Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats
John Stuart Mill · en
[186] Compare with _A Dream, after Reading Dante's Episode of Paolo and
Francesca_, 1819. (_Works_, III, p. 16.)
[187] A pocket-book given Keats by Hunt and containing many of the first
drafts of the sonnets belonged to Charles Wentworth Dilke. It is still in
the possession of the Dilke family.
[188] For instances of Keats's interest in politics, see _To Kosciusko_,
_To Hope_, ll. 33-36, and scattered references to Wallace, William Tell
and similar characters. Most of these references have already been called
attention to by others.
[189] _Works_, IV, pp. 60-61. The poem follows.
[190] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 107.
[191] _Endymion_, Bk. II, ll. 129-130.
[192] _Ibid._, Bk. IV, l. 863 ff.
[193] _Ibid._, Bk. II, l. 756 ff.
[194] _Ibid._, Bk. II, l. 938 ff.
[195] _Keats_, p. 169.
[196] Stanza 23, l. 7.
[197] _Hero and Leander_ and _Bacchus and Ariadne_, 1819, p. 45.
[198] Mr. W. T. Arnold makes the mistake of thinking that Keats imitated
Hunt's _Gentle Armour_. Mr. Colvin corrects this statement. (Keats,
_Poetical Works_, p. 59.)
[199] (_a_) W. T. Arnold, Keats, _Poetical Works_, p. 128. (_b_) J. Hoops,
_Keats's Jungend und Jugendgedichte_, Englische Studien, XXI, 239. (_c_)
W. A. Read, _Keats and Spenser_.
[200] _Works_, V, p. 121.
[201] This same expression occurs in _Hero and Leander_, 1819, in the
phrase, "Half set in trees and leafy luxury." Keats's dedication sonnet in
which it occurs was written in 1817. Therefore Mr. W. T. Arnold makes a
mistake when he says (in his edition of Keats, p. 129) it was taken direct
from Hunt's poem, although the two separate words are among his favorites
and Keats probably took them from him and combined them.
[202] Mr. Arnold says "delicious" is used sixteen times by Keats. (Keats,
_Poetical Works_, p. 129). He quotes a passage from one of Hunt's prefaces
in which the latter comments on Chaucer's use of the word: "The word
_deliciously_ is a venture of animal spirits which in a modern writer some
critics would pronounce to be too affected or too familiar; but the
enjoyment, and even incidental appropriateness and relish of it, will be
obvious to finer senses." In _Rimini_ this line occurs: "Distils the next
note more deliciously."
[203] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 261, notices Leigh
Hunt's misuse of this word in his review of _I stood tiptoe_, quoted on p.
107. See his use of the same on p. 76. In _Bacchus and Ariadne_ it occurs
in this passage "all luxuries that come from odorous gardens."
[204] This is used in _Hyperion_, II, l. 45. The expression "plashy pools"
occurs in the _Story of Rimini_.
[205] November 11, 1820.
[206] _Life of Percy Bysshe Shelly_, II, p. 36.
[207] _Imagination and Fancy_, p. 231.
[208] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, pp. 252-3.
[209] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 274.
[210] _Poetical Works_, 1832, p. 36.
[211] The poem is reported to have brought L100, more than any poem sold
during his lifetime. It is now lost.