being popular to that excellent
person. I was amused, too, with the finale; it is like the end of the
first act of an opera, when that tremendous concordant discord sets
up from the orchestra, and everybody talks and sings at once. It
describes the result of my battle with their Omnipotent God; his
pulling me under the sea by the hair of my head, like Pharaoh; my
calling out like the devil who was _game_ to the last; swearing and
cursing in all comic and horrid oaths, like a French postilion on
Mount Cenis; entreating everybody to drown themselves; pretending not
to be drowned myself when I _am_ drowned; and lastly, _being_ drowned.

You would do me a particular kindness if you would call on Hunt, and
ask him when my parcel went, the name of the ship, and the name of the
captain, and whether he has any bill of lading, which, if he has, you
would oblige me by sending, together with the rest of the information,
by return of post, addressed to the Post Office, Florence.

To MRS. HUNT

_Keats and some others_

[Pisa] 11 _Nov_. 1820.

MY BEST MARIANNE,

I am delighted to hear that you complain of me for not writing to you,
although I have much more reason to complain of you for not writing to
me. At least it promises me a letter from you, and you know with what
pleasure we receive, and with what anxiety we expect intelligence from
you--almost the only friends who now remain to us.

I am afraid that the strict system of expense to which you are limited
annoys you all very much, and that Hunt's health suffers both from
that and from the incredible exertions which I see by the _Indicators_
and the _Examiners_ that he is making. Would to Heaven that I had the
power of doing you some good! but when you are sure that the wish is
sincere, the bare expression of it may help to cheer you.

The Gisbornes are arrived, and have brought news of you, and some
books, the principal part of which, however, are yet to arrive by
sea. Keats's new volume has arrived to us, and the fragment called
_Hyperion_ promises for him that he is destined to become one of the
first writers of the age. His other things are imperfect enough, and,
what is worse, written in the bad sort of style which is becoming
fashionable among those who fancy that they are imitating Hunt and
Wordsworth. But of all these things nothing is worse than ----, in
spite of Hunt's extracting the only good stanzas, with his usual good
nature. Indeed, _I_ ought not t