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A FAMILY BREAK-UP

liv'd in days of old') and to whom he had also on his own account addressed the charming sonnet, 'Nymph of the downward smile and sidelong glance.' With no other woman or girl friend was he ever on such easy and cordial terms of intimacy. The wedding took place a week ago,' writes Keats on June 4, and about the same date, in order that he may not miss seeing as much of the young couple as possible before their departure, he declines a warm invitation from Bailey to visit him again at Oxford. Writing, as usual to this correspondent, with absolute openness, Keats shows that he is suffering from one of his moods of overmastering depression. First it takes the form of apathy. Bailey had written eagerly and judiciously in praise of Endymion in the Oxford Herald. Keats replies on June 1:

My intellect must be in a degenerating state-it must be for when I should be writing about-God knows what-I am troubling you with moods of my own mind, or rather body, for mind there is none. I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come up to the top-I know very well 'tis all nonsense. In a short time I hope I shall be in a temper to feel sensibly your mention of my book. In vain have I waited till Monday to have my Interest in that, or anything else. I feel no spur at my Brother's going to America, and am almost stony-hearted about his wedding. All this will blow over. All I am sorry for is having to write to you in such a time-but I cannot force my letters in a hotbed. I could not feel comfortable in making sentences for you.

Nine days later the mood has deepened to one of positive despondency, but it is the despondency of a great and generous spirit:

Were it in my choice, I would reject a Petrarchal coronation -on account of my dying day, and because women have cancers. I should not by right speak in this tone to you for it is an incendiary spirit that would do so. Yet I am not old enough or magnanimous enough to annihilate self-and it would perhaps be paying you an ill compliment. I was in hopes some little time back to be able to relieve your dulness by my spirits-to point out things in the world worth your enjoyment-and now I am never alone without rejoicing that there is such a thing as death -without placing my ultimate in the glory of dying for a great

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human purpose. Perhaps if my affairs were in a different state, I should not have written the above-you shall judge: I have two brothers; one is driven, by The 'burden of Society,' to America; the other, with an exquisite love of life, is in a lingering state. My love for my Brothers, from the early loss of our parents, and even from earlier misfortunes, has grown into an affection 'passing the love of women.' I have been ill-tempered with them-I have vexed them-but the thought of them has always stifled the impression that any woman might otherwise have made upon me. I have a sister too, and may not follow them either to America or to the grave. Life must be undergone, and I certainly derive some consolation from the thought of writing one or two more poems before it ceases.

Meanwhile his fluctuations of purpose between a plunge into a life of solitude and study and an excursion in Brown's company to Scotland had been decided in favour of the Scottish tour. George and his bride having to set out for Liverpool on June 22, it was arranged that Keats and Brown should accompany them so far on their way to the north. The coach started from the Swan and two Necks in Lad Lane, and on the first day stopped for dinner at Redbourne near St Albans, where Keats's friend of medical student days, Mr Stephens, was in practice. He came to shake hands with the travelling party at the poet's request, and many years afterwards wrote an account of the interview, the chief point of which is a description of Mrs George Keats. 'Rather short, not what might be called strictly handsome, but looked like a being whom any man of moderate sensibility might easily love. She had the imaginative poetical cast. Somewhat

singular and girlish in her attire. . . . There was something original about her, and John seemed to regard her as a being whom he delighted to honour, and introduced her with evident satisfaction.'

CHAPTER IX

JUNE-AUGUST 1818: THE SCOTTISH TOUR

First sight of Windermere-Ambleside, Rydal, Keswick-Attitude towards scenery-Ascent of Skiddaw-A country dancing-school-DumfriesThe Galloway coast-Meg Merrilies-Flying visit to Belfast-Contrasts and reflections-The Duchess of Dunghill-The Ayrshire coast-In Burns's cottage-Lines on his pilgrimage-Through Glasgow to Loch Lomond-A confession-Loch Awe to the coast-Hardships-Kerrera and Mull-Staffa-A sea cathedral-Ben Nevis-Tour cut shortReturn to Hampstead.

THE farewells at Liverpool over, Keats and Brown went on by coach to Lancaster, thence to begin their tour on foot. Keats took for his reading one book only, the miniature three-volume edition of Cary's Dante. Brown, it would appear, carried a pocket Milton. They found the town of Lancaster in an uproar with the preparations for a contested election and were glad to leave it. Rising at four in the morning (June 25th) to make a start before breakfast, they were detained by a downpour, during which Brown preached patience from Samson Agonistes; at seven they set out in a still dripping mist; breakfasted at Bolton-le-Sands; stopped to dine at the village of Burton-in-Kendal, and found the inns crowded, to their hosts' distraction, with soldiers summoned by the Lowther interest to keep order at the election. This was the famous contest where Brougham had the effrontery, as his opponents considered it, to go down and challenge for the first time the power of that great family in their own country. The same state of things prevailed farther down the road. Hearing that they could not

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hope to find a bed at Kendal, they slept in a mean roadside inn at End Moor, taking interested note of a sad old dog of a drunkard, fallen from better days, whom they found there; and the next morning walked on, passing Kendal on their way, as far as Bowness on Windermere. As they dropped down the hill and came in sight of the lake the weather yielded fine effects of clearance after rain; and Brown, in the account compiled twenty years later from his diaries written at the time,' expatiates in full romantic vein on the joy and amazement with which Keats and he drank in the beauties of the varied and shifting scene before them:

On the next morning, after reaching Kendal, we had our first really joyous walk of nine miles towards the lake of Windermere. The country was mild and romantic, the weather fine, though not sunny, while the fresh mountain air, and many larks about us, gave us unbounded delight. As we approached the lake the scenery became more and more grand and beautiful, and from time to time we stayed our steps, gazing intently on it. Hitherto, Keats had witnessed nothing superior to Devonshire; but, beautiful as that is, he was now tempted to speak of it with indifference. At the first turn from the road, before descending to the hamlet of Bowness, we both simultaneously came to a full stop. The lake lay before us. His bright eyes darted on a mountain-peak, beneath which was gently floating on a silver cloud; thence to a very small island, adorned with the foliage of trees, that lay beneath us, and surrounded by water of a glorious hue, when he exclaimed-'How can I believe in that? -surely it cannot be!' He warmly asserted that no view in the world could equal this-that it must beat all Italy-yet, having moved onward but a hundred yards-catching the further extremity of the lake, he thought it 'more and more wonderfully beautiful!' The trees far and near, the grass immediately around us, the fern and the furze in their most luxuriant growth, all added to the charm. Not a mist, but an imperceptible vapour bestowed a mellow, softened tint over the immense mountains on the opposite side and at the further end of the lake.

1 This account was published in The Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal, beginning October 1, 1840, but was unluckily stopped after the fourth number and carries us no farther than to Ballantrae on the Ayrshire coast. I believe this is the first time that it has been used or quoted.

274

AMBLESIDE, RYDAL, KESWICK

After a bathe and a midday meal at Bowness the friends walked on with ever increasing delight to Ambleside. Spending the night there they scrambled about the neighbouring waterfalls, and endured as patiently as they could the advances of a youth lately from Oxford, touring knapsack on back like themselves but painfully bent on showing himself off for a scholar and buck about town, airing his pedigree and connexions while affecting to make light of them. The next day they went on by Grasmere to Rydal, where they paused that Keats might call and pay his respects to Wordsworth. But the poet was away at Lowther Castle electioneering (he had been exerting himself vigorously in the Tory and Lowther interest since the spring in prospect of this contest). Complete want of sympathy with the cause of his absence made Keats's disappointment the keener; and finding none of the family at home he could do no more than leave a note of regret. The same afternoon the travellers reached the hamlet of Wythburn and slept there as well as fleas would allow, intending to climb Helvellyn the next morning. Heavy rain interfering, they pursued their way by Thirlmere to Keswick, made the circuit of Derwentwater, visited the Druids' Circle and the Falls of Lodore, and set out at four the next morning to climb Skiddaw. A cloud-cap settling down compelled them to stop a little short of the summit, and they resumed their tramp by Bassenthwaite into the relatively commonplace country lying between the lakes and Carlisle, making their next night's resting-place at the old market town of Ireby.

I have shown by a specimen how Brown, working from his diaries of the tour, expatiates on his and his companion's enthusiasm over the romantic scenes they visited. Keats in his own letters says comparatively little about the scenery, and that quite simply and quietly, not at all with the descriptive enthusiasm of the picturesque tourist: hardly indeed with so much of that quality as the sedate and fastidious Gray had shown in his itineraries fifty years before. Partly, no