poetry, or of his abuse of Pope; but, as he is dead, omit all that is said about him, in any MSS. of mine or publication. His 'Hyperion' is a fine monument, and will keep his name." This injunction, however, has been so little attended to by those who should have respected it, that the later editions of Lord Byron's works contain all the ribald abuse I have quoted, although the exclusion would, in literal terms, even extend to the well-known flippant and false, but not ill-natured, stanza of the 11th canto of " Don Juan."

"John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,

If not intelligible, without Greek

Contrived to talk about the Gods of late,
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;

'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article."

The excuse offered by Byron for all this inconsistency is by no means satisfactory, and this sort of repentant praise may be attributed to a mixed feeling of conscious injustice, and to a certain gratification at the notion that Keats had fallen victim to a kind of attack which his own superior vigour and stouter fibre had enabled him triumphantly to resist. In a letter to Murray (1821) Byron writes, "I knew, by experience, that a savage review is hemlock to a sucking author: and the one on me (which produced the

'English Bards,' &c.) knocked me down-but I got up again. Instead of breaking a blood-vessel I drank three bottles of claret, and began an answer, finding that there was nothing in the article for which I could, lawfully, knock Jeffrey on the head, in an honourable way. However, I would not be the

person who wrote that homicidal article, for all the honour and glory in the world; though I by no means approve of that school of scribbling which it treats upon." Keats, as has been shown, was very far from requiring three bottles of claret to give him the inclination to fight the author of the slander, if he could have found him,—but the use he made of the attack was, to purify his style, correct his tendency to exaggeration, enlarge his poetical studies, and produce, among other improved efforts, that very "Hyperion" which called forth from Byron a eulogy as violent and unqualified as the former onslaught.

"Review people," again wrote Lord Byron, "have no more right to kill than any other footpads. However, he who would die of an article in a review would have died of something else equally trivial. The same nearly happened to Kirke White, who died afterwards of a consumption." Now the cases of Keats and Kirke White are just so far parallel, that Keats did die shortly after the criticisms upon him, and also of consumption: his friends also, while he still lived, spent a great deal

of useless care upon these critics, and, out of an honest anger, gave encouragement to the notion that their brutality had a most injurious effect on the spirit and health of the Poet; but a conscientious inquiry entirely dispels such a supposition. In all this correspondence it must be seen how little importance Keats attaches to such opinions, how rarely he alludes to them at all, and how easily, when he does so; how lowly was his own estimate of the very works they professed to judge, in comparison with what he felt himself capable of producing, and how completely he, in his world of art, rested above such paltry assailants. After his early death the accusation was revived by the affectionate indignation of Mr. Brown; and Shelley, being in Italy, readily adopted the same tone. On the publication of the volume containing "Lamia," "Isabella," "St. Agnes' Eve," and "Hyperion," Shelley wrote a letter which, on second thoughts, he left unfinished: it shows, however, how entirely he believed Keats to be at the mercy of the critics, and how he could bend for others that pride which ever remained erect for himself.

66

66

SIR,

To the Editor of the 'Quarterly Review.'

"Should you cast your eye on the signa

ture of this letter before you read the contents,

you

might imagine that they related to a slanderous paper which appeared in your Review some time since. I never notice anonymous attacks. The wretch who wrote it has doubtless the additional reward of a consciousness of his motives, besides the thirty guineas a sheet, or whatever it is that you pay him. Of course you cannot be answerable for all the writings which you edit, and I certainly bear you no ill-will for having edited the abuse to which I allude-indeed, I was too much amused by being compared to Pharaoh, not readily to forgive editor, printer, publisher, stitcher, or any one, except the despicable writer, connected with something so exquisitely entertaining. Seriously speaking, I am not in the habit of permitting myself to be disturbed by what is said or written of me, though, I dare say, I may be condemned sometimes justly enough. But I feel, in respect to the writer in question, that ‘I am there sitting, where he durst not soar.'

"The case is different with the unfortunate subject of this letter, the author of 'Endymion,' to whose feelings and situation I entreat you to allow me to call your attention. I write considerably in the dark; but if it is Mr. Gifford that I am addressing, I am persuaded that, in an appeal to his humanity and justice, he will acknowledge the fas ab hoste doceri. I am aware that the first duty of a Reviewer

is towards the public, and I am willing to confess that the Endymion is a poem considerably defective, and that, perhaps, it deserved as much censure as the pages of your Review record against it; but, not to mention that there is a certain contemptuousness of phraseology from which it is difficult for a critic to abstain, in the review of 'Endymion,' I do not think that the writer has given it its due praise. Surely the poem, with all its faults, is a very remarkable production for a man of Keats's age, and the promise of ultimate excellence is such as has rarely been afforded even by such as have afterwards attained high literary eminence. Look at book ii., line 833, &c., and book iii., line 113 to 120; read down that page, and then again from line 193. I could cite many other passages, to convince you that it deserved milder usage. Why it should have been reviewed at all, excepting for the purpose of bringing its excellences into notice, I cannot conceive, for it was very little read, and there was no danger that it should become a model to the age of that false taste, with which I confess, that it is replenished.

"Poor Keats was thrown into a dreadful state of mind by this review, which, I am persuaded, was not written with any intention of producing the effect, to which it has, at least, greatly contributed, of