at the time. But I think this is rather hard on all three -poem, poet, and disease. If it be so important a fault, I fear we must acquit bodily disease of any part or lot in it, for Keats's young people always had a way of fainting, whether conceived in his more vigorous or in his less vigorous period. Endymion after the visit of Diana (Volume I, page 222) is described as having "Swoon'd drunken from pleasure's nipple"; and he swoons at the thought of Diana's voice when he is in the palace of Neptune, at the end of Book III of the poem: at the end of Book IV he is represented as kneeling before the goddess "in a blissful swoon," which however may not be meant quite literally; and again, in Book IV, lines 745-7, the disguised Diana tells how as a child she gave kisses "to the void air," and how when she imagined

the warm tremble of a devout kiss

Even then, that moment, at the thought of this,
Fainting I fell into a bed of flowers,

And languish'd there three days.

Lycius faints when he meets with Lamia at the roadside; Lamia had previously fallen "into a swooning love of him"; and the idea of swooning lovers was so familiar to the poet that, when his own time came, he wrote to his lady (Volume IV, page 134), "all I can bring you is a swooning admiration of your beauty."

To me it has always seemed that Keats's attitude towards women was that of impassioned chivalry not

wholly free from a hysterical element. The line in

"Woman! when I behold thee"

E'en then, elate, my spirit leaps and prances,

is not inapt; and

My ear is open like a greedy shark,

To catch the tunings of a voice divine

expresses the exaggeration of sentiment perfectly.

Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair;

Soft dimpled hands, white neck, and creamy breast,

Are things on which the dazzled senses rest

Till the fond fixed eyes forget they stare.

This is all more or less hysterical; and, with all its obvious charm for young people, so, very much so, is

God! she is like a milk white lamb that bleats
For man's protection.

In one of his letters Keats describes the reactionary converse of this exaggerated sentiment, in a passage which is an anticipation of the Ode on Indolence (Volume III, page 280), and in which the phase of feeling is described as "a delightful sensation, about three degrees on this side of faintness"; and even in the carefully finished Ode to Psyche, we have the line

And on the sudden, fainting with surprise,

applied to the mere vision of Cupid and Psyche.

This default of male robustness in one particular is a contradiction in Keats's manly and even pugnacious character; but I do not think it ought to be regarded

with intolerance, even though it helped so valuable a life to fall into a hereditary consumption. The fact of the matter is that, somehow or other, an Oriental as well as a Greek strain had passed into the child of Finsbury parents; and if we have the supreme advantage of a romantic colour and warmth throughout a great part of the poetry left by this wondrously gifted youth, we must be content to take with it the prevalent temperament of the lovers in oriental romances and tales, who faint as a matter of course under due provocation, very much to the surprise of a northerly reader not previously acquainted with their customs. Strange and occult things happen now and again in the building up of men of genius; but I do not know that the presence, in a London child of unremarkable parents, of clear emanations from the spirit of Greek mythology and the spirit of Eastern romance is more wonderful than the transfusion of the sublimated essence of the French revolution into the veins of Shelley, the scion of a long line of Sussex squires, or the perfect intuition of medieval romance life displayed by Thomas Chatterton, the descendant of a line of Bristol sextons.

For want of a better opportunity, I am fain to add here some stray items gathered in the course of enquiries among Keats's friends. Miss Charlotte Reynolds tells me that he was passionately fond of music, and would sit for hours while she played the piano to him. It was to a Spanish air which she used to play that the song

"Hush, hush! tread softly!" was composed; and so sensitive was he to proper execution, that, when a wrong note has been played in a public performance, he has been known to say that he would like to "go down into the orchestra and smash all the fiddles."

One of Mr. Dilke's reminiscences of Keats, the tradition of which has been kept alive by Mr. John Snook of Belmont Castle, has a curious bearing on the poet's faith in immortality, and indicates a belief at one time even in metempsychosis. After the death of Thomas Keats, a white rabbit came into the garden of Mr. Dilke, who shot the creature. Keats declared that the poor thing was his brother Tom's spirit; and so earnest was he in this view, impressing it upon others of the circle, that when the rabbit was put on table, no one could look at it, and it was immediately ordered to be removed.

The following document is said to have been sent by Keats to a friend in August 1820, just before his departure for Italy, with the intention that, in the worst event, it should have effect as his last will and testament. I find it transcribed among the papers of Sir Charles Dilke, but without any indication of the source, or of the authority on which it rests; but it has an air of genuineness; and Sir Charles Dilke does not doubt its authenticity.

"My share of books divide amongst my friends. In case of my death this scrap of paper may be serviceable in your possession.

"All my estate real and personal consists in the hopes of the sale of books, published or unpublished. Now I wish and you to be the first paid Creditors-the rest is in nubibus; but in case it should shower, pay

the few pounds I owe him."

It only remains to record my acknowledgments for help of all kinds received during the progress of my work. Not only have I been very largely assisted with the loan and use of original documents by and about Keats, and with free permissions to avail myself of various copyright works both principal and related; but I have found all those who knew Keats or who are related to members of his circle willing to render assistance by corresponding with me on moot points; and several friends and correspondents have given me material help by making references, copies, and enquiries for me during occasional absences from town,-by reading proofs, and even in some instances by making translations from various languages by way of illustration. Numerous instances of help in one or another of the afore-mentioned kinds will be found named in their particular places in these volumes; but it is fitting to set down here my hearty sense of the kindnesses I have experienced; and I beg that if, through mischance, any kind friend or correspondent is omitted from the list, he will believe that he has my cordial thanks none the less. Those, then, to whom I desire to record my obligations are, Señora Fanny Keats de Llanos and her son Señor