' den. He does indeed, in one of his
letters (April 1818), aver "I would jump down AEtna for any great public
good"; but it may perhaps be permissible to think that he would at all
events have postponed the Empedoclean feat until he had written and
ensured the publishing of some poem upon which he could be content to
stake his claim to permanent poetic renown. His tension of thought was
great. In a letter which he addressed in May 1817 to Leigh Hunt there is
a little passage which may be worth quoting here, along with Mr. Dilke's
comment upon it:

"I went to the Isle of Wight. Thought so much about poetry so
long together that I could not get to sleep at night; and
moreover, I know not how it was, I could not get wholesome food.
By this means, in a week or so, I became not over-capable in my
upper stories, and set off pell-mell for Margate, at least a
hundred and fifty miles, because forsooth I fancied that I should
like my old lodging here, and could continue to do without trees.
Another thing, I was too much in solitude, and consequently was
obliged to be in continual burning of thought, as an only
resource."

This passage Mr. Dilke considered "an exact picture of the man's mind
and character," adding: "He could at any time have 'thought himself
out,' mind and body. Thought was intense with him, and seemed at times
to assume a reality that influenced his conduct, and, I have no doubt,
helped to wear him out."

Whether Keats should be regarded as a young man tolerably regular in his
mode of life, or manifestly tending to the irregular, is a question not
entirely clear. We have seen something of a sexual misadventure in
Oxford, and of six weeks of hard drinking, attested by Haydon; and it
should be added that two or three of Keats's minor poems have a certain
unmistakable twang of erotic laxity. Lord Houghton thought that in the
winter of 1817-18 the poet had indulged somewhat "in that dissipation
which is the natural outlet for the young energies of ardent
temperaments;" but he held that it all amounted to no more than "a
little too much rollicking" (Keats's own phrase), and he would not allow
that either drinking or gaming had proceeded to any serious extent,
"for, in his letters to his brothers, he speaks of having drunk too much
as a rare piece of joviality, and of having won L10 at cards as a great
hit." Medical students, it may be added, are not, as a rule, conspicuous
for mortify