Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends Part 6

He overwhelms a genuine Lover of poesy with all manner of abuse, talking about--

"a poet's rage And stretched metre of an antique song."

Which, by the bye, will be a capital motto for my poem, won't it? He speaks too of "Time's antique pen"--and "April's first-born flowers"--and "Death's eternal cold."--By the Whim-King! I'll give you a stanza, because it is not material in connection, and when I wrote it I wanted you--to give your vote, pro or con.--

Crystalline Brother of the belt of Heaven, Aquarius! to whom King Jove hath given Two liquid pulse-streams, 'stead of feather'd wings-- Two fan-like fountains--thine illuminings For Dian play: Dissolve the frozen purity of air; Let thy white shoulders, silvery and bare, Show cold through wat'ry pinions: make more bright The Star-Queen's Crescent on her marriage night: Haste, haste away!

... I see there is an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Chronicle_ to Poets--he is so over-loaded with poems on the "late Princess." I suppose you do not lack--send me a few--lend me thy hand to laugh a little--send me a little pullet-sperm, a few finch-eggs--and remember me to each of our card-playing Club. When you die you will all be turned into Dice, and be put in p.a.w.n with the devil: for cards, they crumple up like anything....

I rest Your affectionate friend

JOHN KEATS.

Give my love to both houses--hinc atque illinc.

XXIV.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.

Hampstead, December 22, 1817.

My dear Brothers--I must crave your pardon for not having written ere this.... I saw Kean return to the public in Richard III., and finely he did it, and, at the request of Reynolds, I went to criticise his _Duke_ in Rich{d.}--the critique is in to-day's Champion, which I send you with the Examiner, in which you will find very proper lamentation on the obsoletion of Christmas Gambols and pastimes: but it was mixed up with so much egotism of that drivelling nature that pleasure is entirely lost.

Hone the publisher's trial, you must find very amusing, and as Englishmen very encouraging: his _Not Guilty_ is a thing, which not to have been, would have dulled still more Liberty's Emblazoning--Lord Ellenborough has been paid in his own coin--Wooler and Hone have done us an essential service. I have had two very pleasant evenings with Dilke yesterday and to-day, and am at this moment just come from him, and feel in the humour to go on with this, begun in the morning, and from which he came to fetch me. I spent Friday evening with Wells[33] and went next morning to see _Death on the Pale horse_. It is a wonderful picture, when West's age is considered; but there is nothing to be intense upon, no women one feels mad to kiss, no face swelling into reality. The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth--Examine King Lear, and you will find this exemplified throughout; but in this picture we have unpleasantness without any momentous depth of speculation excited, in which to bury its repulsiveness--The picture is larger than Christ rejected.

I dined with Haydon the Sunday after you left, and had a very pleasant day, I dined too (for I have been out too much lately) with Horace Smith and met his two Brothers with Hill and Kingston and one Du Bois, they only served to convince me how superior humour is to wit, in respect to enjoyment--These men say things which make one start, without making one feel, they are all alike; their manners are alike; they all know fashionables; they have all a mannerism in their very eating and drinking, in their mere handling a Decanter. They talked of Kean and his low company--would I were with that company instead of yours said I to myself!

I know such like acquaintance will never do for me and yet I am going to Reynolds, on Wednesday. Brown and Dilke walked with me and back from the Christmas pantomime. I had not a dispute, but a disquisition, with Dilke upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakspeare possessed so enormously--I mean _Negative Capability_, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery,[34] from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

Sh.e.l.ley's poem[35] is out and there are words about its being objected to, as much as Queen Mab was. Poor Sh.e.l.ley I think he has his Quota of good qualities, in sooth la! Write soon to your most sincere friend and affectionate Brother

JOHN.

XXV.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.

Featherstone Buildings,[36] Monday [January 5, 1818].

My dear Brothers--I ought to have written before, and you should have had a long letter last week, but I undertook the Champion for Reynolds, who is at Exeter. I wrote two articles, one on the Drury Lane Pantomime, the other on the Covent Garden new Tragedy, which they have not put in;[37]

the one they have inserted is so badly punctuated that you perceive I am determined never to write more, without some care in that particular.

Wells tells me that you are licking your chops, Tom, in expectation of my book coming out. I am sorry to say I have not begun my corrections yet: to-morrow I set out. I called on Sawrey[38] this morning. He did not seem to be at all put out at anything I said and the inquiries I made with regard to your spitting of blood, and moreover desired me to ask you to send him a correct account of all your sensations and symptoms concerning the palpitation and the spitting and the cough--if you have any. Your last letter gave me a great pleasure, for I think the invalid is in a better spirit there along the Edge; and as for George, I must immediately, now I think of it, correct a little misconception of a part of my last letter.

The Misses Reynolds have never said one word against me about you, or by any means endeavoured to lessen you in my estimation. That is not what I referred to; but the manner and thoughts which I knew they internally had towards you, time will show. Wells and Severn dined with me yesterday. We had a very pleasant day. I pitched upon another bottle of claret, we enjoyed ourselves very much; were all very witty and full of Rhymes. We played a concert from 4 o'clock till 10--drank your healths, the Hunts', and (_N.B._) seven Peter Pindars. I said on that day the only good thing I was ever guilty of. We were talking about Stephens and the 1st Gallery. I said I wondered that careful folks would go there, for although it was but a shilling, still you had to pay through the Nose. I saw the Peachey family in a box at Drury one night. I have got such a curious[39] ... or rather I had such, now I am in my own hand.

I have had a great deal of pleasant time with Rice lately, and am getting initiated into a little band. They call drinking deep dyin' scarlet. They call good wine a pretty tipple, and call getting a child knocking out an apple; stopping at a tavern they call hanging out. Where do you sup? is where do you hang out?

Thursday I promised to dine with Wordsworth, and the weather is so bad that I am undecided, for he lives at Mortimer Street. I had an invitation to meet him at Kingston's,[40] but not liking that place I sent my excuse.

What I think of doing to-day is to dine in Mortimer Street (Words{th}), and sup here in the Feath{s} buildings, as Mr. Wells has invited me. On Sat.u.r.day, I called on Wordsworth before he went to Kingston's, and was surprised to find him with a stiff collar. I saw his spouse, and I think his daughter. I forget whether I had written my last before my Sunday evening at Haydon's--no, I did not, or I should have told you, Tom, of a young man you met at Paris, at Scott's, ... Ritchie. I think he is going to Fezan, in Africa; then to proceed if possible like Mungo Park. He was very polite to me, and inquired very particularly after you. Then there was Wordsworth, Lamb, Monkhouse, Landseer, Kingston, and your humble servant. Lamb got tipsy and blew up Kingston--proceeding so far as to take the candle across the room, hold it to his face, and show us what a soft fellow he was.[41] I astonished Kingston at supper with a pertinacity in favour of drinking, keeping my two gla.s.ses at work in a knowing way.

I have seen f.a.n.n.y twice lately--she inquired particularly after you and wants a co-partnership letter from you. She has been unwell, but is improving. I think she will be quick. Mrs. Abbey was saying that the Keatses were ever indolent, that they would ever be so, and that it is born in them. Well, whispered f.a.n.n.y to me, if it is born with us, how can we help it? She seems very anxious for a letter. As I asked her what I should get for her, she said a "Medal of the Princess." I called on Haslam--we dined very snugly together. He sent me a Hare last week, which I sent to Mrs. Dilke. Brown is not come back. I and Dilke are getting capital friends. He is going to take the Champion. He has sent his farce to Covent Garden. I met Bob Harris[42] on the steps at Covent Garden; we had a good deal of curious chat. He came out with his old humble opinion.

The Covent Garden pantomime is a very nice one, but they have a middling Harlequin, a bad Pantaloon, a worse Clown, and a shocking Columbine, who is one of the Miss Dennets. I suppose you will see my critique on the new tragedy in the next week's Champion. It is a shocking bad one. I have not seen Hunt; he was out when I called. Mrs. Hunt looks as well as ever I saw her after her confinement. There is an article in the se'nnight Examiner on G.o.dwin's Mandeville, signed E. K.--I think it Miss Kent's--I will send it. There are fine subscriptions going on for Hone.

You ask me what degrees there are between Scott's novels and those of Smollett. They appear to me to be quite distinct in every particular, more especially in their aims. Scott endeavours to throw so interesting and romantic a colouring into common and low characters as to give them a touch of the sublime. Smollett on the contrary pulls down and levels what with other men would continue romance. The grand parts of Scott are within the reach of more minds than the finest humours in Humphrey Clinker. I forget whether that fine thing of the Serjeant is Fielding or Smollett, but it gives me more pleasure than the whole novel of the Antiquary. You must remember what I mean. Some one says to the Serjeant: "That's a non-sequitur!"--"If you come to that," replies the Serjeant, "you're another!"--

I see by Wells's letter Mr. Abbey[43] does not overstock you with money.

You must write. I have not seen ... yet, but expect it on Wednesday. I am afraid it is gone. Severn tells me he has an order for some drawings for the Emperor of Russia.

You must get well Tom, and then I shall feel whole and genial as the winter air. Give me as many letters as you like, and write to Sawrey soon.

I received a short letter from Bailey about Cripps, and one from Haydon, ditto. Haydon thinks he improved very much. Mrs. Wells desires particularly ... to Tom and her respects to George, and I desire no better than to be ever your most affectionate Brother

JOHN.

_P.S._--I had not opened the Champion before I found both my articles in it.

I was at a dance at Redhall's, and pa.s.sed a pleasant time enough--drank deep, and won 10.6 at cutting for half guineas.... Bailey was there and seemed to enjoy the evening. Rice said he cared less about the hour than any one, and the proof is his dancing--he cares not for time, dancing as if he was deaf. Old Redhall not being used to give parties, had no idea of the quant.i.ty of wine that would be drank, and he actually put in readiness on the kitchen stairs eight dozen.

Every one inquires after you, and desires their remembrances to you.

Your Brother

JOHN.

XXVI.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.

[Hampstead,] Sat.u.r.day Morn [January 10, 1818].

My dear Haydon--I should have seen you ere this, but on account of my sister being in Town: so that when I have sometimes made ten paces towards you, f.a.n.n.y has called me into the City; and the Christmas Holydays are your only time to see Sisters, that is if they are so situated as mine. I will be with you early next week--to-night it should be, but we have a sort of a Club every Sat.u.r.day evening--to-morrow, but I have on that day an insuperable engagement. Cripps has been down to me, and appears sensible that a binding to you would be of the greatest advantage to him--if such a thing be done it cannot be before 150 or 200 are secured in subscriptions to him. I will write to Bailey about it, give a Copy of the Subscribers' names to every one I know who is likely to get a 5 for him. I will leave a Copy at Taylor and Hessey's, Rodwell and Martin, and will ask Kingston and Co. to cash up.

Your friendship for me is now getting into its teens--and I feel the past.

Also every day older I get--the greater is my idea of your achievements in Art: and I am convinced that there are three things to rejoice at in this Age--The Excursion, Your Pictures, and Hazlitt's depth of Taste.

Yours affectionately

JOHN KEATS.

XXVII.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.