d been suddenly caught and hugged, his own capacious
mouth adding force to the personation, was a memorable display. I am
never reminded of this amusing relation, but it is associated with that
forcible picture in Shakspeare, (and what subject can we not associate
with him?) in the "Henry VI":--

"as a bear encompassed round with dogs,
Who having _pinched_ a few and _made them cry_,
The rest stand all aloof and bark at him."

Keats also attended a prize-fight between two of the most skilful and
enduring "light-weights,"--Randal and Turner. It was, I believe, at
that remarkable wager, when, the men being so equally matched and
accomplished, they had been sparring for three-quarters of an hour
before a blow had been struck. In describing the rapidity of Randal's
blows while the other was falling, Keats tapped his fingers on the
window-pane.

I make no apology for recording these events in his life; they are
characteristics of the natural man,--and prove, moreover, that the
indulgence in such exhibitions did not for one moment blunt the gentler
emotions of his heart, or vulgarize his inborn love of all that was
beautiful and true. His own line was the axiom of his moral existence,
his political creed:--"A thing of beauty is a joy forever"; and I can
fancy no coarser consociation able to win him from this faith. Had he
been born in squalor, he would have emerged a gentleman. Keats was not
an easily swayable man; in differing with those he loved, his firmness
kept equal pace with the sweetness of his persuasion; but with the rough
and the unlovable he kept no terms,--within the conventional precincts,
I mean, of social order.

From Well Walk he moved to another quarter of the Heath,--Wentworth
Place the name, if I recollect. Here he became a sharing inmate with Mr.
Charles Armitage Brown, a gentleman who had been a Russia merchant, and
had retired to a literary leisure upon an independence. I do not know
how they became acquainted; but Keats never had a more zealous, a
firmer, or more practical friend and adviser than Brown. His robust
eagerness and zeal, with a headstrong determination of will, led him
into an undue prejudice against the brother, George, respecting some
money-transactions with John, which, however, the former redeemed to the
perfect satisfaction of all the friends of the family. After the death
of Keats, Armitage Brown went to reside in Florence, where he remained
some few years; then he settled