LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
C. AND J. OLLIER, 3, WELBECK STREET,
CAVENDISH SQUARE.
1817.
Here, on the evening that the last proof-sheet was brought from the
printer, and, as his biographer has recorded, upon being informed, if
he purposed having a Dedication to the book, that it must be sent
forthwith, he went to a side-table, and, in the midst of mixed
conversation (for there were several friends in the room,) he brought to
Charles Ollier, the publisher, the Dedication-Sonnet to Leigh Hunt. If
the original manuscript of that poem--a legitimate sonnet, with
every restriction of rhyme and metre--could now be produced, and the
time--recorded in which it was written, it would be pronounced an
extraordinary performance; added to which, the non-alteration of a
single word in the poem (a circumstance noted at the time) claims for
it, I should suppose, a merit without a parallel.
"The poem which commences the volume," says Mr. Monckton Milnes, "was
suggested to Keats by a delightful summer's day, as he stood beside the
gate that loads from the battery on Hampstead Heath into a field by Caen
Wood"; and the lovely passage beginning,
"Linger awhile upon some bending planks,"
and which contains the description of the "swarms of minnows that show
their little heads," Keats told me was the recollection of our having
frequently loitered over the rail of a foot-bridge that spanned a little
brook in the last field upon entering Edmonton. He himself thought the
picture was correct, and liked it; and I do not know who could improve
it.
Another example of his promptly suggestive imagination, and uncommon
facility in giving it utterance, occurred one day upon his returning
home and finding me asleep upon the sofa, with my volume of Chaucer open
at the "Flower and the Leaf." After expressing his admiration of the
poem, which he had been reading, he gave me the fine testimony of that
opinion, in pointing to the sonnet he had written at the close of it,
which was an extempore effusion, and it has not the alteration of a
single word. It lies before me now, signed, "J.K., Feb., 1817."
If my memory does not betray me, this charming out-door fancy-scene was
Keats's first introduction to Chaucer. Certain I am that the "Troilus
and Cresseide" was an after-acquaintance; and clearly do I remember his
approbation of the favorite passages that I had marked. I desired him to
retrace the poem, and with his pen confirm and denote those which were
congenial with his own feeling and judgment. These two circumstances,
connected with the literary career of this cherished object of his
friend's esteem and love, have stamped a priceless value upon that
friend's miniature 18mo copy of Chaucer.
The little first volume of Keats's Muse was launched amid the cheers and
fond anticipations of all his circle. Every one of us expected that it
would create a sensation in the literary world; and we calculated upon,
at least, a succession of reprints. Alas! it might have emerged in
Timbuctoo with stronger chance of fame and favor. It never passed to a
second edition; the first was but a small one, and that was never sold
off. The whole community, as if by compact, determined to know nothing
about it. The word had been passed that its author was a Radical; and in
those blessed days of "Bible-Crown-and-Constitution" supremacy, he might
with better chance of success have been a robber,--there were many
prosperous public ones,--if he had also been an Anti-Jacobin. Keats had
made no demonstration of political opinion; but he had dedicated his
book to Leigh Hunt, a Radical news-writer, and a dubbed partisan of the
French ruler, because he did not call him the "Corsican monster," and
other disgusting names. Verily, "the former times were _not_ better than
these." Men can now write the word "Liberty" without being chalked on
the back and hounded out.
Poor Keats! he little anticipated, and as little deserved, the cowardly
and scoundrel treatment that was in store for him upon the publication
of his second composition, the "Endymion." It was in the interval of
the two productions that he had moved from the Poultry, and had taken a
lodging in Well Walk, Hampstead,--in the first or second house, on the
right hand, going up to the Heath. I have an impression that he had been
some weeks absent at the sea-side before settling in this domicile; for
the "Endymion" had been begun, and he had made considerable advances in
his plan. He came to me one Sunday, and I walked with him, spending
the whole day in Well Walk. His constant and enviable friend Severn,
I remember, was present on the occasion, by the circumstance of our
exchanging looks upon Keats's reading to us portions of his new work
that had pleased himself. One of these, I think, was the "Hymn to Pan";
and another, I am sure, was the "Bower of Adonis," because his own
expression of face will never pass from me (if I were a Reynolds or a
Gainsborough, I could now stamp it forever) as he read the description
of the latter, with the descent and ascent of the ear of Venus. The
"Hymn to Pan" occurs early in the First Book:--
"O thou, whose mighty palace-roof doth hang
From jagged trunks," etc.