and esteem.  Haydon’s detraction was the more odious because its object could not contradict the charge, and because it supplied his old critical antagonists (if any remained) with an authority for their charge against him of Cockney ostentation and display.  The most mean-spirited and trumpery twaddle in the paragraph was, that Keats was so far gone in sensual excitement as to put Cayenne pepper upon his tongue, when taking his claret!  Poor fellow! he never purchased a bottle of claret, within my knowledge of him; and, from such observation as could not escape me, I am bound to assert that his domestic expenses never could have occasioned him a regret or a self-reproof.

When Shelley left England for Italy, Keats told me that he had received from him an invitation to become his guest,—­and, in short, to make one of his household.  It was upon the purest principle that Keats declined the noble proffer; for he entertained an exalted opinion of Shelley’s genius, in itself an inducement; he also knew of his deeds of bounty; and lastly, from their frequent intercourse, he had full faith in the sincerity of his proposal; for a more crystalline heart than Shelley’s never beat in human bosom.  He was incapable of an untruth or of a deceit in any ill form.  Keats told me, that, in declining the invitation, his sole motive was the consciousness, which would be ever prevalent with him, of his not being, in its utter extent, a free agent,—­even within such a circle as Shelley’s,—­himself, nevertheless, the most unrestricted of beings.  Mr. Trelawney, a familiar of the family, has confirmed the unwavering testimony to Shelley’s bounty of nature, where he says, “Shelley was a being absolutely without selfishness.”  The poorest cottagers knew and benefited by the thoroughly practical and unselfish character of his Christianity, during his residence at Marlow, when he would visit them, and, having gone through a course of study in medicine, in order that he might assist them with his advice, would commonly administer the tonic which such systems usually require,—­a good basin of broth, or pea-soup.  And I believe I am infringing on no private domestic delicacy, when I repeat, that he has been known, upon a sudden and immediate emergency, to purloin ("convey the wise it call”) a portion of the warmest of Mrs. Shelley’s wardrobe, to protect some poor starving sister.  One of the richer residents of Marlow told me that “they all considered him a madman.”  I wish he had bitten the whole squad.

  “No settled senses of the world can match
  The ‘wisdom’ of that madness.”