Without being in general a systematic student she was a voluminous reader in widely varying branches of literature; and some out-of-the-way subjects she followed up with great perseverance. One of her strong points of learning was the history of costume, in which she was so well read as to be able to answer any question of detail at a moment’s notice. This was quite independent of individual adornment; though, _à propos_ of Keats’s remark, “she manages to make her hair look well,” it may be mentioned that some special pains were taken in this particular, the hair being worn in curls over the forehead, interlaced with ribands. She was an eager politician, with very strong convictions, fiery and animated in discussion; and this characteristic she preserved till the end. The sonnet on Keats’s preference for blue eyes, “Blue! ’tis the hue of heaven,” &c., written in reply to John Hamilton Reynolds’s sonnet[18] in which a preference is expressed for dark eyes,— “Dark eyes are dearer far Than orbs that mock the hyacinthine bell”— has no immediate connexion with Miss Brawne; but it is of interest to note that the colour of her eyes was blue, so that the poet was faithful to his preference. No good portrait of her is extant, except the silhouette of which a reproduction is given opposite page 3: a miniature which is perhaps no longer extant is said by her family to have been almost worthless, while the silhouette is regarded as characteristic and accurate as far as such things can be. Mr. Severn, however, told me that the draped figure in Titian’s picture of Sacred and Profane Love, in the Borghese Palace at Rome, resembled her greatly, so much so that he used to visit it frequently, and copied it, on this account. Keats, it seems, never saw this noble picture containing the only satisfactory likeness of Fanny Brawne. The portrait of Keats which forms the frontispiece to this volume has been etched by Mr. W. B. Scott from a drawing of Severn’s, to which the following words are attached: “28th Jany. 3 o’clock mg. Drawn to keep me awake—a deadly sweat was on him all this night.” Keats’s old schoolfellow, the late Charles Cowden Clarke, assured me in 1876 that this drawing was “a marvellously correct likeness.” _Postscript._—During the past ten years my work in connexion with the writings and doings of Keats has involved the discovery and examination of a great mass of documents of a more or less authoritative kind, both printed and manuscript; and many points which were matters of conjecture in 1877 are now no longer so.