is
fame: this used to be traditionally called the Tomb of Remus. There were
but few graves on the spot when Keats was laid there. In recent years
the portion of the cemetery where he reposes has been cut off by a
fortification. A little altar-tomb was set up for him, sculptured with a
Greek lyre, and inscribed with his name and his own epitaph, "Here lies
one whose name was writ in water." Severn attended affectionately to all
this, and the whole was completed about two years after the poet's
death. In 1875 General Sir Vincent Eyre and some other Englishmen and
Americans repaired the stone, and placed on an adjacent wall a medallion
portrait of Keats, presented by its sculptor, Mr. Warrington Wood.
Severn, who died in August 1879, having been British Consul in Rome for
many years, now lies in close proximity to his friend. Shelley's remains
are interred hard by, but in the new cemetery,--not the old one, which
received the bones of Keats. As early as 1836 Severn was able to attest
that his connection with the poet had been of benefit to his own
professional career. The friend and death-bed companion of Keats had by
that time become a personage, apart from the merit, be it greater or
less, of his performances as a painter.

Severn's letters addressed to Armitage Brown show that it was expected
that Brown should write a Life of Keats. The non-appearance of any such
work was made a matter of remonstrance in 1834; and at one time George
Keats, though conscious of not being quite the right man for the
purpose, thought of supplying the deficiency. Severn also had had a
similar idea. Brown was in Italy in 1832, and there he met Mr. Richard
Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton. He returned to England some
three years later, and was about to produce the desired Life when a new
project entered his mind, and he emigrated to New Zealand. He then
handed over to Mr. Milnes all his collections of Keats's writings, and
the biographical notices which he had compiled, and these furnished a
substantive basis for Mr. Milnes's work published in 1848--a work
written with abundant sympathy, invaluable at its own date and ever
since to all lovers of the poet's writings. Brown died towards 1842.

George Keats voluntarily paid all the debts left by his brother. These
have not been precisely detailed: but it appears that Messrs. Taylor and
Hessey had made an advance of L150, and there must have been something
not inconsiderable due to Brown