fortunes left Keats unassuming and
manly as before. He appears to have been a natural gentleman. Jennings
was a prosperous tradesman, and might have died rich (his death took
place in 1805) but for easy-going good-nature tending to the gullible.
Mrs. Keats seems to have been in character less uniform and
single-minded than her husband. She is described as passionately fond of
amusement, prodigal, dotingly attached to her children, more especially
John, much beloved by them in return, sensible, and at the same time
saturnine in demeanour: a personable tall woman with a large oval face.
Her pleasure-seeking tendency probably led her into some imprudences,
for her first baby, John, was a seven months' child.

John Keats was born at the Moorfields place of business on the 31st of
October 1795. This date of birth is established by the register of
baptisms at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate: the date usually assigned, the
29th of October, appears to be inaccurate, though Keats himself, and
others of the family, believed in it. There were three other children of
the marriage--or four if we reckon a a son who died in infancy: George,
Thomas, and lastly Fanny, born in March 1803. An anecdote is told of
John when in the fifth year of his age, purporting to show forth the
depth of his childish affection for his mother. It is said that she then
lay seriously ill; and John stood sentinel at her chamber-door, holding
an old sword which he had picked up about the premises, and he remained
there for hours to prevent her being disturbed. One may fear, however,
that this anecdote has taken an ideal colouring through the lens of a
partial biographer. The painter Benjamin Robert Haydon--who, as we shall
see in the sequel, was extremely well acquainted with John Keats, and
who heard the story from his brother Thomas--records it thus: "He was,
when an infant, a most violent and ungovernable child. At five years of
age or thereabouts he once got hold of a naked sword, and, shutting the
door, swore nobody should go out. His mother wanted to do so; but he
threatened her so furiously she began to cry, and was obliged to wait
till somebody, through the window, saw her position, and came to her
rescue." It can scarcely be supposed that there were two different
occasions when the quinquennial John Keats superintended his mother and
her belongings with a naked sword--once in ardent and self-oblivious
affection, and once in petulant and froward excitement.