“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

[25] “From Shakespeare to Pope.”  See also Sidney Colvin’s “Keats.”  New York, 1887, pp. 61-64.

[26] Vide supra, p. 70.

[27] That he knew Pope’s version is evident from a letter to Haydon of May, 1817, given in Lord Houghton’s “Life.”

[28] He could have known extremely little of mediaeval literature; yet there is nothing anywhere, even in the far more instructed Pre-Raphaelite school which catches up the whole of the true mediaeval romantic spirit—­the spirit which animates the best parts of the Arthurian legend, and of the wild stories which float through mediaeval tale-telling, and make no small figure in mediaeval theology—­as does the short piece of ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’. (Saintsbury:  “A Short History of English Literature,” p. 673).

[29] Vide supra, p. 85.  And for Keats’ interest in Chatterton see vol. i., pp. 370-72.

[30] The Dict.  Nat.  Biog. mentions doubtfully an earlier edition in 1795.

[31] See “Sonnet on Leigh Hunt’s Poem ‘The Story of Rimini.’” Forman’s ed., vol. ii., p. 229.

[32] See Forman’s ed., vol. ii., p. 334.

[33] “New Essays toward a Critical Method,” London, 1897, p. 256.

[34] “Come, per sostentar solaio o tetto,
      Per mensola talvolta una figura
    Si vede giunger le ginocchia al petto,
      La qual fa del non ver vera rancura
    Nascere in chi la vede.” 
            —­“Purgatorio,” Canto x., 130-34.

[35] Vide supra, p. 85.

[36] Rossetti, Colvin, Gates, Robertson, Forman, and others.

[37] Leigh Hunt.  It has been objected to this passage that moonlight is not strong enough to transmit colored rays, like sunshine (see Colvin’s “Keats,” p. 160).  But the mistake—­if it is one—­is shared by Scott.

“The moonbeam kissed the holy pane
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.” 
—­“Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Canto ii., xi.

[38] It is interesting to learn that the line

“For o’er the Southern moors
I have a home for thee”

read in the original draught “Over the bleak Dartmoor,” etc.  Dartmoor was in sight of Teignmouth where Keats once spent two months; but he cancelled the local allusion in obedience to a correct instinct.

[39] “Ode to a Nightingale,”

[40] “The Liberal Movement in English Literature,” London, 1885, p. 181.

[41] “Studies and Appreciations.”  Lewis G. Gates.  New York, 1890, p. 17.

[42] See vol. i., p. 371, and for Cumberland’s poem, on the same superstition, ibid., 177.

CHAPTER IV.

The Romantic School in Germany.[1]