Letters of John Keats to His Family and FriendsKeats, John
General
Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends
Keats, John
Keats, John, 1795-1821 -- Correspondence; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Correspondence
'Tis good, too, that the Duke of Wellington has a good Word or so in the
Examiner. A Man ought to have the Fame he deserves--and I begin to think
that detracting from him as well as from Wordsworth is the same thing. I
wish he had a little more taste--and did not in that respect "deal in
Lieutenantry." You should have heard from me before this--but in the first
place I did not like to do so before I had got a little way in the First
Book, and in the next as G. told me you were going to write I delayed till
I had heard from you. Give my Respects the next time you write to the
North and also to John Hunt. Remember me to Reynolds and tell him to
write. Ay, and when you send Westward tell your Sister that I mentioned
her in this. So now in the name of Shakspeare, Raphael and all our Saints,
I commend you to the care of heaven!
Your everlasting Friend
JOHN KEATS.
XI.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.
Margate, May 16, 1817.
My dear Sirs--I am extremely indebted to you for your liberality in the
shape of manufactured rag, value L20, and shall immediately proceed to
destroy some of the minor heads of that hydra the dun; to conquer which
the knight need have no Sword Shield Cuirass, Cuisses Herbadgeon Spear
Casque Greaves Paldrons spurs Chevron or any other scaly commodity, but
he need only take the Bank-note of Faith and Cash of Salvation, and set
out against the monster, invoking the aid of no Archimago or Urganda, but
finger me the paper, light as the Sibyl's leaves in Virgil, whereat the
fiend skulks off with his tail between his legs. Touch him with this
enchanted paper, and he whips you his head away as fast as a snail's
horn--but then the horrid propensity he has to put it up again has
discouraged many very valiant Knights. He is such a never-ending
still-beginning sort of a body--like my landlady of the Bell. I should
conjecture that the very spright that "the green sour ringlets makes
Whereof the ewe not bites" had manufactured it of the dew fallen on said
sour ringlets. I think I could make a nice little allegorical poem, called
"The Dun," where we would have the Castle of Carelessness, the drawbridge
of credit, Sir Novelty Fashion's expedition against the City of Tailors,
etc. etc. I went day by day at my poem for a Month--at the end of which
time the other day I found my Brain so over-wrought that I had neither
rhyme nor reason in it--so was obliged to give up for a few days. I hope
soon to be able to resume my work--I have endeavoured to do so once or
twice; but to no purpose. Instead of Poetry, I have a swimming in my head
and feel all the effects of a Mental debauch, lowness of Spirits, anxiety
to go on without the power to do so, which does not at all tend to my
ultimate progression. However to-morrow I will begin my next month. This
evening I go to Canterbury, having got tired of Margate. I was not right
in my head when I came--At Canterbury I hope the remembrance of Chaucer
will set me forward like a Billiard Ball.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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