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XCI.

To FANNY KEATS.

Rd. Abbey's Esq.,

Walthamstow.

Wentworth Place.

[Postmark, 13 April 1819.]

My dear Fanny,

I have been expecting a Letter from you about what the Parson said to your answers.

I have thought

also of writing to you often, and I am sorry to confess that my neglect of it has been but a small instance of my idleness of late-which has been growing upon me, so that it will require a great shake to get rid of it. I have written nothing and almost read nothing—but I must turn over a new leaf. One most discouraging thing hinders me-we have no news yet from George-so that I cannot with any confidence continue the Letter I have been preparing for him. Many are in the same state with us and many have heard from the Settlement. They must be well however: and we must consider this silence as good news. I ordered some bulbous roots for you at the Gardener's, and they sent me some, but they were all in bud—and could not be sent-so I put them in our Garden. There are some beautiful heaths now in bloom in Pots-either heaths or some seasonable plants

The postmark is not clear as to the month; but it is the 13th of some month in 1819; and, since the time is after the removal of the Dilkes from Hampstead, which took place on the 3rd of April 1819, and before news of the George Keatses had arrived from the Settlement, as it had done by the 13th of May 1819, there can be no doubt about April being the right month.

I will send you instead-perhaps some that are not yet in bloom that you may see them come out. Tomorrow night I am going to a rout, a thing I am not at all in love with. Mr. Dilke and his Family have left Hampstead-I shall dine with them to day in Westminster where I think I told you they were going to reside for the sake of sending their son Charles to the Westminster School. I think I mentioned the Death of Mr. Haslam's Father. Yesterday week the two Mr. Wylies dined with me. I hope you have good store of double violets-I think they are the Princesses of flowers, and in a shower of rain, almost as fine as barley sugar drops are to a schoolboy's tongue. I suppose this fine weather the lambs' tails give a frisk or two extraordinary—when a boy would cry huzza and a Girl O my! a little Lamb frisks its tail. I have not been lately through Leicester Square-the first time I do I will remember your Seals. I have thought it best to live in Town this Summer, chiefly for the sake of books, which cannot be had with any comfort in the Country-besides my Scotch journey gave me a dose of the Picturesque with which I ought to be contented for some time. Westminster is the place I have pitched upon-the City or any place very confined would soon turn me pale and thin-which is to be avoided. You must make up your mind to get stout this summer-indeed I have an idea we shall both be corpulent old folks with tripple chins and stumpy thumbs.

Your affectionate Brother

John

XCII.

To BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.

My dear Haydon,

Tuesday [13 April 1819].

When I offered you assistance I thought I had it in my hand; I thought I had nothing to do but to do. The difficulties I met with arose from the alertness and suspicion of Abbey: and especially from the affairs being still in a Lawyer's hand-who has been draining our Property for the last six years of every charge he could make. I cannot do two things at once, and thus this affair has stopped my pursuits in every way-from the first prospect I had of difficulty. I assure you I have harassed myself ten times more than if I alone had been concerned in so much gain or loss. I have also ever told you the exact particulars as well as and as literally as any hopes or fear could translate them : for it was

This letter is clearly a reply to the following note from Haydon :Monday

My dear Keats,

Why did you hold out such delusive hopes every letter on such slight foundations?—You have led me on step by step, day by day; never telling me the exact circumstances; you paralyzed my exertions in other quarters—and now when I find it is out of your power to do what your heart led you to offer-I am plunged into all my old difficulties with scarcely any time to prepare for them-indeed I cannot help telling you this—because if you could not have commanded it you should have told me so at once. I declare to you I scarcely know which way to turnI am dear Keats

Yours ever

(over)

B. R. Haydon

only by parcels that I found all those petty obstacles which for my own sake should not exist a moment—and yet why not-for from my own imprudence and neglect all my accounts are entirely in my Guardian's Power. This has taught me a Lesson. Hereafter I will be more correct. I find myself possessed of much less than I thought for and now if I had all on the table all I could do would be to take from it a moderate two years subsistence and lend you the rest; but I cannot say how soon I could become possessed of it. This would be no sacrifice nor any matter worth thinking of-much less than parting as I have more than once done with little sums which might have gradually formed a library to my taste. These sums amount together to nearly 200 [£], which I have but a chance of ever being repaid or paid at a very distant period. I am humble enough to put this in writing from the sense I have of your struggling situation and the great desire that you should [do] me the justice to credit me the unostentatious and willing state of my nerves on all such occasions. It has not been my fault. I am doubly hurt at the slightly reproachful tone of your note and at the occasion of it,—for it must be some other disappointment; you seem'd so sure of some important help when I last saw you-now you have maimed me again; I was whole, I had began reading

I am sensible of the trouble you took-I am grateful for it, but upon my Soul I cannot help complaining because the result has been so totally unexpected and sudden—and I am floundering where I hoped to be firm. Don't mistake me-I am as attached to you as much and more than to any man-but really you don't know how [you] may affect me by not letting me know earlier.

The Postmark of Haydon's letter is the 13th of April 1819 (a Tuesday, though the letter is headed Monday); so the date of Keats's must be the 13th, I presume. The two letters are wafered into Haydon's journal together.

again-when your note came I was engaged in a Book. I dread as much as a Plague the idle fever of two months more without any fruit. I will walk over the first fine day then see what aspect your affairs have taken, and if they should continue gloomy walk into the City to Abbey and get his consent for I am persuaded that to me alone he will not concede a jot.

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XCIII.

To FANNY KEATS.

My dear Fanny,

Rd. Abbey's Esq.,

Walthamstow.

Wentworth Place, Saturday— [17 April 1819?]

If it were but six o'Clock in the morning I would set off to see you today: if I should do so now I could not stop long enough for a how d'ye do-it is so long a walk through Hornsey and Tottenham-and as for Stage Coaching it besides that it is very expensive it is like going into the Boxes by way of the pit. I cannot go out on Sunday-but if on Monday it should promise as fair as today I will put on a pair of loose easy palatable .boots and me rendre chez vous. I continue increasing my letter to George to send it by one of Birkbeck's sons.

(XCIII) This charming letter seems likely enough to belong to the Saturday immediately following the Tuesday (the 13th of April) upon which Keats had enquired how his sister got on with the parson -apparently in the matter of her preparation for being confirmed. He has had the answer, and is glad to find it so favourable. the letter might perhaps belong to Saturday the 24th of April.

Or

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