spend any time with Ladies unless they are handsome — you lose time to no purpose. For that reason I shall beg leave to decline going again to Redall's or Butler's or any Squad where a fine feature cannot be mustered among them all—and where all the evening's amusement consists in saying 'your good health, your good health, and YOUR good health-and (O I beg your pardon) yours, Miss -,' and such thing not even dull enough to keep one awake With respect to amiable speaking I can read - let my eyes be fed or I'll never go out to dinner anywhere. Perhaps you may have heard of the dinner given to Thos. Moore in Dublin, because I have the account here by me in the Philadelphia democratic paper.

The most pleasant thing

that occurred was the speech Mr. Tom made on his Father's health being drank. I am afraid a great part of my Letters are filled up with promises and what I will do rather than any great deal written - but here I say once for all that circumstances prevented me from keeping my promise in my last, but now I affirm that as there will be nothing to hinder me I will keep a journal for you. That I have not yet done so you would forgive if you knew how many hours I have been repenting of my neglect. For I have no thought pervading me so constantly and frequently as that of you - my Poem cannot frequently drive it away – you will retard it much more than you could by taking up my time if you were in England. I never forget you except after seeing now and then some beautiful woman -but that is a fever- - the thought of you both is a passion with me, but for the most part a calm one. I asked Dilke for a few lines for you he has promised them — I shall send what I have written to Haslam on Monday Morning - what I can get into another sheet to-morrow I will There are one or two little poems you might like. I have given up snuff very nearly quite Dilke has promised to sit with me this evening, I wish he would come this minute

for I want a pinch of snuff very much just now- I have none though in my own snuff box. My sore throat is much better to-day - I think I might venture on a pinch. Here are the Poems- they will explain themselves as all poems should do without any comment

The poem entitled 'Fancy,' pp. 124, 125, is here inserted.]

I did not think this had been so long a Poem. I have another not so long-but as it will more conveniently be copied on the other side I will just put down here some observations on Caleb Williams by Hazlitt I meant to say St. Leon, for although he has mentioned all the Novels of Godwin very freely I do not quote them, but this only on account of its being a specimen of his usual abrupt manner, and fiery laconicism. He says of St. Leon

'He is a limb torn off society. In possession of eternal youth and beauty he can feel no love; surrounded, tantalised, and tormented with riches, he can do no good. The faces of Men pass before him as in a speculum; but he is attached to them by no common tie of sympathy or suffering. He is thrown back into himself and his own thoughts. He lives in the solitude of his own breast-without wife or child or friend or Enemy in the world. This is the solitude of the soul, not of woods or trees or mountains - but the desert of society - the waste and oblivion of the heart. He is himself alone. His existence is purely intellectual, and is therefore intolerable to one who has felt the rapture of affection, or the anguish of woe.'

As I am about it I might as well give you his character of Godwin as a Romancer:

'Whoever else is, it is pretty clear that the author of Caleb Williams is not the author of Waverley. Nothing can be more distinct or excellent in their several ways than these two writers. If the one owes almost everything to external observations and traditional character, the other owes everything to internal conception and contemplation of the possible workings of the human Mind. There is little knowledge of the world, little variety, neither an eye for the picturesque nor a talent for the humorous

in Caleb Williams, for instance, but you cannot doubt for a moment of the originality of the work and the force of the conception. The impression made upon the reader is the exact measure of the strength of the author's genius. For the effect both in Caleb Williams and St. Leon is entirely made out, not by facts nor dates, by blackletter, or magazine learning, by transcript nor record, but by intense and patient study of the human heart, and by an imagination projecting itself into certain situations, and capable of working up its imaginary feelings to the height of reality.'

These are specimens of a sort of rondeau which I think I shall become partial tobecause you have one idea amplified with greater ease and more delight and freedom than in the sonnet. It is my intention to wait a few years before I publish any minor poems-and then I hope to have a volume of some worth- and which those people will relish who cannot bear the burthen of a long poem. In my journal I intend to copy the poems I write the days they are written There is just room, I see, in this page to copy a little thing I wrote off to some Music as it was playing['I had a dove and the sweet dove died,' p. 125].

Sunday [January 3]. I have been dining with Dilke to-day He is up to his Ears in Walpole's letters. Mr. Manker is there, and I have come round to see if I can conjure up anything for you. Kirkman came down to see me this morning-his family has been very badly off lately. He told me of a villainous trick of his Uncle William in Newgate Street, who became sole Creditor to his father under pretence of serving him, and put an execution on his own Sister's goods. He went in to the family at Portsmouth; conversed with them, went out and sent in the Sherriff's officer. He tells me too of

abominable behaviour of Archer to Caroline Mathew - Archer has lived nearly at the Mathews these two years; he has been - and now he has written amusing Caroline a Letter to Mrs. M. declining, on pretence of inability to support a wife as he would wish, all thoughts of marriage. What is the worst is Caroline is 27 years old. It is an abominable matter. He has called upon me twice lately-I was out both times. What can it be for? - There is a letter to-day in the Examiner to the Electors of Westminster on Mr. Hobhouse's account. In it there is a good character of Cobbett -I have not the paper by me or I would copy it. I do not think I have mentioned the discovery of an African Kingdomthe account is much the same as the first accounts of Mexico-all magnificence There is a Book being written about it. I will read it and give you the cream in my next. The romance we have heard upon it runs thus: They have window frames of gold-100,000 infantry-human sacrifices. The Gentleman who is the Adventurer has his wife with him-she, I am told, is a beautiful little sylphid woman - her husband was to have been sacrificed to their Gods and was led through a Chamber filled with different instruments of torture with privilege to choose what death he would die, without their having a thought of his aversion to such a death, they considering it a supreme distinction. However he was let off, and became a favourite with the King, who at last openly patronised him, though at first on account of the Jealousy of his Ministers he was wont to hold conversations with his Majesty in the dark middle of the night. All this sounds a little Bluebeardish-but I hope it is true. There is another thing I must mention of the momentous kind; - but I must mind my periods in it - Mrs. Dilke has two Cats -a Mother and a Daughter - now the Mother is a tabby and the daughter a black and white like the spotted child. Now it appears to me, for the doors of both houses

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Irenan is marung primised a write a few lines sa o ai send them a Eus I to not time I have anything a ay the Business VIT In vil le me kaow what yun vund wish done via your print a Lagland vias mings TH But I am quite in the tark anus what you are doing If I do ane bear won I shall put on my wings and ne after you. I will n my ners, and atter I have seen your next letter, tell yon my own partionlar idea of America. Your wett etter v... be the key by which I shall open your hearts and see what spaces want A...ng with any particular information Whether the alain of Europe are more or less interesting to you - whether you wonid like to hear of the Theatres of

the bear Garden-of the Boters - the Painters, the Lectures-the Dress - The progress of Dandyan - The Progress of Cooratip -or the fate of Mary Millar being a fall, trae, and tres partienlar account of Miss M.'s ten Suitors — How the first tried the effect of swearing; the second of stammering; the third of whispering: the fourth of sonnets the fifth of Spanish leather boots, -the sixth of flattering her body. -the seventh of flattering her mind -the eighth of flattering himself — the

Wentworth Place. Friday Men
December 2X IIS.

MY DEAR WOODHOUSE- I am greatly obliged to you. I mast needs feel tattered by making an impression on a set of ladies. I should be content to do so by meretricious romance verse, if they alone, and not men, were to judge. I should Eke very mach to know those ladies — thongh look here, Woodhouse - I have a new leaf to turn over: I mast work; I must read; I mast write. I am unable to afford time for new acquaintances. I am scarcely able to do my duty to those I have. Leave the matter to chance. But do not forget to give my remembrances to your cousin.

Yours most sincerely JOHN KEATS.

MY DEAR MRS. REYNOLDS When I left you yesterday, 't was with the conviction that you thought I had received no previous invitation for Christmas day: the truth is I had, and had accepted it under the conviction that I should be in Hampshire at the time: else believe me I should not have done so, but kept in Mind my old friends. I will not speak of the proportion of pleasure I may receive at different Houses-that never enters head my you may take for a truth that I would have given up even what I did see to be a greater pleasure, for the sake of old acquaintanceship time is nothing

years are as long as twenty. Yours faithfully

two

JOHN KEATS.

84. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON

Wentworth Place, Tuesday [December 22, 1818]. MY DEAR HAYDON - Upon my Soul I never felt your going out of the room at all-and believe me I never rhodomontade anywhere but in your Company - my general Life in Society is silence. I feel in myself all the vices of a Poet, irritability, love of effect and admiration · and influenced by such devils I may at times say more ridiculous things than I am aware of - but I will put a stop to that in a manner I have long resolved upon -I will buy a gold ring and put it on my finger and from that time a Man of superior head shall never have occasion to pity me, or one of inferior Nunskull to chuckle at me. I am certainly more for greatness in a shade than in the open day I am speaking as a mortal-I should say I value more the privilege of seeing great things in loneliness than the fame of a Prophet. Yet here I am sinning so I will turn to a thing I have thought on more - I mean your means till your picture be finished:

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heart to you in a few words. I will do this sooner than you shall be distressed: but let me be the last stay- Ask the rich lovers of Art first I'll tell you why - I have a little money which may enable me to study, and to travel for three or four years. I never expect to get anything by my Books: and moreover I wish to avoid publishing I admire Human Nature but I do not like Men. I should like to compose things honourable to Man-but not fingerable over by Men. So I am anxious to exist without troubling the printer's devil or drawing upon Men's or Women's admiration — in which great solitude I hope God will give me strength to rejoice. Try the long purses but do not sell your drawings or I shall consider it a breach of friendship. I am sorry I was not at home when Salmon [Haydon's servant] called. Do write and let me know all your present whys and wherefores.

Wentworth Place, Wednesday [December 30, 1818]. MY DEAR FANNY I am confined at Hampstead with a sore throat; but I do not expect it will keep me above two or three days. I intended to have been in Town yesterday but feel obliged to be careful a little while. I am in general so careless of these trifles, that they tease me for Months, when a few days' care is all that is necessary. I shall not neglect any chance of an endeavour to let you return to School nor to procure you a Visit to Mrs. Dilke's which I have great fears about. Write me if you can find time and also get a few lines ready for George as the Post sails next Wednesday.

É. TO THE SAXT

Wentworth Place. between January 7 and 24, 1925),

MY DEAR HAYDON— We are very unlucky- I should have stopped to dine with you, but I knew I should not have been able to leave you in time for my plagay sore throat; which is getting well

I shall have a little trouble in procuring the Money and a great ordeal to go through -no trouble indeed to any one else — or ordeal either. I mean I shall have to go to town some thrice, and stand in the Bank an hour or two- to me worse than anything in Dante - I should have less chance with the people around me than Orpheus had with the Stones. I have been writing a little now and then lately: but nothing to speak of being discontented and as it were moulting. Yet I do not think I shall ever come to the rope or the Pistol, for after a day or two's melancholy, although I smoke more and more my own insufficiency I see by little and little more of what is to be done, and how it is to be done, should I ever be able to do it. On my soul, there should be some reward for that continual agonie ennuyeuse. I was thinking of going into Hampshire for a few days. I have been delaying it longer than I intended. You shall see me soon; and do not be at all anxious, for this time I really will do, what I never did before in my life, business in good time, and properly. With respect to the Bond it may be a satisfaction to you to let me have it: but as you love me do not let there e any mention of interest, although we Sire mortal men and bind ourselves for fer of death.