1. 8. Lucan, by his death approved. Lucan, the author of the Pharsalia, was condemned under Nero as being an accomplice in the conspiracy of Piso:  he caused his veins to be opened, and died magnanimously, aged about twenty-six, A.D. 65.  Shelley, in one instance, went so far as to pronounce Lucan superior to Vergil.

+Stanza 46,+ 11. 1, 2. And many more, whose names on earth are dark, But whose transmitted effluence cannot die, &c.  This glorious company would include no doubt, not only the recorders of great thoughts, or performers of great deeds, which are still borne in memory although the names of the authors are forgotten, but also many whose work is as totally unknown as their names, but who exerted nevertheless a bright and elevating ascendant over other minds, and who thus conduced to the greatness of human-kind.

1. 6. It was for thee, &c.  The synod of the inheritors of unfulfilled renown here invite Keats to assume possession of a sphere, or constellation, which had hitherto been ‘kingless,’ or unappropriated.  It had ‘swung blind in unascended majesty’:  had not been assigned to any radiant spirit, whose brightness would impart brilliancy to the sphere itself.

1. 8. Silent alone amid an heaven of song. This phrase points primarily to ‘the music of the spheres’:  the sphere now assigned to Keats had hitherto failed to take part in the music of its fellows, but henceforward will chime in.  Probably there is also a subsidiary, but in its context not less prominent meaning—­namely, that, while the several poets (such as Chatterton, Sidney, and Lucan) had each a vocal sphere of his own, apposite to his particular poetic quality, the sphere which Keats is now to control had hitherto remained unoccupied because no poet of that special type of genius which it demanded had as yet appeared.  Its affinity was for Keats, and for no one else.  This is an implied attestation of Keats’s poetic originality.

1. 9. Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng! The winged throne is, I think, a synonym of the ‘sphere’ itself—­not a throne within the sphere:  ‘winged,’ because the sphere revolves in space.  Yet the statement in stanza 45 that ’the inheritors of unfulfilled renown rose from their thrones’ (which cannot be taken to represent distinct spheres or constellations) suggests the opposite interpretation.  Keats is termed ‘thou Vesper of our throng’ because he is the latest member of this glorified band—­or, reckoning the lapse of ages as if they were but a day, its ‘evening star.’  The exceptional brilliancy of the Vesper star is not, I think, implied—­though it may be remotely suggested.