extract from Keats's letter to J. H. Reynold, 14 March 1818
The passage extracted below is the first of John Keats's
epistolary references to Ann Radcliffe.
Text: from John Keats: A Critical Edition of the Major Works. Ed. Elizabeth Cook. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. The Oxford Authors. P. 384
--so we look upon a brook in these parts as you look upon a dash1 in your Country--there must
be something to support this, aye fog, hail, snow rain--Mist--blanketing up three parts of the year--This
devonshire is like Lydia Languish,2 very entertaining when at smiles, but cursedly subject to
sympathetic moisture. You have the sensation of walking under one great Lamplighter: and you cant go on
the other side of the ladder to keep your frock clean, and cosset your superstition. Buy a girdle--put a
pebble in your Mouth--loosen your Braces--for I am going among Scenery whence I intend to tip you the
Damosel Radcliffe--I'll cavern you, and grotto you, and waterfall you, and wood you, and water you, and
immense-rock you, and tremendous sound you, and solitude you. Ill make a lodgment3 on your
glacis4 by a row
of Pines, and storm your covered way with bramble Bushes. Ill have at you with hip and haw smallshot, and
cannonade you with Shingles--Ill be witty upon salt fish, and impede your cavalry with clotted cream.
Notes:
1: dash = "sudden heavy rainfall" (Cook 621)
2: character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals (Cook 621)
3: lodgment = a place of lodging
4: glacis = a gentle slope or incline