I have written to Sir T. Lawrence. I have got a volume of Jeremy Taylor's works, which Keats has heard me read to-night. This is a treasure indeed, and came when I should have thought it hopeless. Why may not other good things come? I will keep myself up with such hopes. Dr. Clark is still the same, though he knows about the bill: he is afraid the next change will be to diarrhoea. Keats sees all this-his knowledge of anatomy makes every change tenfold worse: every way he is unfortunate, yet every one offers me assistance on his account. He cannot read any letters, he has made me put them by him unopened. They tear him to pieces-he dare not look on the outside of any more: make this known.

"Feb. 18th.-I have just got your letter of Jan. 15th. The contrast of your quiet friendly Hampstead with this lonely place and our poor-suffering Keats, brings the tears into my eyes. I wish many many times that he had never left you. His recovery would have been impossible in England; but his excessive grief has made it equally so. In your care he seemed to me like an infant in its mother's arms; you would have smoothed down his pain by variety of interests, and his death would have been eased by the presence of many friends. Here, with one solitary friend, in a place savage for an invalid, he has one more pang added to his many-for I

have had the hardest task in keeping from him my painful situation. I have kept him alive week after week. He has refused all food, and I have prepared his meals six times a day, till he had no excuse left. I have only dared to leave him while he slept. It is impossible to conceive what his sufferings have been: he might, in his anguish, have plunged into the grave in secret, and not a syllable been known about him: this reflection alone repays me for all I have done. Now, he is still alive and calm. He would not hear that he was better the thought of recovery is beyond everything dreadful to him; we now dare not perceive any improvement, for the hope of death seems his only comfort. He talks of the quiet grave as the first rest he can ever have.

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:

In the last week a great desire for books came across his mind. I got him all I could, and three days this charm lasted, but now it has gone. Yet he is very tranquil. He is more and more reconciled to his horrible misfortunes.

"Feb. 14th.-Little or no change has taken place, except this beautiful one, that his mind is growing to great quietness and peace. I find this change has to do with the increasing weakness of his body, but to me it seems like a delightful sleep: I have been beating about in the tempest of his mind so long. To-night he has talked very much, but so easily, that

he fell at last into a pleasant sleep. He seems to have happy dreams. This will bring on some change, -it cannot be worse-it may be better. Among the many things he has requested of me to-night, this is the principal-that on his grave-stone shall be this inscription :

6 HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER.

You will understand this so well that I need not say a word about it.

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When he first came here he purchased a copy

of Alfieri,' but put it down at the second page— being much affected at the lines

'Misera me! sollievo a me non resta,

Altro che il pianto, ed il pianto è delitto!"

Now that I know so much of his grief, I do not wonder at it.

"Such a letter has come ! I gave it to Keats supposing it to be one of yours, but it proved sadly otherwise. The glance at that letter tore him to pieces; the effects were on him for many days. He did not read it-he could not-but requested me to place it in his coffin, together with a purse and a letter (unopened) of his sister's; * since then he has

* Miss Keats shortly after married Señor Llanos, a Spanish gentleman of liberal politics and much accomplishment, the author of "Don Esteban," "Sandoval the Freemason," and other spirited illustrations of the modern history of the Peninsula.

told me not to place that letter in his coffin, only his sister's purse and letter, and some hair. I however persuaded him to think otherwise on this point. In his most irritable state he sees a friendless world about him, with everything that his life presents, and especially the kindness of others, tending to his melancholy death.

"I have got an English nurse to come two hours every other day, so that I am quite recovering my health. Keats seems to like her, but she has been taken ill to-day and cannot come. In a little backroom I get chalking out a picture; this, with swallowing a little Italian every day, helps to keep me up. The Doctor is delighted with your kindness to Keats; he thinks him worse; his lungs are in a dreadful state; his stomach has lost all its power. Keats knew from the first little drop of blood that he must die; no common chance of living was left him.

"Feb. 22nd.-O! how anxious I am to hear from you! [Mr. Haslam.] I have nothing to break this dreadful solitude but letters. Day after day, night after night, here I am by our poor dying friend. My spirits, my intellect, and my health are breaking down. I can get no one to change with me-no one

* Probably alluding to pecuniary assistance afforded by Mr. Brown. But before this the friends were helped out of their immediate difficulty by the generosity of Mr. Taylor.

to relieve me. All run away, and even if they did not, Keats would not do without me.

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Last night I thought he was going; I could hear the phlegm in his throat; he bade me lift him up in the bed or he would die with pain. I watched him all night, expecting him to be suffocated at every cough. This morning, by the pale daylight, the change in him frightened me: he has sunk in the last three days to a most ghastly look. Though Dr. Clark has

prepared me for the worst, I shall be ill able to bear it. I cannot bear to be set free even from this my horrible situation by the loss of him.

“I am still quite precluded from painting: which may be of consequence to me. Poor Keats has me ever by him, and shadows out the form of one solitary friend: he opens his eyes in great doubt and horror, but when they fall upon me, they close gently, open quietly and close again, till he sinks to sleep. This thought alone would keep me by him till he dies and why did I say I was losing my time? The advantages I have gained by knowing John Keats are double and treble any I could have won by any other occupation. Farewell.

"Feb. 27th.-He is gone; he died with the most perfect ease he seemed to go to sleep. On the twentythird, about four, the approaches of death came on.

Severn-I-lift me up-I am dying—I shall die