His constant and enviable friend Severn, I remember, was present on the occasion, by the circumstance of our exchanging looks upon Keats’s reading to us portions of his new work that had pleased himself.  One of these, I think, was the “Hymn to Pan”; and another, I am sure, was the “Bower of Adonis,” because his own expression of face will never pass from me (if I were a Reynolds or a Gainsborough, I could now stamp it forever) as he read the description of the latter, with the descent and ascent of the ear of Venus.  The “Hymn to Pan” occurs early in the First Book:—­

  “O thou, whose mighty palace-roof doth hang
  From jagged trunks,” etc.

And the “Bower of Adonis,” in the Second Book, commences,—­

  “After a thousand mazes overgone.”

Keats was indebted for his introduction to Mr. Severn to his school-fellow Edward Holmes, who also had been one of the child-scholars at Enfield; for he came to us in the frock-dress.  They were sworn companions at school, and remained friends through life.  Mr. Holmes ought to have been an educated musician from his first childhood; for the passion was in him.  I used to amuse myself with the piano-forte after supper, when all had gone to bed.  Upon some sudden occasion, leaving the parlor, I heard a scuffle on the stairs, and discovered that my young gentleman had left his bed to hear the music.  At other times, during the day, and in the intervals of school-hours, he would stand under the window, listening.  He at length intrusted to me his heart’s secret, that he should like to learn music.  So I taught him his notes; and he soon knew and could do as much as his tutor.  Upon leaving Enfield, he was apprenticed to the elder Seeley, a bookseller in Fleet Street; but, hating his occupation, left it, I believe, before he was of age.  He had not lost sight of me; and I introduced him to Mr. Vincent Novello, who had made himself a friend to me, and who not merely, with rare profusion of bounty, gave Holmes instruction, but received him into his house, and made him one of his family.  With them he resided some years.  I was also the fortunate means of recommending him to the chief proprietor of the “Atlas” newspaper; and to that journal, during a long period, he contributed a series of essays and critiques upon the science and practice of music, which raised the journal into a reference and an authority in the art.  He wrote for the proprietors of the “Atlas” that elegant little book of dilettante criticism, “A Ramble among the Musicians in Germany.”  He latterly contributed to the “Musical Times” a whole series of masterly essays and analyses upon the Masses of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.  But the work upon which his reputation will rest was a “Life of Mozart,” which was purchased by Chapman and Hall.

I have said that Holmes used to listen on the stairs.  In after-years, when Keats was reading to me his “Eve of St. Agnes,” (and what a happy day was that!  I had come up to see him from Ramsgate, where I then lived,) at the passage where Porphyro in Madeleine’s chamber is fearfully listening to the hubbub of the icing and the music in the hall below, and the verse says,—­