William Soames; who, after some hints
of a practical nature, to "keep back," began laying about him with
indiscriminate and unmitigable vivacity,--the Peripatetic signifying to
his pupil,--"My eyes! Bill Soames giv' me sich a licker!"--evidently
grateful, and considering himself complimented, upon being included in
the general dispensation. Keats's entertainment with this minor scene of
low life has often recurred to me. But his subsequent description of the
baiting, with his position, of his legs and arms bent and shortened,
till he looked like Bruin on his hind-legs, dabbing his fore-paws hither
and thither, as the dogs snapped at him, and now and then acting the
gasp of one that had been suddenly caught and hugged, his own capacious
mouth adding force to the personation, was a memorable display. I am
never reminded of this amusing relation, but it is associated with that
forcible picture in Shakspeare, (and what subject can we not associate
with him?) in the "Henry VI":--
"as a bear encompassed round with dogs,
Who having _pinched_ a few and _made them cry_,
The rest stand all aloof and bark at him.
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