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My dear Fanny,

LXXXV.

To FANNY KEATS.

Wentworth Place

Feby. [1819]. Thursday

Your Letter to me at Bedhampton hurt me very much,-What objection can the[r]e be to your receiving a Letter from me? At Bedhampton I was unwell and did not go out of the Garden Gate but twice or thrice during the fortnight I was there-Since I came back I have been taking care of myself—I have been obliged to do so, and am now in hopes that by this care I shall get rid of a sore throat which has haunted me at intervals nearly a twelvemonth. I had always a presentiment of not being able to succeed in persuading Mr. Abbey to let you remain longer at School-I am very sorry that he will not consent. I recommend you to keep up all that you know and to learn more by yourself however little. The time will come when you will be more pleased with Life -look forward to that time and, though it may appear a trifle be careful not to let the idle and retired Life you lead fix any awkward habit or behaviour on you-whether you sit or walk endeavour to let it be in a seemly and if possible a graceful manner. We have been very little together but you have not the less been with me in thought. You have no one in the world besides me who would sacrifice any thing for you-I feel myself the only Protector you have. In all your little troubles think of me with the thought that there is at least one person in England who if he could would help you out of themI live in hopes of being able to make you happy.—I should

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not perhaps write in this manner, if it were not for the fear of not being able to see you often or long together. I am in hopes Mr. Abbey will not object any more to your receiving a letter now and then from me. How unreasonable! I want a few more lines from you for George -there are some young Men, acquaintances of a Schoolfellow of mine, going out to Birkbeck's at the latter end of this Month-I am in expectation every day of hearing from George-I begin to fear his last letters miscarried. I shall be in town tomorrow-if you should not be in town, I shall send this little parcel by the Walthamstow Coach-I think you will like Goldsmith-Write me soonYour affectionate Brother

John

Mrs. Dilke has not been very well-she is gone a walk to town today for exercise..

LXXXVI.

To GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS.

My dear Brother and Sister,

[Wentworth Place]

February 14 [1819].

How is it that we have not heard from you at the Settlement? Surely the letters have miscarried. I am still at Wentworth Place; indeed, I have kept in doors lately, resolved, if possible, to rid myself of my sore throat; consequently I have not been to see your mother since my return from Chichester.1 Nothing worth speak

1 Mr. Dilke notes, " He went with Brown on a visit to my father's at Chichester and my sister's at Bedhampton." See ante.

ing of happened at either place. I took down some of the thin paper, and wrote on it a little poem called "St. Agnes' Eve," which you will have as it is, when I have finished the blank part of the rest for you. I went out twice, at Chichester, to old dowager card-parties. I see very little now, and very few persons,-being almost tired of men and things. Brown and Dilke are very kind and considerate towards me. Another satire is expected from Lord Byron, called "Don Giovanni." Yesterday I went to town for the first time these three weeks. I met people from all parts and of all sects. Mr. Woodhouse was looking up at a book-window in Newgatestreet, and, being short-sighted, twisted his muscles into so queer a style, that I stood by, in doubt whether it was him or his brother, if he has one; and, turning round, saw Mr. Hazlitt, with his son. Woodhouse proved to be Woodhouse, and not his brother, on his features subsiding. I have had a little business with Mr. Abbey; from time to time he has behaved to me with a little brusquerie; this hurt me a little, especially when I knew him to be the only man in England who dared to say a thing to me I did not approve of, without its being resented, or, at least, noticed;-so I wrote him about it, and have made an alteration in my favour. I expect from this to see more of Fanny, who has been quite shut up from me. I see Cobbett has been attacking the Settlement; but I cannot tell what to believe, and shall be all at elbows till I hear from you. Mrs. S. met me the other day. I heard she said a thing I am not at all content with. Says she, "O, he is quite the little poet." Now this is abominable; you might as well say Bonaparte is "quite the little soldier." You see what it is to be under six feet, and not a Lord.

In my next packet I shall send you my "Pot of Basil," "St. Agnes' Eve," and, if I should have finished it, a little thing, called the "Eve of St. Mark." You see what fine Mother Radcliffe names I have. It is not my fault; I did not search for them. I have not gone on with "Hyperion," for, to tell the truth, I have not been in great cue for writing lately. I must wait for the spring to rouse me a little.

Friday, 19th February [1819].—The day before yesterday I went to Romney-street; your mother was not at home. We lead very quiet lives here; Dilke is, at present, at Greek history and antiquities; and talks of nothing but the Elections of Westminster and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand. I never drink above three glasses of wine, and never any spirits and water; though, by the bye, the other day Woodhouse took me to his coffeehouse, and ordered a bottle of claret. How I like claret! when I can get claret, I must drink it. 'Tis the only palate affair that I am at all sensual in. Would it not be a good spec. to send you some vine-roots? Could it be done? I'll inquire. If you could make some wine like claret, to drink on summer evenings in an arbour! It fills one's mouth with a gushing freshness, then goes down cool and feverless: then, you do not feel it quarrelling with one's liver. No; 'tis rather a peace-maker and lies as quiet as it did in the grape. Then it is as fragrant as the Queen Bee, and the more ethereal part mounts into the brain, not assaulting the cerebral apartments, like a bully looking for his trull, and hurrying from door to door, bouncing against the wainscot, but rather walks like Aladdin about his enchanted palace, so gently that you do not feel his step. Other wines of a heavy and spirituous nature transform a man into a Silenus, this makes him a Hermes, and gives a woman the soul and

immortality of an Ariadne, for whom Bacchus always kept a good cellar of claret, and even of that he never could persuade her to take above two cups. I said this same claret is the only palate-passion I have; I forgot game; I must plead guilty to the breast of a partridge, the back of a hare, the backbone of a grouse, the wing and side of a pheasant, and a wood-cock passim. Talking of game (I wish I could make it), the lady whom I met at Hastings, and of whom I wrote you, I think, has lately sent me many presents of game, and enabled me to make as many. She made me take home a pheasant the other day, which I gave to Mrs. Dilke. The next I intend for your mother. I have not said in any letter a word about my own affairs. In a word, I am in no despair about them. My poem has not at all succeeded. In the course of a year or so I think I shall try the public again. In a selfish point of view I should suffer my pride and my contempt of public opinion to hold me silent; but for yours and Fanny's sake, I will pluck up spirit and try it again. I have no doubt of success in a course of years, if I persevere; but I must be patient; for the reviewers have enervated men's minds, and made them indolent; few think for themselves. These reviews are getting more and more powerful, especially the “Quarterly." They are like a superstition, which, the more it prostrates the crowd, and the longer it continues, the more it becomes powerful, just in proportion to their increasing weakness. I was in hopes that, as people saw, as they must do now, all the trickery and iniquity of these plagues, they would scout them; but no; they are like the spectators at the Westminster cock-pit, they like the battle, and do not care who wins or who loses. On Monday we had to dinner Severn and Cawthorn, the bookseller and print-virtuoso;

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