. Mr. B. C. has sent me not only his Sicilian Story but yesterday his Dramatic Scenes-this is very polite and I shall do what I can to make him sensible I

think so. I confess they teaze me-they are composed of amiability, the Seasons, the Leaves, the Moon &c. upon which he rings (according to Hunt's expression) triple bob majors. However that is nothing-I think he likes poetry for its own sake, not his.1 I hope

Keats wrote of this attention of Procter's both to Fanny Brawne and to Dilke; but he seems to have reserved for his intimate kindred spirit Reynolds his estimate of the merits of Procter's books, while sharing between Reynolds and others his appreciation of the author's politeness. The Dramatic Scenes compose the second division of the volume of which Marcian Colonna forms the first; and this volume is the one referred to in the letter to Dilke (page 70) as Procter's " first publish'd book." It is fortunate that Keats's opinion of these books has come to the surface after lying hidden till now.

It will be remembered that the books of this writer

I shall soon be well enough to proceed with my fa[e]ries and set you about the notes on Sundays and Stray-days. If I had been well enough I should have liked to cross the water with you. Brown wishes you a pleasant voyage-Have fish for dinner at the sea ports, and don't forget a bottle of Claret. You will not meet with so much to hate at Brussels as at Paris. Remember me to all my friends. If I were well enough I would paraphrase an ode of Horace's for you, on your embarking in the seventy years ago style. The Packet will bear a comparison with a Roman galley at any rate.

Ever yours affectionately

J. Keats

"teazed" Shelley even more than Keats, or at all events to more violent result. "The man", he writes to Peacock (Prose Works, Volume IV, pages 194-7), "whose critical gall is not stirred up by such ottava rimas as Barry Cornwall's, may safely be conjectured to possess no gall at all. The world is pale with the sickness of such stuff...I had much rather, for my own private reading, receive political, geological, and moral treatises than this stuff in terza, ottava, and tremillissima rima whose earthly baseness has attracted the lightning of your undiscriminating censure upon the temple of immortal song. Procter's verses enrage me far more than those of Codrus did Juvenal, and with better reason. Juvenal need not have been stunned unless he had liked it; but my boxes are packed with this trash to the exclusion of what I want to see." I do not know whether the excellent expression triple bob majors is still retained in the vocabulary of chime ringing. Keats's reference to his "faeries" is of course to The Cap and Bells.

CXXXI.

To FANNY KEATS.

Rd. Abbey's Esq.,
Walthamstow.

Wentworth Place, Thursday [24 February 1820].

My dear Fanny,

[Postmark, 25 February 1820.]

I am sorry to hear you have been so unwell: now you are better, keep so. Remember to be very careful of your cloathing-this climate requires the utmost care. There has been very little alteration in me lately. I am much the same as when I wrote last. When I am well enough to return to my old diet I shall get stronger. If my recovery should be delay'd long I will ask Mr. Abbey to let you visit me-keep up your Spirits as well as you You shall hear soon again from me—

can.

Your affectionate Brother
John

CXXXII.

To CHARLES WENTWORTH Dilke.

My dear Dilke,

[Postmark, Hampstead, 4 March 1820.]

Since I saw you I have been gradually, too gradually perhaps, improving; and though under an interdict with respect to animal food, living upon pseudo victuals, Brown says I have pick'd up a little flesh lately. If I can keep off inflammation for the next six weeks I trust I shall do very well. You certainly should have been at Martin's dinner for making an index is surely as dull work as engraving. Have you heard that the Bookseller is going to tie himself to the manger eat or not as he pleases. He says Rice shall have his foot on the fender notwithstanding. Reynolds is going to sail on the salt

seas.

Brown has been mightily progressing with his Hogarth. A damn'd melancholy picture it is, and during the first week of my illness it gave me a psalm singing nightmare, that made me almost faint away in my sleep. I know I am better, for I can bear the Picture. I have experienced a specimen of great politeness from Mr. Barry Cornwall. He has sent me his books. Some time ago he had given his first publish'd book to Hunt for me; Hunt forgot to give it and Barry Cornwall thinking I had received it must have though[t] me [a] very

Compare the opening of this letter with Number XXIX in the series to Fanny Brawne.

1 See the letter to Rice of the 16th of February 1820 (page 65) and the note to the letter of the 11th of February to Fanny Keats (page 62), from which it appears the picture was not an original effort but a copy from a print.

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