Closely though he was mixed up with Leigh Hunt and his circle, Keats had, in fact, not much sympathy with their ideas on literary topics, nor with Hunt's own poetry, still less with their views on political matters of the time, in which he took but very faint interest. Cowden Clarke thought that the poet's "whole civil creed was comprised in the master-principle of universal liberty, viz., equal and stern justice to all, from the duke to the dustman." He was, however, a liberal by temperament, and, I suppose, by conviction as well. One of the really puerile and nonsensical passages in "Endymion" is that which opens book iii. He told his friend Richard Woodhouse (a barrister, connected with the firm of Taylor and Hessey) that it expressed his opinion of the Tory Ministry then in office:-- "There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men With most prevailing tinsel; who unpen Their baaing vanities to browse away The comfortable green and juicy hay From human pastures; or, oh torturing fact! Who through an idiot blink will see unpacked Fire-branded foxes to scar up and singe Our gold and ripe-eared hopes. With not one tinge Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight Able to face an owl's, they still are dight By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests, And crowns and turbans. With unladen breasts, Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount To their spirit's perch, their being's high account, Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones, Amid the fierce intoxicating tones Of trumpets, shoutings, and belaboured drums, And sudden cannon."