[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.