Shakespeare's hint for his Oberon and Titania was taken, as is well known, from the French prose romance _Huon of Bordeaux_ translated by Lord Berners. The plot of Wieland's celebrated poem is founded entirely on the same romance. With its high-spiced blend of the marvellous and the voluptuous, the cynically gay and the heavily moral and pathetic, it had a considerable vogue in Sotheby's translation (published 1798) and played a part in the English romantic movement of the time. There are several passages in Keats, notably in _The Cap and Bells_, where I seem to catch a strain reminiscent of this _Oberon_, and one instance where a definite phrase from it seems to have lingered subconsciously in his memory and been turned to gold, thus:-- Oft in this speechless language, glance on glance, When mute the tongue, how voluble the heart! _Oberon_, c. vi, st. 17. No utter'd syllable, or woe betide! But to her heart her heart was voluble. _The Eve of St Agnes_, st. 23. [2] March 1816 according to Woodhouse. [3] _The Prelude_, book v. [4] See above, p. 68. [5] Particularly Sonnet XII:-- Voi che portate la sembianza umile, Cogli occhi bassi mostrando dolore. It would have been easy to suppose that Keats had learnt something of the _Vita Nuova_ through Leigh Hunt: but they were not yet acquainted when he wrote the Leander sonnet, so that the resemblance is most likely accidental. [6] In the earlier editions this sonnet is headed _On a picture of Leander_. A note of Woodhouse (Houghton MSS., Transcripts III) puts the matter right and gives the date. Which particular Leander gem of Tassie's Keats had before him it is impossible to tell. The general catalogue of Tassie's reproductions gives a list of over sixty representing Leander swimming either alone or with Hero looking down at him from her tower. Most of them were not from true antiques but from later imitations. [7] Here, for instance, are verses of Keats that have often been charged with Cockneyism and Huntism:-- And revelled in a chat that ceased not When at nightfall among our books we got. The silence when some rimes are coming out, And when they're come, the very pleasant rout. Well, but had not Drayton written in his _Epistle to Henry Reynolds_?-- My dearly loved friend how oft have we In winter evenings (meaning to be free) To some well-chosen place used to retire, And there with moderate meat, and wine, and fire, Have past the hour contentedly with chat, Now talked of this and then discoursed of that, Spoke our own verses 'twixt ourselves, if not Other men's lines, which we by chance had got. And Milton in the _Vacation Exercise_?-- I have some lively thoughts that rove about, And loudly knock to have their passage out.