How much the lip-servers of Keats really understand him, was proven by a peculiar incident which befell me in my own youth. Twenty-two years ago I published “The Journal of Arthur Stirling,” a passionate defense of the right of young poets to survive; and of course I sang enraptured praise of Keats, and made him a text for excited tirades. At that time there was a newspaper in New York called the “Evening Telegram,” owned by James Gordon Bennett, a dissipated rowdy who might have been a blood brother to the Tory crowd which conducted “Blackwood’s” and the “Quarterly” a hundred years ago. This “Evening Telegram” published a page of book reviews every Saturday, boasting it the most widely circulated book page in the United States. Its opinion, therefore, was of importance to a young writer hoping to live by his pen. It reviewed “The Journal of Arthur Stirling,” saying that we might have sympathized with the struggles of an unfortunate poet, had he not committed the indiscretion of giving us samples of his writings, which enabled us to be certain that he had no idea whatever of poetry. For example, said the editor, here was one of Arthur Stirling’s effusions. Read it: Sit thee by the ingle, when The sear faggot blazes bright, Spirit of a winter’s night!-- Sit thee there, and send abroad With a mind self-overaw’d Fancy, high-commission’d;--send her! She has vassals to attend her; She will bring, in spite of frost, Beauties that the earth hath lost; She will bring thee, all together, All delights of summer weather; All the buds and bells of May From dewy sward or thorny spray; All the heapèd Autumn’s wealth, With a still, mysterious stealth; She will mix these pleasures up, Like three fit wines in a cup, And thou shalt quaff it!-- Poor Arthur Stirling was supposed to be dead, so I asked a friend to write to the editor of the “Evening Telegram” and point out to him that he had misunderstood the book; the lines quoted were not submitted as the work of Arthur Stirling, they happened to be the work of John Keats! The editor published this reply with an easygoing comment; it made a good joke, he said, but as a matter of fact he was justified in his criticism, because the lines belonged to the very early work of Keats, which was practically without poetic merit. My friend wrote again, expressing surprise that the editor should make such a statement; for this poem, entitled “Fancy,” belonged to the last two years of Keats’ life, the wonderful years which produced all his greatest writings. Palgrave, whose authority none would dispute, had included it in the “Golden Treasury,” which contained only thirteen poems by Keats. The editor of the “Evening Telegram” was unable to find space for that letter! CHAPTER LX THE PREDATORY ARTIST