very toast in their mouths, afraid to bite. It was curious to see
Lawrence in this predicament, to hear him bite by degrees, and then
stop, for fear of making too much crackle, his eyes full of water from
the constraint; and at the same time to hear Mrs. Siddons' 'eye of
newt and toe of frog,' and to see Lawrence give a sly bite, and then
look awed, and pretend to be listening.'

In the spring of 1821 Haydon lost two intimate friends, John Scott,
who was killed by Christie in the Blackwood duel, and Keats, who died
at Rome on February 23. He briefly sums up his impressions of the dead
poet in his Journal. 'In fireside conversation he was weak and
inconsistent, but he was in his glory in the fields.... He was the
most unselfish of human creatures: unadapted to this world, he cared
not for himself, and put himself to inconvenience for the sake of his
friends. He had an exquisite sense of humour, and too refined a notion
of female purity to bear the little arts of love with patience.... He
began life full of hopes, fiery, impetuous, ungovernable, expecting
the world to fall at once beneath his powers. Unable to bear the
sneers of ignorance or the attacks of envy, he began to despond, and
flew to dissipation as a relief. For six weeks he was scarcely sober,
and to show what a man does to gratify his appetites when once they
get the better of him, he once covered his tongue and throat, as far
as he could reach, with Cayenne pepper, in order to appreciate the
"delicious coldness of claret in all its glory"--his own expression.'

June 22, 1821, is entered in the Journal as 'A remarkable day in my
life. I am arrested!' This incident, unfortunately, became far too
common in after-days to be at all remarkable, but the first touch of
the bailiff's hand was naturally something of a shock, and Haydon
filled three folio pages with angry comments on the iniquity of the