Keats, John, 1795-1821; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
Not long after Keats had been put to school he lost his father, who was
killed by a fall from his horse as he rode home at night from Southgate.
This was on the 16th of April, 1804. Within twelve months his mother had
put off her weeds, and taken a second husband--one William Rawlings,
described as 'of Moorgate in the city of London, stable-keeper,'
presumably therefore the successor of her first husband in the management
of her father's business. This marriage turned out unhappily. It was soon
followed by a separation, and Mrs Rawlings went with her children to live
at Edmonton, in the house of her mother, Mrs Jennings, who was just about
this time left a widow[3]. In the correspondence of the Keats brothers
after they were grown up, no mention is ever made of their step-father, of
whom after the separation the family seem to have lost all knowledge. The
household in Church Street, Edmonton, was well enough provided for, Mr
Jennings having left a fortune of over £13,000, of which, in addition to
other legacies, he bequeathed a capital yielding £200 a year to his widow
absolutely; one yielding £50 a year to his daughter Frances Rawlings, with
reversion to her Keats children after her death; and £1000 to be
separately held in trust for the said children and divided among them on
their coming of age[4]. Between this home, then, and the neighbouring
Enfield school, where he was in due time joined by his younger brothers,
the next four or five years of Keats's boyhood (1806-1810) were passed in
sufficient comfort and pleasantness. He did not live to attain the years,
or the success, of men who write their reminiscences; and almost the only
recollections he has left of his own early days refer to holiday times in
his grandmother's house at Edmonton. They are conveyed in some rhymes
which he wrote years afterwards by way of foolishness to amuse his young
sister, and testify to a partiality, common also to little boys not of
genius, for dabbling by the brookside--
"In spite
Of the might
Of the Maid,
Nor afraid
Of his granny-good"--
and for keeping small fishes in tubs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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