And springing up they met the wond'ring sight
Of their dear friends, nigh foolish with delight,
Who feel their arms and breasts, and kiss and stare,
And on their placid foreheads part the hair.
Young men and maidens at each other gazed,
With hands held back and motionless, amazed
To see the brightness in each other's eyes;
And so they stood, filled with a sweet surprise,
Until their tongues were loosed in poesy;
Therefore no lover did of anguish die,
But the soft numbers, in that moment spoken,
Made silken ties that never may be broken."

George Keats had now for some time left the counting-house of Mr. Abbey, his guardian, on account of the conduct of a younger partner towards him, and had taken lodgings with his two brothers. Mr. Abbey entertained a high opinion of his practical abilities and energies, which experience shortly verified. Tom, the youngest, had more of the poetic and sensitive temperament, and the bad state of health into which he fell, on entering manhood, absolutely precluded him from active occupation. He was soon compelled to retire to Devonshire, as his only chance for life, and George accompanied him. John, in the meantime, was advancing with his poem, and had come to an arrangement with Messrs. Taylor and Hessey (who seem to have cordially appreciated his genius) respecting its publication. The following letters indicate that they gave him tangible proofs of their interest in his welfare, and his reliance on their generosity was, probably, only equal to his trust in his own abundant powers of repayment. The physical symptoms he alludes to had nothing dangerous about them, and merely suggested some prudence in his mental labors. Nor had he then experienced the harsh repulse of ungenial criticism, but, although never unconscious of his own deficiencies, nor blind to the jealousies and spites of others, believed himself to be, on the whole, accompanied on his path to fame by the sympathies and congratulations of all the fellow-men he cared for: and they were many.

MY DEAR SIR,

MARGATE, May 16th, 1817.

I am extremely indebted to you for your liberality in the shape of manufactured rag, value 207., and shall immediately proceed to destroy some of the minor heads of that hydra the Dun; to conquer which the knight need have no sword, shield, cuirass, cuisses, herbadgeon, spear, casque, greaves, paldrons, spurs, chevron, or any other scaly commodity, but he need only take the Bank-note of Faith and Cash of Salvation, and set out against the monster, invoking the aid of no Archimago or Urganda, but finger me the paper, light as the Sybil's leaves in Virgil, whereat the fiend skulks off with his tail between his legs. Touch him with this enchanted paper, and he whips you his head away as fast as a snail's horn; but then the horrid propensity he has to put it up again has discouraged many very valiant knights. He is such a never-ending, still-beginning, sort of a body, like my landlady of the Bell. I think I could make a nice little allegorical poem, called "The Dun," where we would have the Castle of Carelessness, the Drawbridge of Credit, Sir Novelty Fashion's expedition against the City of Tailors, &c. &c. I went day by day at my poem for a month; at the end of which time, the other day, I found my brain so overwrought, that I had neither rhyme nor reason in it, so was obliged to give up for a few days. I hope soon to be able to resume my work. I have endeavored to do so once or twice; but to no purpose. Instead of poetry, I have a swimming in my head, and feel all the effects of a mental debauch, lowness of spirits, anxiety to go on, without the power to do so, which does not at all tend to my ultimate progression. However, to-morrow I will begin my next month. This evening I go to Canterbury, having got tired of Margate; I was not right in my head when I came. At Canterbury I hope the remembrance of Chaucer will set me forward like a billiard ball. I have some idea of seeing the Continent some time this summer. In repeating how sensible I am of your kindness, I remain, your obedient servant and friend,

JOHN KEATS.

I shall be happy to hear any little intelligence in the literary or friendly way when you have time to scribble.

10th July, 1817.

MY DEAR SIR,

A couple of Duns that I thought would be silent till the beginning, at least, of next month, (when I am certain to be on my legs, for certain sure,) have opened upon me with a cry most "untunable;" never did you hear such "ungallant chiding." Now, you must know, I am not so desolate, but have, thank God, twenty-five good notes in my fob. But then, you know, I laid them by to write with, and would stand at bay a fortnight ere they should quit me. In a month's time I must pay, but it would relieve my mind if I owed you, instead of these pelican duns.

I am afraid you will say I have "wound about with circumstance," when I should have asked plainly. However, as I said, I am a little maidenish or so, and I feel my virginity come strong upon me, the while I request the loan of a 207. and a 107., which, if you would inclose to me, I would acknowledge and save myself a hot forehead. I am sure you are confident of my responsibility, and in the sense of squareness that is always in

me.

Your obliged friend,

JOHN KEATS.

In September he visited his friend Bailey at Oxford, and wrote thus:

"Believe me, my dear

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 crown; 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 (the self-same) more than the passion of Timotheus, an enjoyment not to be put into words; and, though inland far I be,' 1 now hear the voice most audibly while pleasing myself in the idea of your sensations.

66

is getting well apace, and if you have a few trees, and a little harvesting about you, I'll snap my fingers in Lucifer's eye. I hope you bathe too; if you do not, 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,

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 favorite with you. So when you and club your letter to me, put in a word or two about it. Tell Dilke 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-ragouted her onions-belabored her beat-root-outstripped her scarlet-runners-parlez-vous'd with her french-beansdevoured her mignon or mignionette-metamorphosed her bellhandles-splintered her looking-glasses-bullocked at her cups and saucers-agonized her decanters-put old P———— to pickle in the brine-tub-disorganized her piano-dislocated her candlesticks -emptied her wine-bins in a fit of despair-turned out her maid to grass and astonished B-; whose letter to her on these events I would rather see than the original copy of the Book of Genesis.

"Poor Bailey, scarcely ever well, has gone to bed, pleased that I am writing to you. Το your brother John (whom henceforth I shall consider as mine) and to you, my dear friends, 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 labors 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 sea-side; 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, favorites 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 favor, and yet he has been hauling me through the earth and sea with unrelenting perI 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

severance.