rget. In it were comprised
specimens of the first and second age of art in Italy. I do not think I
ever had a greater treat out of Shakespeare; full of romance and the most
tender feeling; magnificence of drapery beyond everything I ever saw, not
excepting Raphael's--but grotesque to a curious pitch--yet still making
up a fine whole, even finer to me than more accomplished works, as there
was left so much room for imagination."

[24] Against the hundreds of maxims from Pope, Keats furnishes a single
motto--the first line of "Endymion"--

"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 l