Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends. John Keats
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the next week’s Champion. It is a shocking bad one. I have not seen Hunt; he was out when I called. Mrs. Hunt looks as well as ever I saw her after her confinement. There is an article in the se’nnight Examiner on Godwin’s Mandeville, signed E. K.—I think it Miss Kent’s—I will send it. There are fine subscriptions going on for Hone.
You ask me what degrees there are between Scott’s novels and those of Smollett. They appear to me to be quite distinct in every particular, more especially in their aims. Scott endeavours to throw so interesting and romantic a colouring into common and low characters as to give them a touch of the sublime. Smollett on the contrary pulls down and levels what with other men would continue romance. The grand parts of Scott are within the reach of more minds than the finest humours in Humphrey Clinker. I forget whether that fine thing of the Serjeant is Fielding or Smollett, but it gives me more pleasure than the whole novel of the Antiquary. You must remember what I mean. Some one says to the Serjeant: “That’s a non-sequitur!”—“If you come to that,” replies the Serjeant, “you’re another!”—
I see by Wells’s letter Mr. Abbey[43] does not overstock you with money. You must write. I have not seen … yet, but expect it on Wednesday. I am afraid it is gone. Severn tells me he has an order for some drawings for the Emperor of Russia.
You must get well Tom, and then I shall feel whole and genial as the winter air. Give me as many letters as you like, and write to Sawrey soon. I received a short letter from Bailey about Cripps, and one from Haydon, ditto. Haydon thinks he improved very much. Mrs. Wells desires particularly … to Tom and her respects to George, and I desire no better than to be ever your most affectionate Brother
John.
P.S.—I had not opened the Champion before I found both my articles in it.
I was at a dance at Redhall’s, and passed a pleasant time enough—drank deep, and won 10.6 at cutting for half guineas. … Bailey was there and seemed to enjoy the evening. Rice said he cared less about the hour than any one, and the proof is his dancing—he cares not for time, dancing as if he was deaf. Old Redhall not being used to give parties, had no idea of the quantity of wine that would be drank, and he actually put in readiness on the kitchen stairs eight dozen.
Every one inquires after you, and desires their remembrances to you.
Your Brother
John.
XXVI.—TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
[Hampstead,] Saturday Morn [January 10, 1818].
My dear Haydon—I should have seen you ere this, but on account of my sister being in Town: so that when I have sometimes made ten paces towards you, Fanny has called me into the City; and the Christmas Holydays are your only time to see Sisters, that is if they are so situated as mine. I will be with you early next week—to-night it should be, but we have a sort of a Club every Saturday evening—to-morrow, but I have on that day an insuperable engagement. Cripps has been down to me, and appears sensible that a binding to you would be of the greatest advantage to him—if such a thing be done it cannot be before £150 or £200 are secured in subscriptions to him. I will write to Bailey about it, give a Copy of the Subscribers’ names to every one I know who is likely to get a £5 for him. I will leave a Copy at Taylor and Hessey’s, Rodwell and Martin, and will ask Kingston and Co. to cash up.
Your friendship for me is now getting into its teens—and I feel the past. Also every day older I get—the greater is my idea of your achievements in Art: and I am convinced that there are three things to rejoice at in this Age—The Excursion, Your Pictures, and Hazlitt’s depth of Taste.
Yours affectionately
John Keats.
XXVII.—TO JOHN TAYLOR.
[Hampstead,] Saturday Morning [January 10, 1818].
My dear Taylor—Several things have kept me from you lately:—first you had got into a little hell, which I was not anxious to reconnoitre—secondly, I have made a vow not to call again without my first book: so you may expect to see me in four days. Thirdly, I have been racketing too much, and do not feel over well. I have seen Wordsworth frequently—Dined with him last Monday—Reynolds, I suppose you have seen. Just scribble me thus many lines, to let me know you are in the land of the living, and well. Remember me to the Fleet Street Household—and should you see any from Percy Street, give my kindest regards to them.
Your sincere friend
John Keats.
XXVIII.—TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
[Hampstead,] Tuesday [January 13, 1818].
My dear Brothers—I am certain I think of having a letter to-morrow morning for I expected one so much this morning, having been in town two days, at the end of which my expectations began to get up a little. I found two on the table, one from Bailey and one from Haydon, I am quite perplexed in a world of doubts and fancies—there is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music—I don’t mean to include Bailey in this and so dismiss him from this with all the opprobrium he deserves—that is in so many words, he is one of the noblest men alive at the present day. In a note to Haydon about a week ago (which I wrote with a full sense of what he had done, and how he had never manifested any little mean drawback in his value of me) I said if there were three things superior in the modern world, they were “the Excursion,” “Haydon’s pictures,” and “Hazlitt’s depth of Taste”—so I do believe—Not thus speaking with any poor vanity that works of genius were the first things in this world. No! for that sort of probity and disinterestedness which such men as Bailey possess, does hold and grasp the tiptop of any spiritual honours that can be paid to anything in this world—And moreover having this feeling at this present come over me in its full force, I sat down to write to you with a grateful heart, in that I had not a Brother who did not feel and credit me for a deeper feeling and devotion for his uprightness, than for any marks of genius however splendid. I was speaking about doubts and fancies—I mean there has been a quarrel of a severe nature between Haydon and Reynolds and another (“the Devil rides upon a fiddlestick”) between Hunt and Haydon—the first grew from the Sunday on which Haydon invited some friends to meet Wordsworth. Reynolds never went, and never sent any Notice about it, this offended Haydon more than it ought to have done—he wrote a very sharp and high note to Reynolds and then another in palliation—but which Reynolds feels as an aggravation of the first—Considering all things, Haydon’s frequent neglect of his Appointments, etc. his notes were bad enough to put Reynolds on the right side of the question—but then Reynolds has no power of sufferance; no idea of having the thing against him; so he answered Haydon in one of the most cutting letters I ever read; exposing to himself all his own weaknesses and going on to an excess, which whether it is just or no, is what I would fain have unsaid, the fact is, they are both in the right and both in the wrong.
The quarrel with Hunt I understand thus far. Mrs. H. was in the habit of borrowing silver of Haydon—the last time she did so, Haydon asked her to return it at a certain time—she did not—Haydon sent for it—Hunt went to expostulate on the indelicacy, etc.—they got to words and parted for ever. All I hope is at some time to bring them together again.—Lawk! Molly there’s been such doings—Yesterday evening I made an appointment with Wells to go to a private theatre, and it being in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane, and thinking we might be fatigued with sitting the whole evening in one dirty hole, I got the Drury Lane ticket, and therewith we divided the evening with a spice of Richard III——
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