and by the light of them I do not hesitate to say that there is no reason to believe that it was Keats’s illness alone that caused him to regard Hunt’s friendship with suspicion. It is true, however, that when one reads Hunt’s letter to Severn at Borne, one feels that he must be forgiven. On this pregnant subject Rossetti wrote: Thanks for yours received to-day, and for all you say with so much more kind solicitousness than the matter deserved, about the opening of the Keats sonnet. I have now realized that the new form is a gain in every way; and am therefore glad that, though arising in accident, I was led to make the change.... All you say of Keats shows that you have been reading up the subject with good results. I fancy it would hardly be desirable to add the sonnets you speak of (as being worthless) at this date, though they might be valuable for quotation as to the course of his mental and physical state. I do not myself think that any poems now included should be removed, but the reckless and tasteless plan of the gatherings hitherto (in which the _Nightingale_ and other such masterpieces are jostled indiscriminately, with such wretched juvenile trash as _Lines to some Ladies on receiving a Shelly etc_), should of course be amended, and the rubbish (of which there is a fair quantity), removed to a “Juvenile” or other such section. It is a curious fact that among a poet’s early writings, some will really be juvenile in this sense, while others, written at the same time, will perhaps take rank at last with his best efforts. This, however, was not substantially the case with Keats. As to Leigh Hunt’s friendship for Keats, I think the points you mention look equivocal; but Hunt was a many-laboured and much belaboured man, and as much allowance as may be made on this score is perhaps due to him--no more than that much. His own powers stand high in various ways--poetically higher perhaps than is I at present admitted, despite his detestable flutter and airiness for the most part. But assuredly by no means could he have stood so high in the long-run, as by a loud and earnest defence of Keats. Perhaps the best excuse for him is the remaining possibility of an idea on his part, that any defence coming from one who had himself so many powerful enemies might seem to Keats rather to! damage than improve his position.