  A good deal has already been said of Keats in the Introduction; but a little more may be pardoned on that most remarkable correspondence with his brother and sister-in-law which is there mentioned, and which it is hoped may be fairly sampled here. There is nothing quite like it: and one can only be thankful to the Atlantic (which here at least can have "disappointed" nobody worth mentioning) for causing the separation that brought it about. The inspirations which it shows were happily double. We do not know very much about George Keats, but John's family affection was of the keenest, and this was the only member of the family who was, in all the circumstances, likely to sympathise thoroughly with the poet in his poetry as in other things. Georgiana is said to have been personally attractive and mentally gifted beyond the common: and there is no doubt that this excited something more than mere family devotion in such an impressionable person as Keats. The combined reagency of these relatives has given us what we have from no other English poet—for the simple reason that no other English poet has had such a chance of giving it to us. The only thing to regret is that it could not continue longer: and that is only a necessary operation of Fate. The particular passage chosen here is one of the best known perhaps, but it is also one of the most illuminating: for it gives at once Keats's natural and simple interest in ordinary things, with no mere trivialities: his real attitude (so different from that long attributed to him!) as regards the attacks of critics, and his passion for beauty apart from mere hedonism. The "Charmian" was at one 37. To George and Georgiana Keats [October 14 or 15, 1818] I came by ship from Inverness, and was nine days at Sea without being sick. A little qualm now and then put me in mind of you; however, as soon as you touch the shore, all the horrors of sickness are soon forgotten, as was the case with a lady on board, who could not hold her head up all the way. We had not been in the Thames an hour before her tongue began to some tune—paying off, as it was fit she should, all old scores. I was the only Englishman on board. There was a downright Scotchman, who, hearing that there had been a bad crop of potatoes in England, had brought some triumphant specimens from Scotland. These he exhibited with national pride to all the ignorant lightermen and watermen from the Nore to the Bridge. I fed upon beef all the way; not being able to eat the thick porridge which the Ladies managed to manage, with large, awkward, horn spoons into the bargain. Reynolds has returned from a six-weeks' enjoyment in Devonshire; he is well, and persuades me to publish my "Pot of Basil" as an answer to the attacks made on me in "Blackwood's Magazine" and the "Quarterly Review." There have been two Letters in my defence in the Chronicle and one in the Examiner, copied from the Exeter Paper, and written by Reynolds. I do not know who wrote those in the Chronicle. This is a mere matter of the moment—I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death. The Misses —— are very kind to me, but they have lately displeased me much, and in this way: Now I am coming the Richardson! On my return, the first day I called, they were in a sort of taking or bustle about a Cousin of theirs, who, having fallen out with her Grandpapa in a serious manner, was invited by Mrs. —— to take asylum in her house. She is an East-Indian, and ought to be her grandfather's heir. At the time I called, Mrs. —— was in conference with her upstairs, and the young ladies were warm in her praises downstairs, calling her genteel, interesting and a thousand other pretty things to which I gave no heed, not being partial to nine-days' wonders—Now all is completely changed—they hate her, and from what I hear she is not without faults of a real kind: but she has others, which are more apt to make women of inferior charms hate her. She is not a Cleopatra, but is, at least, a Charmian. She has a rich Eastern look; she has fine eyes and fine manners. When she comes into the room she makes an impression the same as the Beauty of a Leopardess. She is too fine and too conscious of herself to repulse any Man who may address her; from habit she thinks that nothing particular. I This is "Lord Byron," and is one of the finest things he has said. |
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