queer corner of his brain by its cumulative effect of exuberant and grotesque disgustfulness, and which he declares he would love to hear delivered by an actor across the footlights. During the same days at Winchester Keats also wrote intimately and purposefully to Reynolds, Brown, and Dilke. In all these letters we see the well conditioned, wise and admirable Keats, the sane and healthy partner in his so dual and divided nature, for the time being holding firmly, or at any rate hopeful and confident of being able to hold firmly, the upper hand. He resolves manfully to rally his moral powers, to banish over-passionate and fretful feelings and to put himself on a right footing with the world. Imaginary troubles, he declares, are what prey upon a man: real troubles spur him to exertion, and exert himself and fight against morbid imaginings he will. In reference to George's money troubles, 'Rest in the confidence,' he says, 'that I will not omit any exertion to benefit you by some means or other: if I cannot remit you hundreds, I will tens, and if not that, ones:' a promise which we shall find George taking only too literally later on. Of his brothers and his own immediate prospect he writes with seriousness, nevertheless more encouragingly than the occasion well warranted. He will not let himself seem too much depressed even by the heavy check which his and Brown's hopes about _Otho the Great_ had just received from the news of Kean's intended departure for America. We are certainly in a very low estate--I say we, for I am in such a situation, that were it not for the assistance of Brown and Taylor, I must be as badly off as a man can be. I could not raise any sum by the promise of any poem, no, not by the mortgage of my intellect. We must wait a little while. I really have hopes of success. I have finished a tragedy, which if it succeeds will enable me to sell what I may have in manuscript to a good advantage. I have passed my time in reading, writing, and fretting, the last I intend to give up, and stick to the other two. They are the only chances of benefit to us. Your wants will be a fresh spur to me. I assure you you shall more than share what I can get whilst I am still young. The time may come when age will make me more selfish. I have not been well treated by the world, and yet I have, capitally well. I do not know a person to whom so many purse-strings would fly open as to me, if I could possibly take advantage of them, which I cannot do, for none of the owners of these purses are rich.... Mine, I am sure, is a tolerable tragedy; it would have been a bank to me, if just as I had finished it, I had not heard of Kean's resolution to go to America. That was the worst news I could have had.... But be not cast down any more than I am; I feel I can bear real ills better than imaginary ones. Whenever I find myself growing vapourish, I rouse myself, wash, and put on a clean shirt,