gain; and the first few months of
1819 were the most fruitful of his life. Besides working at _Hyperion_,
which he had begun during Tom's illness, he wrote _The Eve of St.
Agnes_, _The Eve of St. Mark_, _La Belle Dame Sans Merci_, and nearly
all his famous odes.

Troubles however beset him. His friend Haydon was in difficulties and
tormenting him, poor as he was, to lend him money; the state of his
throat gave serious cause for alarm; and, above all, he was consumed by
an unsatisfying passion for the daughter of a neighbour, Mrs. Brawne.
She had rented Brown's house whilst they were in Scotland, and had now
moved to a street near by. Miss Fanny Brawne returned his love, but she
seems never to have understood his nature or his needs. High-spirited
and fond of pleasure she did not apparently allow the thought of her
invalid lover to interfere much with her enjoyment of life. She would
not, however, abandon her engagement, and she probably gave him all
which it was in her nature to give. Ill-health made him, on the other
hand, morbidly dissatisfied and suspicious; and, as a result of his
illness and her limitations, his love throughout brought him
restlessness and torment rather than peace and comfort.

Towards the end of July he went to Shanklin and there, in collaboration
with Brown, wrote a play, _Otho the Great_. Brown tells us how they used
to sit, one on either side of a table, he sketching out the scenes and
handing each one, as the outline was finished, to Keats to write. As
Keats never knew what was coming it was quite impossible that the
characters should be adequately conceived, or that the drama should be a
united whole. Nevertheless there is much that is beautiful and promising
in it. It should not be forgotten that Keats's 'greatest ambition' was,
in his own words, 'the writing of a few fine plays'; and, with the
increasing humanity and grasp which his poetry shows, there is no reason
to suppose that, had he lived, he would not have fulfilled it.

At Shanklin, moreover, he had begun to write _Lamia_, and he continued
it at Winchester. Here he stayed until the middle of October, excepting
a few days which he spent in London to arrange about the sending of some
money to his brother in America. George had been unsuccessful in his
commercial enterprises, and Keats, in view of his family's ill-success,
determined temporarily to abandon poetry, and by reviewing or journalism
to support himself and earn money to h