"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_.