the "Poems" of 1817. The sonnet on Chapman's Homer revealed a hand which might easily prove to be a master's. All else was prentice-work, with some melody, some richness and freshness, some independence, much enthusiasm; also many solecisms and perversities of diction, imagery, and method: and not a few pieces were included which only self-conceit, or torpor of the critical faculty, or the mis-persuasion of friends, could have allowed to pass muster. But Keats chose to publish--to exhibit his poetic identity at this stage and in this guise; and of course we can see, in the light of his after-work, that the experiment was rather a rash forestalling than a positive mistake. There are a few other sonnets which Keats wrote in 1817, or, in general terms, between the publishing dates of the "Poems" volume and of "Endymion." Those "On a Picture of Leander," and "On the Sea," and the one which begins "After dark vapours have oppressed our plains," rank among the best of his juvenile productions. A general observation, applicable to all the early work, whether printed at the time or unprinted, is that the ideas are constantly _expressed_ in an imperfect way. There are perceptions, thoughts, and emotions; but the vehicle of words is, as a rule, huddled and approximate. "Endymion" now claims our attention. I believe that no better criticism of "Endymion" has ever been written than that which Shelley supplied in a letter dated in September 1819. Certainly no criticism which is equally short is also equally good. I therefore extract it here, and shall have little to say about the poem which is not potentially condensed into Shelley's brief utterance. "I have read Keats's poem," he wrote: "much praise is due to me for having read it, the author's intention appearing to be that no person should possibly get to the end of it. Yet it is full of some of the highest and the finest gleams of poetry; indeed, everything seems to be viewed by the mind of a poet which is described in it. I think if he had printed about fifty pages of fragments from it I should have been led to admire Keats as a poet more than I ought, of which there is now no danger." In July 1820 Shelley wrote to Keats himself on the subject, furnishing almost the only addendum which could have been needed to the preceding remarks: "I have lately read your 'Endymion' again, and even with a new sense of the treasures of poetry it contains, though treasures poured forth with indistinct profusion." As Shelley shared with Gifford the conviction that it is difficult to read "Endymion" from book 1, line 1, to book 4, line 1003, and as human nature has not changed essentially since the time of that pre-eminent poet and that rather less eminent critic, I daresay that there are at this day several Keats-enthusiasts who know _in foro conscientiae_, though they may not avow in public, that they have left "Endymion" unread, or only partially read. Others have perused