dom of the Two Sicilies" to "His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," the document continues: "Leaving this Capital for Naples on the English Vessel Maria Crowther commanded by Captain Thomas Walsh is Mr. John Keats British subject." Here follows the charge to "all the Ministers of His Majesty and all his Political and Military Officials" to give any necessary aid to the traveller. The passport is dated "London, 16 September 1820, and signed by the ambassador, "C. G. de Ludolf." In the bleak and rather chilly light of dawn on Sunday, September seventeenth, Keats and Taylor drove to the London Docks and went on board the "Maria Crowther." Here they found, or were shortly joined by, Severn and his brother Tom, Woodhouse, Haslam, and, according to Severn, other friends as well, but who they were can only be conjectured. Hunt says that he was there, but as he also states that Fanny Brawne and her mother were present, he may be romancing throughout, for that the Brawnes were not at the Docks, we have emphatic proof in an unpublished letter from Reynolds, an extract from which will be given in the next chapter. Reynolds himself was on his vacation in Devonshire, and Brown - where was Brown? Keats must have wondered about this very often and very miserably that morning while he forced himself to appear cheerful and determined. The passengers were to be, besides Keats and Severn, two ladies, but only one of them put in an appearance at the London Docks; the other, they were told, would join the vessel at Gravesend. The tide turned at a quarter before eleven, and by that time all the well-wishers had ashore except Haslam and Woodhouse, who went to Gravesend with the voyagers. Taylor may have gone too, but of his doing so we have no record. gone At Gravesend, before bidding him good-bye, Woodhouse cut off a lock of Keats's hair. This lock is still extant,1 with an inscription in Woodhouse's handwriting: "A Lock of the hair of John Keats which I cut off at Gravesend on Sunday the2 Septbr 1820 on board the Maria Crowther just prior to leaving him. He was to sail for Naples for the benefit of his health on the following day — The envelope is dated "18 Sept. 1820." RD WOODHOUSE." On the way to Gravesend, Severn announced that his passport had not come, whereupon Haslam, serviceable and reliable as always, undertook to see that it should be there before the vessel sailed the next day. Late in the afternoon both Woodhouse and Haslam had said their farewells and departed, and the travellers, although still moored in an English river, were to all intents and purposes really off. By tea-time, they were alone with Mrs. Pidgeon, the lady passenger, and Keats's old life was become a thing of memories and dreams. 1 Morgan Collection. ? Date left blank in original. CHAPTER XIII ITALIAN JOURNEY. THE END DURING the first days of the voyage, Severn kept a journal which he sent to Haslam, and even after the regular journal was discontinued, he wrote voluminous letters to Haslam, to Brown, to Taylor. In later years, Severn compiled more than one set of reminiscences of his voyage and stay in Italy with Keats, but his memory was not always dependable as to details. It is therefore wise to rely upon the contemporary account whenever possible, and use the later ones merely to fill in small facts. Under the date of "Sunday, 17 Sept. 1820" Severn tells Haslam exactly what happened from the moment that devoted friend left the ship. A curious tone of lightness and banality pervades these first communications of Severn's. We shall do well to note it, it is a touchstone to his character, which was more amiable than firm, more kindly than wise; we must also remember that Severn was fully persuaded that Keats would recover, he seems to have been allowed to go off with the invalid without ever having been fully posted as to the extreme seriousness of his condition. He knew that Keats believed himself dying, but that he discounted. It is very evident that he took things always at their face value; if Keats were cheerful in appearance, Severn believed him so in reality. Admiration for Keats, Severn had to an unbounded degree, but few, if any, of Keats's friends can have understood him less. Severn's account of that Sunday evening is as follows: 1 "We were soon reconciled to everything about from the Captain down to his Cat - is it not most delightful that 1 Severn's journal letter is taken from a transcript of the original letter in the Crewe Collection, published by Sir Sidney Colvin in the Times Literary Supplement, April 16, 1914, and from a contemporary copy found among Taylor's papers. Author's Collection. than the less we have the less we want - this little cabin with 6 At midnight, long after Keats and Severn, exhausted by their early start, had gone to bed, a small Dundee smack, inward bound, came to anchor close to the "Maria Crowther." On board of her was Brown. Keats's letter had finally reached him, and he had hurried to the nearest port to where he was, Dundee, and taken passage on the first boat he could find sailing for London, a little coasting smack, in which he came as fast as the rather clumsy craft would allow. At daybreak the next morning, the smack weighed her anchor and proceeded to London on the inflowing tide; and by the time Keats and Severn came on deck, she had been gone for some hours. I do not know whether to consider this an unfortunate circumstance or not. Partings were terrible to Keats, and Brown had no intention of going with him to Italy, a fact which Keats would have heard on the instant, and which could not have sounded otherwise than cruel and unfeeling. This Monday, September eighteenth, is carefully recorded by Severn: |