of so benign a disposition that he never would leave Syracuse in his life - So kept himself out of all Knight-Errantry. — This I know to be a fact; for it is written in the 45th book of Winkine's treatise on gardenrollers, that he trod on a fishwoman's toe in Liverpool, and never begged her pardon. Now the long and short is this — that is by comparison - for a long day may be a short year A long Pole may be a very stupid fellow as a man. But let us refresh ourself from this depth of thinking, and turn to some innocent jocularity - the Bow cannot always be bent nor the gun always loaded, if you ever let it off and the life of man is like a great Mountain - his breath is like a Shrewsbury cake - he comes into the world like a shoeblack, and goes out of it like a cobbler he eats like a chimneysweeper, drinks like a gingerbread baker and breathes like Achilles so it being that we are such sublunary creatures, let us endeavour to correct all our bad spelling Oxford, September 10 [1817]. MY DEAR FANNY - Let us now begin a regular question and answer — a little pro and con; letting it interfere as a pleasant method of my coming at your favorite little wants and enjoyments, that I may meet them in a way befitting a brother. We have been so little together since you have been able to reflect on things that I know not whether you prefer the History of King Pepin to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progressor Cinderella and her glass slipper to Moore's Almanack. However in a few Letters I hope I shall be able to come at that and adapt my scribblings to your Pleasure. You must tell me about all you read if it be only six Pages in a Week and this transmitted to me every now and then will procure you full sheets of Writing from me pretty frequently. This I feel as a necessity for we ought to become intimately acquainted, in order that I may not only, as you grow up love you as my only Sister, but confide in you as my dearest friend. When I saw you last I told you of my intention of going to Oxford and 't is now a Week since I disembark'd from his Whipship's Coach the Defiance in this place. I am living in Magdalen Hall on a visit to a young Man with whom I have not been long acquainted, but whom I like very much- we lead very industrious lives he in general Studies and I in proceeding at a pretty good rate with a Poem which I hope you will see early in the next year.Perhaps you might like to know what I am writing about. I will tell you. Many Years ago there was a young handsome Shepherd who fed his flocks on a Mountain's Side called Latmus- he was a very contemplative sort of Person and lived solitary among the trees and Plains little thinking that such a beautiful Creature as the Moon was growing mad in Love with him. - However so it was; and when he was asleep on the Grass she used to come down from heaven and admire him excessively for a long time; and at last could not refrain from carrying him away in her arms to the top of that high Mountain Latmus while he was a dreaming - but I daresay you have read this and all the other beautiful Tales which have come down from the ancient times of that beautiful Greece. If you have not let me know and I will tell you more at large of others quite as delightful. This Oxford I have no doubt is the finest City in the world it is full of old Gothic buildingsSpires Quadrangles - Cloisters Groves, etc., and is surrounded with more clear streams than ever I saw together. I take a Walk by the Side of one of them every Evening and, thank God, we have not had a drop of rain these many days. I had a long and interesting Letter towers from George, cross lines by a short one from Tom yesterday dated Paris. They both send their loves to you. Like most Englishmen they feel a mighty preference for everything English - the French Meadows, the trees, the People, the Towns, the Churches, the Books, the everything — although they may be in themselves good: yet when put in comparison with our green Island they all vanish like Swallows in October. They have seen Cathedrals, Manuscripts, Fountains, Pictures, Tragedy, Comedy,- with other things you may by chance meet with in this Country such as Washerwomen, Lamplighters, Turnpikemen, Fishkettles, Dancing Masters, Kettle drums, Sentry Boxes, Rocking Horses, etc. -and, now they have taken them over a set of boxing-gloves. - 12 I have written to George and requested him, as you wish I should, to write to you. I have been writing very hard lately, even till an utter incapacity came on, and I feel it now about my head: so you must not mind a little out-of-the-way sayings - though by the bye were my brain as clear as a bell I think I should have a little propensity thereto. I shall stop here till I have finished the 3d Book of my Story; which I hope will be accomplish'd in at most three Weeks from to-day about which time you shall see me. How do you like Miss Taylor's essays in Rhyme I just look'd into the Book and it appeared to me suitable to you especially since I remember your liking for those pleasant little things the Original Poems the essays are the more mature production of the same hand. While I was speaking about France it occurred to me to speak a few Words on their Language — it is perhaps the poorest one ever spoken since the jabbering in the Tower of Babel, and when you come to know that the real use and greatness of a Tongue is to be referred to its Literature - you will be astonished to find how very inferior it is to our native Speech. I wish the Italian would supersede French in every school throughout the Country, for that is full of real Poetry and Romance of a kind more fitted for the Pleasure of Ladies than perhaps our own. — It seems that the only end to be gained in acquiring French is the immense accomplishment of speaking it - it is none at all - a most lamentable mistake indeed. Italian indeed would sound most musically from Lips which had began to pronounce it as early as French is crammed down our Mouths, as if we were young Jackdaws at the mercy of an overfeeding Schoolboy. Now Fanny you must write soon - and write all you think about, never mind what — only let me have a good deal of your writingYou need not do it all at once be two or three or four days about it, and let it be a diary of your little Life. You will preserve all my Letters and I will secure yours and thus in the course of time we shall each of us have a good Bundle which, hereafter, when things may have strangely altered and God knows what happened, we may read over together and look with pleasure on times past — that now are to come. Give my Respects to the Ladies - and so my dear Fanny I am ever Oxford, Sunday Evg. [September 14, 1817]. MY DEAR JANE - You are such a literal translator, that I shall some day amuse myself with looking over some foreign sentences, and imagining how you would render them into English. This is an age for typical Curiosities; and I would advise you, as a good speculation, to study Hebrew, and astonish the world with a figurative version in our native tongue. The Mountains skipping like rams, and the little hills like lambs, you will leave as far behind as the hare did the tortoise. It must be so or you would never have thought that I really -- meant you would like to pro and con about those Honeycombs - no, I had no such idea, or, if I had, 't would be only to tease you a little for love. So now let me put down in black and white briefly my sentiments thereon. Imprimis I sincerely believe that Imogen is the finest creature, and that I should have been disappointed at hearing you prefer Juliet - Item Yet I feel such a yearning towards Juliet that I would rather follow her into Pandemonium than Imogen into Paradise - heartily wishing myself a Romeo to be worthy of her, and to hear the Devils quote the old proverb, Birds of a feather flock together' Amen. crown Now let us turn to the Seashore. Believe me, my dear Jane, it is a great happiness to see that you are in this finest part of the year winning a little enjoyment from the hard world. In truth, the great Elements we know of, are no mean comforters: the open sky sits upon our senses like a sapphire - the Air is our robe of state the Earth is our throne, and the Sea a mighty minstrel playing before it - able, like David's harp, to make such a one as you forget almost the tempest cares of life. I have found in the ocean's music, - varying (tho self-same) more than the passion of Timotheus, an enjoyment not to be put into words; and, though inland far I be,' I now hear the voice most audibly while pleasing myself in the idea of your sensations. is getting well apace, and if you have a few trees, and a little harvesting about I'll you, snap my fingers in Lucifer's eye. I hope you bathe too - if do not, you I earnestly recommend it. Bathe thrice a week, and let us have no more sitting up next winter. Which is the best of Shakspeare's plays? I mean in what mood and with what accompaniment do you like the sea best? It is very fine in the morning, when the sun, 'Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams, Turns into yellow gold his salt sea streams,' and superb when 'The sun from meridian height Illumines the depth of the sea, and gorgeous, when the fair planet hastens To his home Within the Western foam.' But don't you think there is something extremely fine after sunset, when there are a few white clouds about and a few stars blinking-when the waters are ebbing, and the horizon a mystery? This state of things has been so fulfilling to me that I am anxious to hear whether it is a favourite with you. So when you and Marianne club your letter to me put in a word or two about it. Tell Dilke 18 that it would be perhaps as well if he left a Pheasant or Partridge alive here and there to keep up a supply of game for next season tell him to rein in if Possible all the Nimrod of his disposition, he being a mighty hunter before the Lord - of the Manor. Tell him to shoot fair, and not to have at the Poor devils in a furrow when they are flying, he may fire, and nobody will be the wiser. Give my sincerest respects to Mrs. Dilke, saying that I have not forgiven myself for not having got her the little box of medicine I promised, and that, had I remained at Hampstead I would have made precious havoc with her house and furniture — drawn a great harrow over her garden — poisoned Boxer -eaten her clothes-pegs fried her cabbages fricaseed (how is it spelt?) her radishes ragout'd her Onions belaboured her beat-root — outstripped her scarlet-runners parlez-vous'd with her french-beans devoured her mignon or mignionette metamorphosed her bellhandles splintered her looking-glassesbullocked at her cups and saucers nised her decanters- put old Phillips to pickle in the brine-tub-disorganised her piano dislocated her candlesticks - emptied her wine-bins in a fit of despair -ago turned out her maid to grass — and astonished Brown; whose letter to her on these events I would rather see than the original Copy of the Book of Genesis. Should you see Mr. W. D. remember me to him, and to little Robinson Crusoe, and to Mr. Snook. Poor Bailey, scarcely ever well, has gone to bed, pleased that I am writing to you. To your brother John (whom henceforth I shall consider as mine) and to you, my dear friends, Marianne and Jane, I shall ever feel grateful for having made known to me so real a fellow as Bailey. He delights me in the selfish and (please God) the disinterested part of my disposition. If the old Poets have any pleasure in looking down at the enjoyers of their works, their eyes must bend with a double satisfaction upon him. I sit as at a feast when he is over them, and pray that if, after my death, any of my labours should be worth saving, they may have so 'honest a chronicler' as Bailey. Out of this, his enthusiasm in his own pursuit and for all good things is of an exalted kind worthy a more healthful frame and an untorn spirit. He must have happy years to come 'he shall not die by God.' A letter from John the other day was a chief happiness to me. I made a little mistake when, just now, I talked of being far inland. How can that be when Endymion and I are at the bottom of the sea? whence I hope to bring him in safety before you leave the seaside; and, if I can so contrive it, you shall be greeted by him upon the sea-sands, and he shall tell you all his adventures, which having finished, he shall thus proceed 'My dear Ladies, favourites of my gentle mistress, however my friend Keats may have teased and vexed you, believe me he loves you not the less for instance, I am deep in his favour, and yet he has been hauling me through the earth and sea with unrelenting perseverance. I know for all this that he is mighty fond of me, by his contriving me all sorts of pleasures. Nor is this the least, fair ladies, this one of meeting you on the desert shore, and greeting you in his name. He sends you moreover this little scroll-' My dear Girls, I send you, per favour of Endymion, the assurance of my esteem for you, and my utmost wishes for your health and pleasure, being ever, Your affectionate Brother JOHN KEATS. 14. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Oxford, Sunday Morn [September 21, 1817]. MY DEAR REYNOLDS So you are determined to be my mortal foe draw a Sword at me, and I will forgive - Put a Bullet in my Brain, and I will shake it out as a dewdrop from the Lion's Mane - put me on a Gridiron, and I will fry with great complacency - but oh, horror! to come upon me in the shape of a Dun! Send me bills! as I say to my Tailor, send me Bills and I'll never employ you more. However, needs must, when the devil drives: and for fear of before and behind Mr. Honeycomb' I'll proceed. I have not time to elucidate the forms and shapes of the grass and trees; for, rot it! I forgot to bring my mathematical case with me, which unfortunately contained my triangular Prism so that the hues of the grass cannot be dissected for you For these last five or six days, we have had regularly a Boat on the Isis, and explored all the streams about, which are more in number than your eye-lashes. We sometimes skim into a Bed of rushes, and there become naturalised river-folks, there is one particularly nice nest, which we have christened 'Reynolds's Cove,' in which we have read Wordsworth and talked as may be. I think I see you and Hunt meeting in the Pit. What a very pleasant fellow he is, if he would give up the sovereignty of a Room pro bono. What Evenings we might pass with him, could we have him from Mrs. H. Failings I am always rather rejoiced to find in a man than sorry for; These they bring us to a Level. He has them, but then his makes-up are very good. He agrees with the Northern Poet 14 in this, 'He is not one of those who much delight to season their fireside with personal talk' -I must confess however having a little itch that way, and at this present moment I have a few neighbourly remarks to make. The world, and especially our England, has, within the last thirty years, been vexed and teased by a set of Devils, whom I detest so much that I almost hunger after an Acherontic promotion to a Torturer, purposely for their accommodation. devils are a set of women, who having taken a snack or Luncheon of Literary scraps, set themselves up for towers of Babel in languages, Sapphos in Poetry, Euclids in Geometry, and everything in nothing. Among such the name of Montague has been preeminent. The thing has made a very uncomfortable impression on me. I had longed for some real feminine Modesty in these things, and was therefore gladdened in the extreme on opening the a book other day, one of Bailey's Books of poetry written by one beautiful Mrs. Philips, a friend of Jeremy Taylor's, and called The Matchless Orinda — ' You must have heard of her, and most likely read her Poetry - I wish you have not, that I may have the pleasure of treating you with a - You few stanzas I do it at a venture will not regret reading them once more. The following, to her friend Mrs. M. A. at parting, you will judge of. I have examin'd and do find, Of all that favour me There's none I grieve to leave behind But only, only thee. To part with thee I needs must die, Could parting sep'rate thee and I. But neither Chance nor Complement 'T was sacred sympathy was lent That Friendship Fortune did create, Still fears a wound from Time or Fate. Thy Leiger Soul in me shall lie, And all thy thoughts reveal; And thence to me shall steal. Thus our twin-Souls in one shall grow, A Dew shall dwell upon our Tomb That fighting Armies, thither come, We'll ask no Epitaph, but say In other of her poems there is a delicate fancy of the Fletcher kind |