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to have the feelings of a husband and a father and till he is dead to them and to everything else, he shall not cease exerting himself in their behalf.

CCLXXXIII.

The last visit paid by Keats before leaving England in September 1820, was to the house of Leigh Hunt in Kentish Town. He died at Rome February 23, 1821, but Hunt, ignorant of his death, wrote the following letter to the friend who tended his sick-bed, in the hope that it might solace the dying poet.

Leigh Hunt to Joseph Severn.

Vale of Health, Hampstead: March 8, 1821.

Dear Severn,-You have concluded, of course, that I have sent no letters to Rome, because I was aware of the effect they would have on Keats's mind; and this is the principal cause; for, besides what I have been told of his emotions about letters in Italy, I remember his telling me upon one occasion that, in his sick moments, he never wished to receive another letter, or ever see another face, however friendly. But still I should have written to you, had I not been almost at death's door myself. You will imagine how ill I have been, when you hear that I have just begun writing again for the 'Examiner' and 'Indicator,' after an interval of several months, during which my flesh wasted from me with sickness and melancholy. Judge how often I thought of Keats, and with what feelings. Mr. Brown tells me he is comparatively calm now, or rather quite so. If he can bear to hear of us, pray tell him,—but he knows it already, and can put it into better language than any man. I hear that he does not like to be told that he may get better; nor is it to be wondered at, considering his firm persuasion that he shall not recover. He can only regard it as a puerile thing, and an insinuation that he cannot bear to think he shall die. But if his persuasion should happen to be no longer so strong upon him, or if he can now put up with such attempts to console him, tell him of what I bave said a thousand times, and what I still (upon my honour, Severn), think always, that I have seen too many instances of recovery from apparently desperate cases of consumption not to be in hope to the very last. If he cannot bear this, tell him—tell that great poet and noble-hearted man-that we shall all bear his memory in the most precious part of our

hearts, and that the world shall bow their heads to it, as our loves do. Or if this, again, will trouble his spirit, tell him that we shall never cease to remember and love him; and that the most sceptical of us has faith enough in the high things that nature puts into our heads to think all who are of one accord in mind or heart are journeying to one and the same place, and shall unite somewhere or other again, face to face, mutually conscious, mutually delighted. Tell him he is only before us on the road, as he was in everything else; or whether you tell him the latter or no, tell him the former, and add that we shall never forget that he was so, and that we are coming after him. The tears are again in my eyes, and I must not afford to shed them. The next letter I write shall be more to yourself and more refreshing to your spirits, which we are very sensible must have been greatly taxed. But whether our friend dies or not, it will not be among the least lofty of your recollections by-and-by that you helped to soothe the sick bed of so fine a being. God bless you, dear Severn.

Your sincere Friend,

LEIGH HUNT.

CCLXXXIV.

John Wilson, the intimate friend of the Lake poets, and a Lakist himself, but better known as 'Christopher North,' has returned from a pedestrian tour with his wife in the Western Highlands; and overflowing with health and spirits writes the narrative of his adventures in the following jaunty letter to the 'Ettrick Shepherd.' We see the prolific critic in one of his raciest moods, a mood foreshadowing the essay on' Anglimania,' or the Noctes Ambrosianæ.'

John Wilson to James Hogg.

Edinburgh: September 1815. My Dear Hogg,-I am in Edinburgh, and wish to be out of it. Mrs. Wilson and I walked 350 miles in the Highlands, between the 5th of July and the 26th of August, sojourning in divers glens from Sabbath unto Sabbath, fishing, eating, and staring. I purpose appearing in Glasgow on Thursday, where I shall stay till the Circuit is over. I then go to Elleray, in the character of a Benedictine monk, till the beginning of November. Now pause and attend. If you will meet me at Moffat on October 6th, I will walk or mail it with you to Elleray, and treat you there with

fowls and Irish whisky. Immediately on receipt of this, write a letter to me, at Mr. Smith's Bookshop, Hutcheson Street, Glasgow, saying positively if you will, or will not do so. If you don't, I will lick you, and fish up Douglas Burn before you, next time I come to Ettrick. I saw a letter from you to Mthe other day, by which you seem to be alive and well. making verses when you can catch trout. Edinburgh this day for Holland and France. I presume, after destroying the King of the Netherlands he intends to annex that kingdom to France, and assume the supreme power of the United Countries, under the title of Geoffrey the First. You, he will make Poet Laureate and Fishmonger, and me admiral of the Musquito Fleet.

You are right in not Francis Jeffrey leaves

If you have occasion soon to write to Murray, I pray introduce something about 'The City of the Plague,' as I shall probably offer him that poem in about a fortnight or sooner. Of course I do not wish you to say that the poem is utterly worthless. I think that a bold eulogy from you (if administered immediately) would be of service to me; but if you do write about it, do not tell him that I have any intention of offering it to him, but you may say, you hear I am going to offer it to a London bookseller. We stayed seven days at Mrs. Izett's, at Kinnaird, and were most kindly received. Mrs. Izett is a great ally of yours, and is a fine creature. I killed in the Highlands 170 dozen of trouts. One day 19 dozen and a half, another 7 dozen. I, one morning, killed ten trouts that weighed nine pounds. In Loch Awe, in three days, I killed 76 pounds' weight of fish, all with the fly. The Gaels were astonished. I shot two roebucks, and had nearly caught a red-deer by the tail. I was within half a mile of it at farthest. The good folks in the Highlands are not dirty. They They are clean, decent, hospitable, ugly people. We domiciliated with many, and found no remains of the great plague of fleas, etc., that devastated the country from the time of Ossian to the accession of George the Third. We were at Loch Katrine, Loch Lomond, Inverary, Dalmally, Loch Etive, Glen Etive, Dalness, Appin, Ballachulish, Fort William, Moy, Dalwhinny, Loch Ericht (you dog), Loch Rannoch, Glen Lyon, Taymouth, Blair Athole, Bruar, Perth, Edinburgh. Is not Mrs. Wilson immortalised?

I know of Cona. It is very creditable to our excellent friend,

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but will not sell any more than the Isle of Palms,' or 'The White Doe.' The White Doe' is not in season; venison is not liked in Edinburgh. It wants flavour; a good Ettrick wether is preferable. Wordsworth has more of the poetical character than any living writer, but he is not a man of first-rate intellect; his genius oversets him. Southey's 'Roderic' is not a first-rate work; the remorse of Roderic is that of a Christian devotee, rather than that of a dethroned monarch. His battles are ill fought. There is no processional march of events in the poem, no tendency to one great end, like a river increasing in majesty till it reaches the sea. Neither is there national character, Spanish or Moorish. No sublime imagery; no profound passion. Southey wrote it, and Southey is a man of talent; but it is his worst poem.

What a poem

Scott's Field of Waterloo' I have seen. such bald and nerveless language, mean imagery, commonplace sentiments, and clumsy versification! It is beneath criticism. Unless the latter part of the battle be very fine indeed, this poem will injure bim.

Wordsworth is dished. Southey is in purgatory; Scott is dying; and Byron is married. Herbert is frozen to death in Scandinavia. Moore has lost his manliness. Coleridge is always in a fog. Joanna Baillie is writing a system of cookery. Montgomery is in a madhouse, or ought to be. Campbell is sick of a constipation in the bowels. Hogg is herding sheep in Ettrick forest; and Wilson has taken the plague. O wretched writers! Unfortunate bards! What is Bobby Miller's back shop to do this winter? Alas! alas! alas! a wild doe is a noble animal; write an address to one, and it shall be inferior to one I have written-for half a barrel of red herrings! The Highlanders are not a poetical people. They are too national; too proud of their history. They imagine that a colleyshangy between the Macgregors and Campbells is a sublime event; and they overlook mountains four thousand feet high. If Ossian did write the poems attributed to him, or any poems like them, he was a dull dog, and deserved never to taste whisky as long as he lived. A man who lives for ever among mist and mountains, knows better than to be always prosing about them. Methinks I feel about objects familiar to infancy and manhood, but when we speak of them, it is only upon great occasions, and in situa tions of deep passion. Ossian was probably born in a flat country

Scott has written good lines in the 'Lord of the Isles,' but he has not done justice to the Sound of Mull, which is a glorious strait. The Northern Highlanders do not admire Waverley, so I presume the South Highlanders despise Guy Mannering. The Westmorland peasants think Wordsworth a fool. In Borrowdale, Southey is not known to exist. I met ten men at Hawick who did not think Hogg a poet, and the whole city of Glasgow think me a madman. So much for the voice of the people being the voice of God. I left my snuff-box in your cottage. Take care of it. The Anstruther bards have advertised their anniversary; I forget the day.

I wish Lieutenant Gray of the Marines had been devoured by the lion he once carried on board his ship to the Dey of Algiers, or that he was kept a perpetual prisoner by the Moors in Barbary. Did you hear that Tennant had been taken before the Session for an offence against good morals? If you did not, neither did I! Indeed it is, on many accounts, exceedingly improbable.

Yours truly,

JOHN WILSON.

CCLXXXV.

Unhappy White! while life was in its spring,
And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing,
The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair

Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.

Byron wrote the following note to his little poem, which opened in the words here quoted.

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Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge in October 1806 in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies that would have matured a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and which death itself destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties as might impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a period was allotted to talents which would have dignified the sacred functions he was destined to assume.'

Southey, the literary executor of this most amiable and unassuming lad who was free from those little eccentricities so commonly yoked to genius, was more impressed with the variety and abundance of the MSS. he had to investigate than he had been with a previous inspection of poor Chatterton's papers. 'Chatterton,' writes Southey, is the only youthful poet whom Kirke White does not leave far behind him.'

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