en; for the fellow
was the taller and stronger; but, like an authentic pugilist, my young
poet found that he had planted a blow which "told" upon his antagonist.
In every succeeding round, therefore, (for they fought nearly an hour,)
he never failed of returning to the weak point; and the contest ended
in the hulk being led or carried home. In all my knowledge of my
fellow-beings, I never knew one who so thoroughly combined the sweetness
with the power of gentleness and the irresistible sway of anger as
Keats. His indignation would have made the boldest grave; and those who
have seen him under the influence of tyranny, injustice, and meanness of
soul will never forget the expression of his features,--"the form of his
visage was changed."

He had a strong sense of humor; yet, so to speak, he was not, in the
strict sense of the term, a humorist. His comic fancy lurked in the
outermost and most unlooked-for images of association,--which, indeed,
maybe said to be the components of humor; nevertheless, I think they
did not extend beyond the _quaint_, in fulfilment and success. But his
perception of humor, with the power of transmitting it by imitation, was
both vivid and irresistibly amusing. He once described to me his having
gone to see a bear-baiting,--the animal, the property of a Mr. Tom
Oliver. The performance not having began, Keats was near to and watched
a young aspirant, who had brought a younger under his wing to witness
the solemnity, and whom he oppressively patronized, instructing him in
the names and qualities of all the magnates present. Now and then, in
his zeal to manifest and impart his knowledge, he would forget himself,
and stray beyond the prescribed bounds, into the ring,--to the lashing
resentment of its comptroller, Mr. William Soames; who, after some hints
of a practical nature, to "keep back," began laying about him with
indiscriminate and unmitigable vivacity,--the Peripatetic signifying to
his pupil,--"My eyes! Bill Soames giv' me sich a licker!"--evidently
grateful, and considering himself complimented, upon being included in
the general dispensation. Keats's entertainment with this minor scene of
low life has often recurred to me. But his subsequent description of the
baiting, with his position, of his legs and arms bent and shortened,
till he looked like Bruin on his hind-legs, dabbing his fore-paws hither
and thither, as the dogs snapped at him, and now and then acting the
gasp of one that ha