as Brown was then leaving
for Scotland, and, according to his wont, let the house. Keats
accordingly went to live in Wesleyan Place, Kentish Town. A letter which
he wrote just before his departure speaks of his uncertain outlook; he
might be off to South America, or, more likely, embarking as surgeon on
a vessel trading to the East Indies. This latter idea had been in his
mind for about a year past, off and on. What he could have contemplated
doing in South America is by no means apparent. On the 7th of May Keats
parted at Gravesend from Brown, and they never met again. The hand with
which he grasped Brown's, and which he had of old "clenched against
Hammond's," was now, according to his own words, "that of a man of
fifty."

Things had thus gone on pretty well with Keats's health, since he first
began to rally from the blood-spitting attack of the 3rd of February;
but this was not to continue. On the 22nd of June he again broke a
blood-vessel, and vomited blood morning and evening. Leigh Hunt thought
it high time to intervene, and removed the patient to his house, No. 13
Mortimer Terrace, Kentish Town. By the 7th of July--just about the time
when Keats's last volume was published, the one containing "Lamia,"
"Hyperion," and all his best works--the physician had told him that he
must not remain in England, but go to Italy. On the 12th, Mrs. Gisborne,
the friend of Godwin and of Shelley, saw him at Hunt's house, looking
emaciated, and "under sentence of death from Dr. Lamb." Three days
afterwards he wrote to Haydon "I am afraid I shall pop off just when my
mind is able to run alone." The stay at Leigh Hunt's house came to an
end in a way which speaks volumes for the shattered nerves, and
consequent morbid susceptibility, of Keats. On the 10th of August a note
for him written by Miss Brawne, which "contained not a word of the least
consequence," arrived at the house. Keats was then resting in his own
room, and Mrs. Hunt, who was occupied, desired a female servant to give
it to him. The servant quitted the household on the following day; and,
in leaving, she handed the letter to Thornton Hunt, then a mere child,
asking him to reconsign it to his mother. When Thornton did this on the
12th, the letter was open; opened (one assumes) either by the servant
through idle curiosity, or by Thornton through simple childishness.
"Poor Keats was affected by this inconceivable circumstance beyond what
can be imagined. He wept for sever