CIX. To JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS. My dear Reynolds, Winchester, I was very glad to hear from Woodhouse that you would meet in the country. I hope you will pass some pleasant time together; which I wish to make pleasanter by a brace of letters, very highly to be estimated, as really I have had very bad luck with this sort of game this season. I "kepen in solitarinesse,"1 for Brown has gone a-visiting. I am surprised myself at the pleasure I live alone in. I can give you no news of the place here, or any other idea of it but what I have to this effect written to George. Yesterday, I say to him, was a grand day for Winchester. They elected a mayor. It was indeed high time the place should receive some sort of excitement. There was nothing going on-all asleepnot an old maid's sedan returning from a card-party; and if any old women got tipsy at christenings they did not expose it in the streets. The side streets here are excessively maiden-ladylike; the door-steps always fresh from the flannel. The knockers have a staid, serious, nay almost awful quietness about them. I never saw so quiet a collection of lions' and rams' heads. The doors are most part black, with a little brass handle just above the keyhole, so that Between this and the last letter should be read that to Fanny Brawne written in Fleet Street on the 13th of September 1819. 1 See The Eve of St. Mark, line 106 (Volume II, page 324). in Winchester a man may very quietly shut himself out of his own house. How beautiful the season is now. a temperate sharpness about it. How fine the airReally, without joking, chaste weather-Dian skies. I never liked stubble-fields so much as now-aye, better than the chilly green of the Spring. Somehow, a stubble field looks warm, in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it.1 I hope you are better employed than in gaping after weather. I have been, at different times, so happy as not to know what weather it was. No, I will not copy a parcel of verses. I always somehow associate Chatterton with Autumn. He is the purest writer in the English language. He has no French idiom or particles, like Chaucer; 'tis genuine English idiom in English words. I have given up "Hyperion "-there were too many Miltonic inversions in it-Miltonic verse cannot be written but in an artful, or, rather, artist's humour. I wish to give myself up to other sensations. English ought to be kept up. It may be interesting to you to pick out some lines from "Hyperion," and put a mark, +, to the false beauty, proceeding from art, and one ||, to the true voice of feeling. Upon my soul, 'twas imagination; I cannot make the distinction-every now and then there is a Miltonic intonation-but I cannot make the division properly. The fact is, I must take a walk; for I am writing a long letter to George, and have been employed at it all the morning. You will ask, have I heard from George? I am sorry to say, not the best news-I hope for better. This is the reason, among others, that 1 1 Here follows the ode To Autumn (Volume II, pages 137-8). if I write to you it must be in such a scrap-like way. I have no meridian to date interests from, or measure circumstances. To-night I am all in a mist: I scarcely know what's what. But you, knowing my unsteady and vagarish disposition, will guess that all this turmoil will be settled by to-morrow morning. It strikes me to-night that I have led a very odd sort of life for the two or three last years-here and there, no anchor-I am glad of it. If you can get a peep at Babbicomb before you leave the country, do. I think it the finest place I have seen, or is to be seen, in the south. There is a cottage there I took warm water at, that made up for the tea. I have lately shirk'd some friends of ours, and I advise you to do the same. I mean the blue-devils-I am never at home to them. You need not fear them while you remain in Devonshire. There will be some of the family waiting for you at the coach-office-but go by another coach. I shall beg leave to have a third opinion in the first discussion you have with Woodhouse-just half-way between both. You know I will not give up any argument. In my walk to-day, I stoop'd under a railing that lay across my path, and asked myself "why I did not get over;" "Because," answered I, "no one wanted to force you under." I would give a guinea to be a reasonable man-good, sound sense-a says-what-hethinks-and-does-what-he-says-man-and did not take snuff. They say men near death, however mad they may have been, come to their senses: I hope I shall here in this letter; there is a decent space to be very sensible in -many a good proverb has been in less-nay, I have heard of the statutes at large being changed into the statutes at small, and printed for a watch-paper. Your sisters, by this time, must have got the Devonshire "ees "-short ees-you know 'em; they are the prettiest ees in the language. O, how I admire the middle-sized delicate Devonshire girls of about fifteen. There was one at an inn door holding a quartern of brandy; the very thought of her kept me warm a whole stage-and a sixteen-miler too. "You'll pardon me for being jocular." Ever your affectionate friend CX. To CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. Winchester, Wednesday Eve. My dear Dilke, Whatever I take to for the time I cannot l[e]ave off in a hurry; letter writing is the go now; I have consumed a quire at least. You must give me credit, now, for a free Letter when it is in reality an interested one, on two points, the one requestive, the other verging to the pros and cons. As I expect they will lead me to seeing and conferring with you in a short time, I shall not enter at all upon a letter I have lately received from George, of not the most comfortable intelligence: but proceed to these two points, which if you can theme out into sexions and subsexions, for my edification, you will oblige me. The first I shall begin upon, the other will (CX) I suppose the original letter, though in Sir Charles Dilke's possession, was not sent; for it bears no trace of any postmark ; and Keats talks of not sending it, in his second letter to Brown of the 23rd of September 1819. It seems likely that the letter of the 1st of October to Dilke was sent instead of this long one. follow like a tail to a Comet. I have written to Brown on the subject, and can but go over the same Ground with you in a very short time, it not being more in length than the ordinary paces between the Wickets. It concerns a resolution I have taken to endeavour to acquire something by temporary writing in periodical works. You must agree with me how unwise it is to keep feeding upon hopes, which depending so much on the state of temper and imagination, appear gloomy or bright, near or afar off, just as it happens. Now an act has three parts to act, to do, and to perform-I mean I should do something for my immediate welfare. Even if I am swept away like a spider from a drawing room, I am determined to spin-homespun any thing for sale. Yea, I will traf[f]ic. Anything but Mortgage my Brain to Blackwood. I am determined not to lie like a dead lump. If Reynolds had not taken to the law, would he not be earning something? Why cannot I [?] You may say I want tact-that is easily acquired. You may be up to the slang of a cock pit in three battles. It is fortunate I have not before this been tempted to venture on the common. I should a year or two ago have spoken my mind on every subject with the utmost simplicity. I hope I have learned a little better and am confident I shall be able to cheat as well as any literary Jew of the Market and shine up an article on any thing without much knowledge of the subject, aye like an orange. I would willingly have recourse to other means. I cannot; I am fit for nothing but literature. Wait for the issue of this Tragedy? No-there cannot be greater uncertainties east, west, north, and south than concerning dramatic composition. How many months must I wait! Had I not better begin to look about me now? If better events supersede this necessity what harm will be done? I have |