obliged to exile from you; for I have one or two rather pleasant occasions to confer upon with you. What I have heard from George is favourable. I expect a letter from the settlement itself.

I am greatly obliged to you. I must needs feel flattered 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 like very much to know those ladies-though look here, Woodhouse—I have a new leaf to turn over: I must work; I must read; I must 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 REYNOLDS,

Believe me, I have rather rejoiced at your happiness than fretted at your silence. Indeed I am grieved, on your account, that I am not at the same time happy. But I conjure you to think, at present, of nothing but pleasure; "Gather the rose," &c., gorge the honey of life. I pity you as much that it cannot last for ever, as I do myself now drinking bitters. Give yourself up to it--you cannot help it —and I have a consolation in thinking so. I never was in love, yet the voice and shape of a woman has haunted me these two days-at such a time when the relief, the feverish relief of poetry, seems a much less crime. This morning poetry has conquered-I have relapsed into those abstractions which are my only life-I feel escaped from a new, strange, and threatening sorrow, and I am thankful for it. There is an awful warmth about my heart, like a load of Immortality.

Poor Tom-that woman and poetry were ringing changes in my senses. Now I am, in comparison, happy. I am sensible this will distress you-you must forgive me. Had I known you would have set out so soon I would have sent you the "Pot of Basil," for I had copied it out ready. Here is a free translation of a Sonnet of Ronsard,

which I think

will please you. I have the loan of his works-they have great beauties.

"Nature withheld Cassandra in the skies,

For more adornment, a full thousand years;
She took their cream of Beauty's fairest dies,
And shaped and tinted her above all Peers:
Meanwhile Love kept her dearly with his wings,
And underneath their shadow filled her eyes
With such a richness that the cloudy Kings
Of high Olympus uttered slavish sighs.
When from the Heavens I saw her first descend,
My heart took fire, and only burning pains,
They were my pleasures-they my Life's sad end;
Love poured her beauty into my warm veins,
[So that her image in my soul upgrew,
The only thing adorable and true."-Ed.] *

*The second sonnet in the "Amours de Cassandre:

she was

a damosel of Blois-" Ville de Blois-naissance de ma dame."

"Nature ornant Cassandre, qui deuoit
De sa douceur forcer les plus rebelles,
La composa de cent beautez nouuelles
Que dés mille ans en espargne elle auoit.—
De tous les biens qu' Amour au Ciel couuoit
Comme vu tresor cherement sous ces ailles,
Elle enrichit les Graces immortelles
De son bel oeil qui les Dieux esmouuoit.—
Du Ciel à peine elle estoit descenduë
Quand ie la vey, quand mon asme esperduë
En deuint folle, et d'vn si poignant trait,
Amour couler ses beautez en mes veines,
Qu'autres plaisirs ie ne sens que mes peines,
Ny autre bien qu' adorer son portrait."

I had not the original by me when I wrote it, and did not recollect the purport of the last lines.

I should have seen Rice ere this, but I am confined by Sawney's mandate in the house now, and have, as yet, only gone out in fear of the damp night. I shall soon be quite recovered. Your offer I shall remember as though it had even now taken place in fact. I think it cannot be. Tom is not up yet-I cannot say he is better. I have not heard from George.

Your affectionate friend,

JOHN KEATS.

It may be as well at once to state that the lady alluded to in the above pages inspired Keats with the passion that only ceased with his existence. Where personal feelings of so profound a character are concerned, it does not become the 'biographer, in any case, to do more than to indicate their effect on the life of his hero, and where the memoir so nearly approaches the times of its subject that the persons in question, or, at any rate, their near relations, may be still alive, it will at once be felt how indecorous would be any conjectural analysis of such sentiments, or, indeed, any more intrusive record of them than is absolutely necessary for the comprehension of the

real man. True, a poet's love is, above all other things, his life; true, a nature, such as that of Keats, in which the sensuous and the ideal were so interpenetrated that he might be said to think because he felt, cannot be understood without its affections; but no comment, least of all that of one personally a stranger, can add to the force of the glowing and solemn expressions that appear here and there in his correspondence. However sincerely the devotion of Keats may have been requited, it will be seen that his outward circumstances soon became such as to render a union very difficult, if not impossible. Thus these years were past in a conflict in which plain poverty and mortal sickness met a radiant imagination and a redundant heart. Hope was there, with Genius, his everlasting sustainer, and Fear never approached but as the companion of Necessity. The strong power conquered the physical man, and made the very intensity of his passion, in a certain sense, accessory to his death: he might have lived longer if he had lived less. But this should be no matter of self-reproach to the object of his love, for the same. may be said of the very exercise of his poetic faculty, and of all that made him what he was. It is enough that she has preserved his memory with a sacred honour, and it is no vain assumption, that to have inspired and sustained the one passion of this noble being has