[78] For Loch na Keal.
[79] The six lines from “place” to “dance” were judiciously omitted by Keats in copying these verses later.
[80] Miss Charlotte Cox, an East-Indian cousin of the Reynoldses—the “Charmian” described more fully in Letter LXXIII.
[81] Referring to these words in John Scott’s letter in his defence, Morning Chronicle, October 3, 1818:—“That there are also many, very many passages indicating both haste and carelessness I will not deny; nay, I will go further, and assert that a real friend of the author would have dissuaded him from immediate publication.”
[82] Miss Charlotte Cox; see above, Letter LXX.
[83] This, notes Woodhouse, is in reply to a letter of protest he had written Keats concerning “what had fallen from him, about six weeks back, when we dined together at Mr. Hessey’s, respecting his continuing to write; which he seemed very doubtful of.”
[84] On the death of his brother Tom (which took place December 1, a few hours after the last letter was written) Brown urged Keats to leave the lodgings where the brothers had lived together, and come and live with him at Wentworth Place—a block of two semi-detached houses in a large garden at the bottom of John Street, of which Dilke occupied the larger and Brown the smaller: see Keats (Men of Letters Series), p. 128. Keats complied; and henceforth his letters dated Hampstead must be understood as written not from Well Walk, but from Wentworth Place.
[85] A paper of the largest folio size, used by Keats in this letter only, and containing some eight hundred words a page of his writing.
[86] This is Keats’s first mention of Fanny Brawne. His sense on first acquaintance of her power to charm and tease him must be understood, in spite of his reticence on the subject, as having grown quickly into the absorbing passion which tormented the remainder of his days.
[87] Of Bedhampton Castle: a connection of the Dilkes and special friend of Brown.