Keats’s father was the principal servant at the Swan and Hoop Stables,—­a man of so remarkably fine a common-sense and native respectability, that I perfectly remember the warm terms in which his demeanor used to be canvassed by my parents after he had been to visit his boys.  He was short of stature and well-knit in person, (John resembling him both in make and feature,) with brown hair and dark hazel eyes.  He was killed by a fall from his horse, in returning from a visit to the school.  John’s two brothers, George, older, and Thomas, younger than himself, were like the mother,—­who was tall, of good figure, with large, oval face, sombre features, and grave in behavior.  The last of the family was a sister,—­Fanny, I think, much younger than all,—­of whom I remember my mother once speaking with much fondness, for her pretty, simple manners, while she was walking in the garden with her brothers.  She married Mr. Llanos, a Spanish refugee, the author of “Don Esteban,” and “Sandoval, the Free-Mason.”  He was a man of liberal principles, attractive manners, and more than ordinary accomplishments.—­This is the amount of my knowledge and recollection of the family.

In the early part of his school-life, John gave no extraordinary indications of intellectual character; but it was remembered of him afterwards, that there was ever present a determined and steady spirit in all his undertakings; and, although of a strong and impulsive will, I never knew it misdirected in his required pursuit of study.  He was a most orderly scholar.  The future ramifications of that noble genius were then closely shut in the seed, and greedily drinking in the moisture which made it afterwards burst forth so kindly into luxuriance and beauty.

My father was in the habit, at each half-year’s vacation, of bestowing prizes upon those pupils who had performed the greatest quantity of voluntary extra work; and such was Keats’s indefatigable energy for the last two or three successive half-years of his remaining at school, that, upon each occasion, he took the first prize by a considerable distance.  He was at work before the first school-hour began, and that was at seven o’clock; almost all the intervening times of recreation were so devoted; and during the afternoon-holidays, when all were at play, I have seen him in the school,—­almost the only one,—­at his Latin or French translation; and so unconscious and regardless was he of the consequences of this close and persevering application, that he never would have taken the necessary exercise, had he not been sometimes driven out by one of us for the purpose.

I have said that he was a favorite with all.  Not the less beloved was he for having a highly pugnacious spirit, which, when roused, was one of the most picturesque exhibitions—­off the stage—­I ever saw.  One of the transports of that marvellous actor, Edmund Kean—­whom, by the way, he idolized—­was its nearest resemblance; and the two were not very dissimilar in face and figure.