It was December 1817. Keats, aged 22, was a promising young poet who had just seen his poetry in publication for the first time and was in the middle of writing Endymion, which came out the following year. Wordsworth was well-established by then, and Keats admired him, emulating his style in his first published poem, 'To Solitude' (1816), speaking of:
| ...the sweet converse of an innocent mind | |
| Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd |
| He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, | |
| Who on Helvellyn’s summit, wide awake, | |
| Catches his freshness from Archangel’s wing; |
Their first meeting was arranged by Haydon, in December 1817, who described it as follows in a letter to a friend:
"When Wordsworth came to Town, I brought Keats to him, by his Wordsworth’s desire - Keats expressed to me as we walked to Queen Anne St East where Mr Monkhouse lodged, the greatest, the purest, the most unalloyed pleasure at the prospect. Wordsworth received him kindly, & after a few minutes, Wordsworth asked him what he had been lately doing. I said he has just finished an exquisite ode to Pan - and as he had not a copy I begged Keats to repeat it - which he did in his usual half chant, (most touching) walking up & down the room - when he had done I felt really, as if I had heard a young Apollo - Wordsworth drily said “a very pretty piece of Paganism” - This was unfeeling, & unworthy of his high Genius to a young Whorshipper like Keats - & Keats felt it deeply - so that if Keats has said any thing severe about our Friend; it was because he was wounded - and though he dined with Wordsworth after at my table -- he never forgave him."
One of these further meetings with Wordsworth gets a mention in a letter to Keats's brothers George and Tom a few weeks later (5 January 1818). Keats also refers to the dinner at Haydon's, but there is little sign of enthusiasm for the older poet.
"This day I promised to dine with Wordsworth and the weather is so bad that I am undecided for he lives at Mortimer Street. i had an invitation to meet him at Kingstons - but not liking that place i sent my excus... On Saturday I called on Wordsworth before he went to Kingston's and was surprised to find him with a stiff collar. I saw his spouse and I think his daughter - I forget whether I had written my last before my Sunday evening at Haydon's - no I did not or I should have told you of a young man you met at Paris at Scott's of the name of Richer [Joseph Ricthie] I think - he is going to Fezan in Africa there to proceed if possible like Mungo Park - he was very polite to me and enquired very particularly after you - then there was Wordsworth, Lamb, Monkhouse, Landeer, Kingston and your humble servant. Lamb got tipsey and blew up Kingston..."
Then in a letter to Benjamin Bailey, 23 January 1818, Keats writes "I have seen a great deal of Wordsworth" without providing any further details - so perhaps he didn't find the meetings very inspiring. And then writing to the brothers again in February, he says: "I am sorry that Wordsworth has left a bad impression wherever he visited in Town - by his egotism, vanity and bigotry - yet he is a great poet if not a philosopher."
There's also a missed meeting to record. Later that year, Keats toured the Lakes, writing to his brother Tom (25-27 June) that "Lord Wordsworth, instead of being in retirement, has himself and his house full in the thick of fashionable visitors quite convenient to be pointed at all the summer long."
Yet he was not at home for Keats on this occasion.
"We slept at Ambleside not above two miles from Rydal the residence of Wordsworth... We ate a monstrous breakfast on our return and after it proceeded to Wordsworth's. He was not at home nor was any member of his family. I was much disappointed. I wrote a note for him and stuck it up over what I knew must be Miss Wordsworth's portrait and set forth again." (Letter to George and Georgiana Keats, 27-28 June 1818)
See also: http://johnkeats.uvic.ca/resources/DesperatelySeekingColeridge.pdf for an account of the only meeting between Keats and Coleridge
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