"
After John had been at school some time he suddenly began to care
for books. He began to read and read greedily, he won all the
literature prizes, and even on half-holidays he could hardly be
driven out to join in the games of his comrades, preferring
rather to sit in the quiet schoolroom translating from Latin or
French, and even when he was driven forth he went book in hand.
It was while John was still at school that his mother died and
all her children were placed under the care of a guardian. As
John was now fifteen, their guardian took him from school, and it
was decided to make him a doctor. He was apprenticed, in the
fashion of the day, to a surgeon at Edmonton, for five years.
Keats seems to have been quite pleased with this arrangement.
His new studies still left him time to read. He was within
walking distance of his old school, and many a summer afternoon
he spent reading in the garden with Cowden Clarke, the son of his
old schoolmaster, in whom Keats had found a friend. From this
friend he borrowed Spenser's Faery Queen, and having read it a
new wonder-world seemed opened to him.
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