I am glad John is not hurt, but gone safe into Devonshire--I shall be in great expectation of his Letter--but the promise of it in so anxious and friendly a way I prize more than a hundred. I shall be in town to-day on some business with my guardian "as was" with scarce a hope of being able to call on you. For these two last days Tom has been more cheerful: you shall hear again soon how he will be. Remember us particularly to your Mother. Your sincere friend JOHN KEATS. LXIX.--TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. [Hampstead, September 21 1818.] My dear Dilke--According to the Wentworth place Bulletin you have left Brighton much improved: therefore now a few lines will be more of a pleasure than a bore. I have things to say to you, and would fain begin upon them in this fourth line: but I have a Mind too well regulated to proceed upon anything without due preliminary remarks.--You may perhaps have observed that in the simple process of eating radishes I never begin at the root but constantly dip the little green head in the salt--that in the Game of Whist if I have an ace I constantly play it first. So how can I with any face begin without a dissertation on letter-writing? Yet when I consider that a sheet of paper contains room only for three pages and a half, how can I do justice to such a pregnant subject? However, as you have seen the history of the world stamped as it were by a diminishing glass in the form of a chronological Map, so will I "with retractile claws" draw this into the form of a table--whereby it will occupy merely the remainder of this first page-- Folio--Parsons, Lawyers, Statesmen, Physicians out of place--ut--Eustace--Thornton--out of practice or on their travels. Foolscap--1. Superfine--Rich or noble poets--ut Byron. 2. common ut egomet. Quarto--Projectors, Patentees, Presidents, Potato growers. Bath--Boarding schools, and suburbans in general. Gilt edge--Dandies in general, male, female, and literary. Octavo or tears--All who make use of a lascivious seal. Duodec.--May be found for the most part on Milliners' and Dressmakers' Parlour tables. Strip--At the Playhouse-doors, or anywhere. Slip--Being but a variation. Snip--So called from its size being disguised by a twist.