t has had such a chance of giving it to us. The only
thing to regret is that it could not continue longer: and
that is only a necessary operation of Fate. The particular
passage chosen here is one of the best known perhaps, but it
is also one of the most illuminating: for it gives at once
Keats's natural and simple interest in ordinary things, with
no mere trivialities: his _real_ attitude (so different from
that long attributed to him!) as regards the attacks of
critics, and his passion for beauty apart from mere
hedonism. The "Charmian" was at one time supposed to be
Miss Brawne: but this was an error. She was a Miss Jane Cox,
and nothing is heard of her afterwards.

37. TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS

[October 14 or 15, 1818]

I came by ship from Inverness, and was nine days at Sea without being
sick. A little qualm now and then put me in mind of you; however, as
soon as you touch the shore, all the horrors of sickness are soon
forgotten, as was the case with a lady on board, who could not hold her
head up all the way. We had not been in the Thames an hour before her
tongue began to some tune--paying off, as it was fit she should, all old
scores. I was the only Englishman on board. There was a downright
Scotchman, who, hearing that there had been a bad crop of potatoes in
England, had brought some triumphant specimens from Scotland. These he
exhibited with national pride to all the ignorant lightermen and
watermen from the Nore to the Bridge. I fed upon beef all the way; not
being able to eat the thick porridge which the Ladies managed to manage,
with large, awkward, horn spoons into the bargain. Reynolds has returned
from a six-weeks' enjoyment in Devonshire; he is well, and persuades me
to publish my "Pot of Basil" as an answer to the attacks made on me in
"Blackwood's Magazine" and the "Quarterly Review." There have been two
Letters in my defence in the Chronicle and one in the Examiner, copied
from the Exeter Paper, and written by Reynolds. I do not know who wrote
those in the Chronicle. This is a mere matter of the moment--I think I
shall be among the English Poets after my death. Even as a Matter of
present interest the attempt to crush me in the "Quarterly" has only
brought me more into notice, and it is a common expression among
book-men, "I wonder the Quarterly should cut its own throat." It does me
not the least harm in Society to make me appear lit