_A trio of poets_
Ravenna, 26 _April_, 1821.
The child continues doing well, and the accounts are regular and
favourable. It is gratifying to me that you and Mrs. Shelley do not
disapprove of the step which I have taken, which is merely temporary.
I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats--is it _actually_ true?
I did not think criticism had been so killing. Though I differ from
you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor
all unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the
highest peak of Parnassus than have perished in such a manner. Poor
fellow! though with such inordinate self-love he would probably
have not been very happy. I read the review of _Endymion_ in the
_Quarterly_. It was severe,--but surely not so severe as many reviews
in that and other journals upon others.
I recollect the effect on me of the _Edinburgh_ on my first poem;
it was rage, and resistance, and redress--but not despondency nor
despair. I grant that those are not amiable feelings; but, in this
world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing,
a man should calculate upon his powers of _resistance_ before he goes
into the arena.
Expect not life from pain nor danger free,
Nor deem the doom of man reserved for thee.
You know my opinion of _that second-hand_ school of poetry. You
also know my high opinion of your own poetry,--because it is of
_no_ school. I read _Cenci_--but, besides that I think the _subject_
essentially _un_ dramatic, I am not an admirer of our old dramatists,
_as models_. I deny that the English have hitherto had a drama at all.
Your _Cenci_, however, was a work of power, and poetry. As to _my_
drama, pray revenge yourself upon it, by being as free as I have been
with yours.
I have not yet got your _Prometheus_, which I long to see. I have
heard nothing of mine, and do not know that it is yet published. I
have published a pamphlet on the Pope controversy, which you will not
like. Had I known that Keats was dead--or that he was alive and so
sensitive--I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry,
to which I was provoked by his _attack_ upon _Pope_, and my
disapprobation of _his own_ style of writing.
You want me to undertake a great poem--I have not the inclination nor
the power. As I grow older, the indifference--_not_ to life, for we
love it by instinct--but to the stimuli of life, increases. Besides,
this late failure of the Italians has latterly disappointed me for
many reasons,--some public, some personal. My respects to Mrs. S.
PS. Could not you and I contrive to meet this summer? Could not you
take a run here _alone_?