next winter, in Italy
or nowhere, Brown will be living near you, with his indecencies.
I see no prospect of any rest. Suppose me in Rome. Well, I should
there see you, as in a magic glass, going to and from town at all
hours--I wish I could infuse a little confidence of human nature
into my heart: I cannot muster any. The world is too brutal for
me. I am glad there is such a thing as the grave--I am sure I
shall never have any rest till I get there. At any rate, I will
indulge myself by never seeing any more Dilke or Brown or any of
their friends. I wish I was either in your arms full of faith, or
that a thunderbolt would strike me.--God bless you.

"J. K."

It is seldom one reads a letter (not to speak of a love-letter) more
steeped than this in wretchedness and acrimony; wretchedness for which
the cause was but too real and manifest; acrimony for which no ground
has been shown or is to be surmised. What Mr. Dilke had done, or could
be supposed to have done, to merit the invalid's ire, is unapparent. Mr.
Brown may be inferred, from the verses of Keats already quoted, to have
had the general character and bearing of a _bon vivant_ or "jolly dog";
sufficiently versed in the good things of this world, whether fish,
flesh, or womankind; jocose, or on occasion slangy. But Keats himself,
in the nearly contemporary letter in which he arraigned Miss Brawne for
"flirting with Brown," had said: "I know his love and friendship for
me--at this moment I should be without pence were it not for his
assistance;" and we refuse to think that any contingency could be likely
to arise in which his "indecencies" would put Miss Brawne to the blush.
Be it enough for us to know that Keats, in the drear prospect of
expatriation and death, wrote in this strain, and to wish it were
otherwise.

The time had now arrived when Keats was to go to Italy. It was on the
18th of September 1820 that he embarked on the _Maria Crowther_ from
London. Haydon gives us a painful glimpse of the poet shortly before his
departure: "The last time I saw him was at Hampstead, lying on his back
in a white bed, helpless, irritable, and hectic. He had a book, and,
enraged at his own feebleness, seemed as if he were going out of the
world, with a contempt of this, and no hopes of a better. He muttered as
I stood by him that, if he did not recover, he would 'cut his throat.' I
tried to calm him, but to no purpose. I left him, in great dep