Keats was in childhood not attached to books. His _penchant_ was for fighting. He would fight any one--morning, noon, and night, his brother among the rest. It was meat and drink to him. Jennings their sailor relation was always in the thoughts of the brothers, and they determined to keep up the family reputation for courage; George in a passive manner; John and Tom more fiercely. The favourites of John were few; after they were known to fight readily he seemed to prefer them for a sort of grotesque and buffoon humour. I recollect at this moment his delight at the extraordinary gesticulations and pranks of a boy named Wade who was celebrated for this.... He was a boy whom any one from his extraordinary vivacity and personal beauty might easily fancy would become great--but rather in some military capacity than in literature. You will remark that this taste came out rather suddenly and unexpectedly. Some books of his I remember reading were _Robinson Crusoe_ and something about Montezuma and the Incas of Peru. He must have read Shakespeare as he thought that 'no one would care to read _Macbeth_ alone in a house at two o'clock in the morning.' This seems to me a boyish trait of the poet. His sensibility was as remarkable as his indifference to be thought well of by the master as a 'good boy' and to his tasks in general.... He was in every way the creature of passion.... The point to be chiefly insisted on is that he was _not literary--his love of books and poetry manifested itself chiefly about a year before he left school_. In all active exercises he excelled. The generosity and daring of his character with the extreme beauty and animation of his face made I remember an impression on me--and being some years his junior I was obliged to woo his friendship--in which I succeeded, but not till I had fought several battles. This violence and vehemence--this pugnacity and generosity of disposition--in passions of tears or outrageous fits of laughter--always in extremes--will help to paint Keats in his boyhood. Associated as they were with an extraordinary beauty of person and expression, these qualities captivated the boys, and no one was more popular.[3] Entirely to the same effect is the account of Keats given by a school friend seven or eight years older than himself, to whose appreciation and encouragement the world most likely owes it that he first became aware of his own vocation for poetry. This was the aforementioned Charles Cowden Clarke, the son of the head master, who towards the close of a long life, during which he had deserved well of literature and of his generation in more ways than one, wrote retrospectively of Keats:--