Keats

BOOK III. After line 125 stood the cancelled lines:--

Chapter 184,461 wordsPublic domain

"Into a hue more roseate than sweet pain Gives to a ravish'd nymph, when her warm tears Gush luscious with no sob; or more severe."

In line 126, for "most like" stood "more like."

In these omissions and corrections, two things will be apparent to the student: first, that they are all greatly for the better; and second, that where a corrected passage occurs again in the _Vision_, it in every case corresponds to the printed _Hyperion_, and not to the draft of the poem preserved by Woodhouse. This of itself would make it certain that the _Vision_ was not a first version of _Hyperion_, but a recast of the poem as revised (in all probability at Winchester) after its first composition. Taken together with the statement of Brown, which is perfectly explicit as to time, place, and circumstances, and the corresponding statement of Woodhouse as recollected by Mr Garnett, the proof is from all sides absolute: and the 'first version' theory must disappear henceforward from editions of and commentaries on our poet.

p. 193, note 2. A more explicit refutation of Haydon's account was given, some years after its appearance, by Cowden Clarke (see Preface, no. 10), not, indeed, from personal observation at the time in question, but from general knowledge of the poet's character:--

"I can scarcely conceive of anything more unjust than the account which that ill-ordered being, Haydon, the artist, left behind him in his 'Diary' respecting the idolised object of his former intimacy, John Keats" ... "Haydon's detraction was the more odious because its object could not contradict the charge, and because it supplied his old critical antagonists (if any remained) with an authority for their charge against him of Cockney ostentation and display. The most mean-spirited and trumpery twaddle in the paragraph was, that Keats was so far gone in sensual excitement as to put cayenne pepper on his tongue when taking his claret. In the first place, if the stupid trick were ever played, I have not the slightest belief in its serious sincerity. During my knowledge of him Keats never purchased a bottle of claret; and from such observation as could not escape me, I am bound to say that his domestic expenses never would have occasioned him a regret or a self-reproof; and, lastly, I never perceived in him even a tendency to imprudent indulgence."

p. 198, note 1. In Medwin's _Life of Shelley_ (1847), pp. 89-92, are some notices of Keats communicated to the writer by Fanny Brawne (then Mrs Lindon), to whom Medwin alludes as his 'kind correspondent.' Medwin's carelessness of statement and workmanship is well known: he is perfectly casual in the use of quotation marks and the like: but I think an attentive reading of the paragraph, beginning on p. 91, which discusses Mr Finch's account of Keats's death, leaves no doubt that it continues in substance the quotation previously begun from Mrs Lindon. "That his sensibility," so runs the text, "was most acute, is true, and his passions were very strong, but not violent; if by that term, violence of temper is implied. His was no doubt susceptible, but his anger seemed rather to turn on himself than others, and in moments of greatest irritation, it was only by a sort of savage despondency that he sometimes grieved and wounded his friends. Violence such as the letter" [of Mr Finch] "describes, was quite foreign to his nature. For more than a twelvemonth before quitting England, I saw him every day", [this would be true of Fanny Brawne from Oct. 1819 to Sept. 1820, if we except the Kentish Town period in the summer, and is certainly more nearly true of her than of anyone else,] "I often witnessed his sufferings, both mental and bodily, and I do not hesitate to say, that he never could have addressed an unkind expression, much less a violent one, to any human being." The above passage has been overlooked by critics of Keats, and I am glad to bring it forward, as serving to show a truer and kinder appreciation of the poet by the woman he loved than might be gathered from her phrase in the letter to Dilke so often quoted.

INDEX.

Abbey, Mr Richard, 11, 17, 70, 77, 138, 144, 192.

_Adonaïs_ (Shelley's), 209, 210.

_Adventures of a younger Son_ (Trelawney's), 75.

Alfieri, 205.

_Alfred, The_, 124.

_Anatomy of Melancholy_ (Burton's), 167.

_Antiquary_ (Scott's), 115.

_Apollo, Ode to_, 21-22.

_Autumn, Ode to_, 177.

Bailey, Benjamin, 75, 76, 77, 122, 213, 214.

Beattie, 21.

_Biographia Literaria_ (Coleridge's), 64.

Boccaccio, 148.

Bonaparte, Pauline, Princess Borghese, 204.

Brawne, Miss Fanny, 131 seq., 180-181, 197, 198.

_Britannia's Pastorals_ (Browne's), 31.

Brown, Charles, 13, 73, 111 seq., 128, 143 seq., 181, 200, 210.

Browne, 31.

Browning, Robert, 218.

Burnet, 10.

Byron, 1, 19, 65, 210; Sonnet to, 22.

Canterbury, 71.

_Cap and Bells_, 183 seq.

Castlereagh, 25.

_Champion, The_, 82.

Chatterton, 157, 158; Sonnet to, 22.

Chaucer, 28.

Chichester, 133.

Clarke, Cowden, 3, 8, 12, 22, 23, 72, 84.

Clarke, Rev. John, 4.

'Cockaigne, King of,' 121.

_Cockney School of Poetry_ (Articles in _Blackwood's Magazine_), 77, 121 seq.

Coleridge, 16, 25, 26, 33, 64.

Cooper, Astley, 18.

Cotterill, Miss, 202, 203.

Cox, Miss Charlotte, 130.

_Dante_ (Cary's), 113.

_Death_, Stanzas on, 21; Keats' contemplation of, 140; longing for, 200.

De Quincey, 26.

Devonshire, 87.

_Dictionary_ (Lempriere's), 10.

Dilke, 73, 210.

Dilke, Charles Wentworth, 73, 128, 135.

_Don Juan_ (Byron's), 184, 202, 210.

Dryden, 29, 30, 53.

Edmonton, 5, 6, 11, 14, 20.

Eldon, 25.

Elton, Lieutenant, 204.

Emancipation, Literary, 63-64.

_Endymion_, 66, 68, 71, 76, 80, 83, 86, 91; Keats' low opinion of the poem, 91; its beauties and defects, 91, 106-109; Drayton's and Fletcher's previous treatment of the subject, 94-95; Keats' unclassical manner of treatment, 96; its one bare circumstance, 87; scenery of the poem, 97; its quality of nature-interpretation, 98; its love passages, 100; comparison of description with a similar one in _Richard III._, 103; its lyrics, 104-106; appreciation of the lyrics a test of true relish for poetry, 106; its rhythm and music, 109; Keats' own preface the best criticism of the poem, 110.

Enfield, 4, 12.

_Epistles_, their tributes to the conjoined pleasures of literature and friendship, 53; ungrammatical slips in, 54; characteristic specimens of, 54-55.

_Epithalamium_ (Spenser's), 12.

_Eve of St Agnes_, its simple theme, 160; its ease and directness of construction, 161; its unique charm, 163.

_Eve of St Mark_, contains Keats' impressions of three Cathedral towns, 164; its pictures, 164; the legend, 164; its pictorial brilliance, 165; its influence on later English poetry, 165.

_Examiner, The_ (Leigh Hunt's), 25.

_Faerie Queene_ (Spenser's), 12, 13, 35.

_Faithful Shepherdess_ (Fletcher's), 95.

_Fanny, Lines to_, 134.

_Feast of the Poets_ (Leigh Hunt's), 32.

Fletcher, 95.

_Foliage_ (Leigh Hunt's), 73.

Genius, births of, 1.

_Gisborne, Letter to Maria_ (Shelley's), 30.

Goethe, 154.

_Grasshopper and Cricket_, 35.

Gray, 113.

Greece, Keats' love of, 58, 77, 154.

_Guy Mannering_ (Scott's), 115.

Hammond, Mr, 11, 14.

Hampstead, 72, 77.

Haslam, William, 45, 212 (note).

Haydon, 3, 40, 65, 68, 78, 137, 138, 191, 214.

Hazlitt, William, 83, 84.

_History of his own Time_ (Burnet's), 10.

Holmes, Edward, 8.

_Holy Living and Dying_ (Jeremy Taylor's), 206.

_Homer, On first looking into Chapman's_ (Sonnet), 23-24.

Hood, 219.

_Hope_, address to, 21.

Horne, R. H., 11.

Houghton, Lord, 75, 211-213.

Hunt, John, 25.

Hunt, Leigh, 22, 24, 25, 32, 35, 39, 49, 51, 68, 72, 78, 196.

_Hyperion_, 129, 133, 144; its purpose, 152; one of the grandest poems of our language, 157; the influences of _Paradise Lost_ on it, 158; its blank verse compared with Milton's, 158; its elemental grandeur, 160; remodelling of it, 185 seq.; description of the changes, 186-187; special interest of the poem, 187.

_Imitation of Spenser_ (Keats' first lines), 14, 20.

_Indolence, Ode on_, 174-175.

_Isabella, or the Pot of Basil_, 86; source of its inspiration, 148; minor blemishes, 149; its Italian metre, 149; its conspicuous power and charm, 149; description of its beauties, 151.

Isle of Wight, 67.

Jennings, Mrs, 5, 11.

Jennings, Capt. M. J., 7.

Joseph and his Brethren (Wells'), 45.

Kean, 81.

Keats, John, various descriptions of, 7, 8, 9, 46, 47, 76, 136, 224; birth, 2; education at Enfield, 4; death of his father, 5; school-life, 5-9; his studious inclinations, 10; death of his mother, 10; leaves school at the age of fifteen, 11; is apprenticed to a surgeon, 11; finishes his school-translation of the _Æneid_, 12; reads Spenser's _Epithalamium_ and _Faerie Queene_, 12; his first attempts at composition, 13; goes to London and walks the hospitals, 14; his growing passion for poetry, 15; appointed dresser at Guy's Hospital, 16; his last operation, 16; his early life in London, 18; his early poems, 20 seq.; his introduction to Leigh Hunt, 24; Hunt's great influence over him, 26 seq.; his acquaintance with Shelley, 38; his other friends, 40-45; personal characteristics, 47-48; goes to live with his brothers in the Poultry, 48; publication of his first volume of poems, 65; retires to the Isle of Wight, 66; lives at Carisbrooke, 67; changes to Margate, 68; money troubles, 70; spends some time at Canterbury, 71; receives first payment in advance for _Endymion_, 71; lives with his two brothers at Hampstead, 71; works steadily at _Endymion_, 71-72; makes more friends, 73; writes part of _Endymion_ at Oxford, 76; his love for his sister Fanny, 77; stays at Burford Bridge, 80; goes to the 'immortal dinner,' 82; he visits Devonshire, 87; goes on a walking tour in Scotland with Charles Brown, 113; crosses over to Ireland, 116; returns to Scotland and visits Burns' country, 118; sows there the seeds of consumption, 120; returns to London, 120; is attacked in _Blackwood's Magazine_ and the _Quarterly Review_, 121; Lockhart's conduct towards him, 122; death of his young brother Tom, 128; goes to live with Charles Brown, 128; falls in love, 130-131; visits friends in Chichester, 133; suffers with his throat, 133; his correspondence with his brother George, 139; goes to Shanklin, 143; collaborates with Brown in writing _Otho_, 143; goes to Winchester, 144; returns again to London, 146; more money troubles, 146; determines to make a living by journalism, 146; lives by himself, 146; goes back to Mr Brown, 181; _Otho_ is returned unopened after having been accepted, 182; want of means prevents his marriage, 190; his increasing illness, 191 seq.; temporary improvement in his health, 194; publishes another volume of poems, 196; stays with Leigh Hunt's family, 197; favourable notice in the _Edinburgh Review_, 197; lives with the family of Miss Brawne, 198; goes with Severn to spend the winter in Italy, 199; the journey improves his health, 200; writes his last lines, 201; stays for a time at Naples, 203; goes on to Rome, 203-204; further improvement in his health, 205; sudden and last relapse, 205; he is tenderly nursed by his friend Severn, 206; speaks of himself as already living a 'posthumous life,' 207; grows worse and dies, 208; various tributes to his memory, 214.

His genius awakened by the _Faerie Queene_, 13; influence of other poets on him, 21; experiments in language, 21, 64, 147, 169; employment of the 'Heroic' couplet, 27, 30; element and spirit of his own poetry, 50; experiments in metre, 52; studied musical effect of his verse, 55; his Grecian spirit, 58, 77, 95, 114, 154; view of the aims and principles of poetry, 61; imaginary dependence on Shakspere, 69; thoughts on the mystery of Evil, 88; puns, 72, 202; his poems Greek in idea, English in manner, 96; his poetry a true spontaneous expression of his mind, 110; power of vivifying, 161; verbal licenses, 169; influence on subsequent poets, 218; felicity of phrase, 219.

Personal characteristics: Celtic temperament, 3, 58, 70; affectionate nature, 6, 7, 9, 10, 77; morbid temperament, 6, 70, 211; lovable disposition, 6, 8, 19, 212, 213; temper, 7, 9, 233; personal beauty, 8; _penchant_ for fighting, 8, 9, 72; studious nature, 9, 112; humanity, 39, 89, 114-115; sympathy and tenderness, 47, 213; eyes, description of, 46, 207, 224; love of nature, 47, 55-56; voice, 47; desire of fame, 60, 125, 141, 207; natural sensibility to physical and spiritual spell of moonlight, 95; highmindedness, 125-126; love romances, 127, 130-134, 180-181, 197, 200, 203, 212; pride and sensitiveness, 211; unselfishness, 213, 214; instability, 215.

Various descriptions of, 7, 8, 9, 46, 47, 76, 136, 224.

Keats, Admiral Sir Richard, 7.

Keats, Fanny (Mrs Llanos), 77.

Keats, Mrs (Keats' mother), 5, 10.

Keats, George, 90, 113, 192, 193, 210.

Keats, Thomas (Keats' father), 2, 5.

Keats, Tom, 6, 127.

_King Stephen_, 179.

'Kirk-men,' 116-117.

_La Belle Dame sans Merci_, 165, 166, 218; origin of the title, 165; a story of the wasting power of love, 166; description of its beauties, 166.

Lamb, Charles, 26, 82, 83.

_Lamia_, 143; its source, 167; versification, 167; the picture of the serpent woman, 168; Keats' opinion of the Poem, 168.

Landor, 75.

_Laon and Cythna_, 76.

Letters, extracts, etc., from Keats', 66, 67, 68, 69, 77, 78, 79, 81, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 114, 116-117, 118, 126, 127, 129, 130, 134, 137, 139, 141, 145, 146, 157, 181, 182, 190, 194-195, 200, 203, 226.

'Little Keats,' 19.

Lockhart, 33, 122, 123.

_London Magazine_, 71.

Mackereth, George Wilson, 18.

Madeline, 162 seq.

'Maiden-Thought,' 88, 114.

_Man about Town_ (Webb's), 38.

_Man in the Moon_ (Drayton's), 93.

Margate, 68.

Mathew, George Felton, 19.

Meg Merrilies, 115-116.

_Melancholy, Ode on_, 175.

Milton, 51, 52, 54, 88.

Monckton, Milnes, 211.

Moore, 65.

_Morning Chronicle, The_, 124.

_Mother Hubbard's Tale_ (Spenser's), 31.

Mythology, Greek, 10, 58, 152, 153.

Naples, 203.

_Narensky_ (Brown's), 74.

Newmarch, 19.

_Nightingale, Ode to a_, 136, 175, 218.

_Nymphs_, 73.

Odes, 21, 137, 145, 170-171, 172, 174, 175, 177, 218.

_Orion_, 11.

_Otho_, 143, 144, 180, 181.

Oxford, 75, 77.

_Oxford Herald, The_, 122.

_Pan, Hymn to_, 83.

_Pantheon_ (Tooke's), 10.

_Paradise Lost_, 88, 152, 154, 158.

Patriotism, 115.

_Peter Corcoran_ (Reynolds'), 36.

Plays, 178, 179, 181, 182.

Poems (Keats' first volume), faint echoes of other poets in them, 51; their form, 52; their experiments in metre, 52; merely poetic preludes, 53; their rambling tendency, 53; immaturity, 60; attractiveness, 61; characteristic extracts, 63; their moderate success, 65-66.

Poetic Art, Theory and Practice, 61, 64.

Poetry, joys of, 55; principle and aims of, 61; genius of, 110.

_Polymetis_ (Spence's), 10.

Pope, 19, 29, 30.

'Posthumous Life,' 207.

Prince Regent, 25.

Proctor, Mrs, 47.

_Psyche, Ode to_, 136, 171, 172.

_Psyche_ (Mrs Tighe's), 21.

Quarterly Review, 121, 124.

_Rainbow_ (Campbell's), 170.

Rawlings, William, 5.

Reynolds, John Hamilton, 36, 211, 214.

Rice, James, 37, 142.

_Rimini, Story of_, 27, 30, 31, 35.

Ritchie, 82.

Rome, 204.

Rossetti, 220.

_Safie_ (Reynolds'), 36.

Scott, Sir Walter, 1, 33, 65, 115, 123, 124.

Scott, John, 124.

Sculpture, ancient, 136.

_Sea-Sonnet_, 67.

Severn, Joseph, 45, 72, 135, 191, 199 seq.

Shakspere, 67, 69.

Shanklin, 67, 143.

Shelley, 16, 32, 38, 56, 85, 110, 199, 203, 209.

Shenstone, 21.

_Sleep and Poetry_, 52, 60, 61, 109.

Smith, Horace, 33, 81.

Sonnets, 22, 23, 43, 48, 49, 57, 201.

_Specimen of an Induction to a Poem_, 52.

Spenser, 19, 20, 21, 31, 35, 54, 55.

Stephens, Henry, 18-20.

Surrey Institution, 84.

Taylor, Mr, 71, 81, 126, 144, 146, 206, 211.

Teignmouth, 87.

Tennyson, 218.

Thomson, 21.

_Urn, Ode on a Grecian_, 136, 172-174.

_Vision, The_, 187, 193 (_see_ Hyperion).

Webb, Cornelius, 38.

Wells, Charles, 45.

Wilson, 33.

Winchester, 143-145.

Windermere, 113, 114.

Wordsworth, 1, 44, 46, 56, 64, 82, 83, 158, 219.

CAMBRIDGE PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Appendix, p. 221.

[2] _Ibid._

[3] John Jennings died March 8, 1805.

[4] _Rawlings v. Jennings._ See below, p. 138, and Appendix, p. 221.

[5] Captain Jennings died October 8, 1808.

[6] Houghton MSS.

[7] _Rawlings v. Jennings._ See Appendix, p. 221.

[8] Mrs Alice Jennings was buried at St Stephen's, Coleman Street, December 19, 1814, aged 78. (Communication from the Rev. J. W. Pratt, M.A.)

[9] I owe this anecdote to Mr Gosse, who had it direct from Horne.

[10] Houghton MSS.

[11] A specimen of such scribble, in the shape of a fragment of romance narrative, composed in the sham Old-English of Rowley, and in prose, not verse, will be found in _The Philosophy of Mystery_, by W. C. Dendy (London, 1841), p. 99, and another, preserved by Mr H. Stephens, in the _Poetical Works_, ed. Forman (1 vol. 1884), p. 558.

[12] See Appendix.

[13] See C. L. Feltoe, _Memorials of J. F. South_ (London, 1884), p. 81.

[14] Houghton MSS. See also Dr B. W. Richardson in the _Asclepiad_, vol. i. p. 134.

[15] Houghton MSS.

[16] What, for instance, can be less Spenserian and at the same time less Byronic than--

"For sure so fair a place was never seen Of all that ever charm'd romantic eye"?

[17] See Appendix, p. 222.

[18] See Appendix, p. 223.

[19] See particularly the _Invocation to Sleep_ in the little volume of Webb's poems published by the Olliers in 1821.

[20] See Appendix, p. 223.

[21] See _Praeterita_, vol. ii. chap. 2.

[22] See Appendix, p. 224.

[23] Compare Chapman, _Hymn to Pan_:--

"the bright-hair'd god of pastoral, Who yet is lean and loveless, and doth owe, By lot, all loftiest mountains crown'd with snow, All tops of hills, and _cliffy highnesses_, All sylvan copses, and the fortresses Of thorniest queaches here and there doth rove, And sometimes, by allurement of his love, Will wade the _wat'ry softnesses_."

[24] Compare Wordsworth:--

"Bees that soar for bloom, High as the highest peak of Furness Fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells."

Is the line of Keats an echo or merely a coincidence?

[25] Mr W. T. Arnold in his _Introduction_ (p. xxvii) quotes a parallel passage from Leigh Hunt's _Gentle Armour_ as an example of the degree to which Keats was at this time indebted to Hunt: forgetting that the _Gentle Armour_ was not written till 1831, and that the debt in this instance is therefore the other way.

[26] See Appendix, p. 220.

[27] The facts and dates relating to Brown in the above paragraph were furnished by his son, still living in New Zealand, to Mr Leslie Stephen, from whom I have them. The point about the _Adventures of a Younger Son_ is confirmed by the fact that the mottoes in that work are mostly taken from the Keats MSS. then in Brown's hands, especially _Otho_.

[28] Houghton MSS.

[29] See Appendix, p. 224.

[30] See Appendix, p. 225.

[31] See Appendix, p. 225.

[32] In the extract I have modernized Drayton's spelling and endeavoured to mend his punctuation: his grammatical constructions are past mending.

[33] Mrs Owen was, I think, certainly right in her main conception of an allegoric purpose vaguely underlying Keats's narrative.

[34] Lempriere (after Pausanias) mentions Pæon as one of the fifty sons of Endymion (in the Elean version of the myth): and in Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ there is a Pæana--the daughter of the giant Corflambo in the fourth book. Keats probably had both of these in mind when he gave Endymion a sister and called her Peona.

[35] Book 1, Song 4. The point about Browne has been made by Mr W. T. Arnold.

[36] The following is a fair and characteristic enough specimen of Chamberlayne:--

"Upon the throne, in such a glorious state As earth's adored favorites, there sat The image of a monarch, vested in The spoils of nature's robes, whose price had been A diadem's redemption; his large size, Beyond this pigmy age, did equalize The admired proportions of those mighty men Whose cast-up bones, grown modern wonders, when Found out, are carefully preserved to tell Posterity how much these times are fell From nature's youthful strength."

[37] See Appendix, p. 226.

[38] Houghton MSS.

[39] See Appendix, p. 227.

[40] Severn in Houghton MSS.

[41] Houghton MSS.

[42] Dilke (in a MS. note to his copy of Lord Houghton's _Life and Letters_, ed. 1848) states positively that Lockhart afterwards owned as much; and there are tricks of style, _e.g._ the use of the Spanish _Sangrado_ for doctor, which seem distinctly to betray his hand.

[43] Leigh Hunt at first believed that Scott himself was the writer, and Haydon to the last fancied it was Scott's faithful satellite, the actor Terry.

[44] Severn in the _Atlantic Monthly_, Vol. XI., p. 401.

[45] See Preface, p. viii.

[46] See Appendix, p. 227.

[47] Houghton MSS.

[48] The house is now known as Lawn Bank, the two blocks having been thrown into one, with certain alterations and additions which in the summer of 1885 were pointed out to me in detail by Mr William Dilke, the then surviving brother of Keats's friend.

[49] See Appendix, p. 227.

[50] See Appendix, p. 228.

[51] _Decamerone_, Giorn., iv. nov. 5. A very different metrical treatment of the same subject was attempted and published, almost simultaneously with that of Keats, by Barry Cornwall in his _Sicilian Story_ (1820). Of the metrical tales from Boccaccio which Reynolds had agreed to write concurrently with Keats (see above, p. 86), two were finished and published by him after Keats's death in the volume called _A Garden of Florence_ (1821).

[52] As to the date when _Hyperion_ was written, see Appendix, p. 228: and as to the error by which Keats's later recast of his work has been taken for an earlier draft, _ibid._, p. 230.

[53] If we want to see Greek themes treated in a Greek manner by predecessors or contemporaries of Keats, we can do so--though only on a cameo scale--in the best idyls of Chénier in France, as _L'Aveugle_ or _Le Jeune Malade_, or of Landor in England, as the _Hamadryad_ or _Enallos and Cymodamia_; poems which would hardly have been written otherwise at Alexandria in the days of Theocritus.

[54] We are not surprised to hear of Keats, with his instinct for the best, that what he most liked in Chatterton's work was the minstrel's song in _Ælla_, that _fantasia_, so to speak, executed really with genius on the theme of one of Ophelia's songs in _Hamlet_.

[55] A critic, not often so in error, has contended that the deaths of the beadsman and Angela in the concluding stanza are due to the exigencies of rhyme. On the contrary, they are foreseen from the first: that of the beadsman in the lines,

"But no--already had his death-bell rung; The joys of all his life were said and sung;"

that of Angela where she calls herself

"A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing, Whose passing bell may ere the midnight toll."

[56] See Appendix, p. 229.

[57] Chartier was born at Bayeux. His _Belle Dame sans Merci_ is a poem of over eighty stanzas, the introduction in narrative and the rest in dialogue, setting forth the obduracy shown by a lady to her wooer, and his consequent despair and death.--For the date of composition of Keats's poem, see Appendix, p. 230.

[58] This has been pointed out by my colleague Mr A. S. Murray: see Forman, _Works_, vol. iii. p. 115, note; and W. T. Arnold, _Poetical Works_, &c., p. xxii, note.

[59] Houghton MSS.

[60] "He never spoke of any one," says Severn, (Houghton MSS.,) "but by saying something in their favour, and this always so agreeably and cleverly, imitating the manner to increase your favourable impression of the person he was speaking of."

[61] See Appendix, p. 230.

[62] _Auctores Mythographi Latini_, ed. Van Staveren, Leyden, 1742. Keats's copy of the book was bought by him in 1819, and passed after his death into the hands first of Brown, and afterwards of Archdeacon Bailey (Houghton MSS.). The passage about Moneta which had wrought in Keats's mind occurs at p. 4, in the notes to Hyginus.

[63] Mrs Owen was the first of Keats's critics to call attention to this passage, without, however, understanding the special significance it derives from the date of its composition.

[64] Houghton MSS.

[65] See below, p. 193, note 2.

[66] "Interrupted," says Brown oracularly in Houghton MSS., "by a circumstance which it is needless to mention."

[67] This passing phrase of Brown, who lived with Keats in the closest daily companionship, by itself sufficiently refutes certain statements of Haydon. But see Appendix, p. 232.

[68] A week or two later Leigh Hunt printed in the _Indicator_ a few stanzas from the _Cap and Bells_, and about the same time dedicated to Keats his translation of Tasso's _Amyntas_, speaking of the original as "an early work of a celebrated poet whose fate it was to be equally pestered by the critical and admired by the poetical."

[69] See Crabb Robinson. _Diaries_, Vol. II. p. 197, etc.

[70] See Appendix, p. 233.

[71] Houghton MSS. In both the _Autobiography_ and the _Correspondence_ the passage is amplified with painful and probably not trustworthy additions.

[72] I have the date of sailing from Lloyd's, through the kindness of the secretary, Col. Hozier. For the particulars of the voyage and the time following it, I have drawn in almost equal degrees from the materials published by Lord Houghton, by Mr Forman, by Severn himself in _Atlantic Monthly_, Vol. XI. p. 401, and from the unpublished Houghton and Severn MSS.

[73] Severn, as most readers will remember, died at Rome in 1879, and his remains were in 1882 removed from their original burying-place to a grave beside those of Keats in the Protestant cemetery near the pyramid of Gaius Cestius.

[74] Haslam, in Severn MSS.

[75] Severn MSS.

[76] Houghton MSS.

[77] _Ibid._

[78] Houghton MSS.

[79] _Ibid._

English Men of Letters.

EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.

_Popular Edition. Crown 8vo. Paper Covers, 1s.; Cloth, 1s. 6d. each._

_Pocket Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth. 1s. net each._

_Library Edition. Crown 8vo. Gilt tops. Flat backs. 2s. net each._

ADDISON. By W. J. COURTHOPE.

BACON. By DEAN CHURCH.

BENTLEY. By Sir RICHARD JEBB.

BUNYAN. By J. A. FROUDE.

BURKE. By JOHN MORLEY.

BURNS. By Principal SHAIRP.

BYRON. By Professor NICHOL.

CARLYLE. By Professor NICHOL.

CHAUCER. By Dr. A. W. WARD.

COLERIDGE. By H. D. TRAILL.

COWPER. By GOLDWIN SMITH.

DEFOE. By W. MINTO.

DE QUINCEY. By Professor MASSON.

DICKENS. By Dr. A. W. WARD.

DRYDEN. By Professor SAINTSBURY.

FIELDING. By AUSTIN DOBSON.

GIBBON. By J. C. MORISON.

GOLDSMITH. By W. BLACK.

GRAY. By EDMUND GOSSE.

HAWTHORNE. By HENRY JAMES.

HUME. By Professor HUXLEY, F.R.S.

JOHNSON. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

KEATS. By Sir SIDNEY COLVIN.

LAMB, CHARLES. By Canon AINGER.

LANDOR. By Sir SIDNEY COLVIN.

LOCKE. By THOMAS FOWLER.

MACAULAY. By J. C. MORISON.

MILTON. By MARK PATTISON.

POPE. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

SCOTT. By R. H. HUTTON.

SHELLEY. By J. A. SYMONDS.

SHERIDAN. By Mrs. OLIPHANT.

SIDNEY. By J. A. SYMONDS.

SOUTHEY. By Professor DOWDEN.

SPENSER. By Dean CHURCH.

STERNE. By H. D. TRAILL.

SWIFT. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

THACKERAY. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.

WORDSWORTH. By F. W. H. MYERS.

English Men of Letters.

NEW SERIES.

_Crown 8vo. Gilt tops. Flat backs. 2s. net each._

MATTHEW ARNOLD. By HERBERT W. PAUL.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE. By EDMUND GOSSE.

BROWNING. By G. K. CHESTERTON.

FANNY BURNEY. By AUSTIN DOBSON.

CRABBE. By ALFRED AINGER.

MARIA EDGEWORTH. By the Hon. EMILY LAWLESS.

GEORGE ELIOT. By SIR LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

EDWARD FITZGERALD. By A. C. BENSON.

HAZLITT. By AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, K.C.

HOBBES. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

ANDREW MARVELL. By AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, K.C.

THOMAS MOORE. By STEPHEN GWYNN.

WILLIAM MORRIS. By ALFRED NOYES.

WALTER PATER. By A. C. BENSON.

RICHARDSON. By AUSTIN DOBSON.

ROSSETTI. By A. C. BENSON.

RUSKIN. By FREDERIC HARRISON.

SHAKESPEARE. By WALTER RALEIGH.

ADAM SMITH. By FRANCIS W. HIRST.

SYDNEY SMITH. By GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL.

JEREMY TAYLOR. By EDMUND GOSSE.

TENNYSON. By SIR ALFRED LYALL.

JAMES THOMSON. By G. C. MACAULAY.

_In preparation._

MRS. GASKELL. By CLEMENT SHORTER.

BEN JONSON. By Prof. GREGORY SMITH.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.