[Footnote A:  Whilst this was passing at Rome, another scene of the tragedy was enacting in London.  The violence of the Tory party in attacking Keats had increased after his leaving England, but he had found able defenders, and amongst them Mr. John Scott, the editor of the “Champion,” who published a powerful vindication of Keats, with a denunciation of the party-spirit of his critics.  This led to a challenge from Mr. Scott to Mr. Lockhart, who was then one of the editors of “Blackwood.”  The challenge was shifted over to a Mr. Christie, and he and Mr. Scott fought at Chalk Farm, with the tragic result of the death of Keats’s defender,—­and this within a few days of the poet’s death at Rome.  The deplorable catastrophe was not without its compensations, for ever after there was a more chastened feeling in both parties.]

After the death of Keats, my countrymen in Rome seemed to vie with one another in evincing the greatest kindness towards me.  I found myself in the midst of persons who admired and encouraged my beautiful pursuit of painting, in which I was then indeed but a very poor student, but with my eyes opening and my soul awakening to a new region of Art, and beginning to feel the wings growing for artistic flights I had always been dreaming about.

In all this, however, there was a solitary drawback:  there were few Englishmen at Rome who knew Keats’s works, and I could scarcely persuade any one to make the effort to read them, such was the prejudice against him as a poet; but when his gravestone was placed, with his own expressive line, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water,” then a host started up, not of admirers, but of scoffers, and a silly jest was often repeated in my hearing, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water, and his works in milk and water”; and this I was condemned to hear for years repeated, as though it had been a pasquinade; but I should explain that it was from those who were not aware that I was the friend of Keats.

At the first Easter after his death I had a singular encounter with the late venerable poet, Samuel Rogers, at the table of Sir George Beaumont, the distinguished amateur artist.  Perhaps in compliment to my friendship for Keats, the subject of his death was mentioned by Sir George, and he asked Mr. Rogers if he had been acquainted with the young poet in England.  Mr. Rogers replied, that he had had more acquaintance than he liked, for the poems were tedious enough, and the author had come upon him several times for money.  This was an intolerable falsehood, and I could not restrain myself until I had corrected him, which I did with my utmost forbearance,—­explaining that Sir.  Rogers must have mistaken some other person for Keats,—­that I was positive my friend had never done such a thing in any shape, or even had occasion to do it,—­that he possessed a small independence in money, and a large one in mind.