ating judge among the strangers to Keats who were residing
abroad, and he took occasion to emphasize in my hearing his opinion of
the early effusions of the young poet in words like these:--"They are
crude materials of real poetry, and Keats is sure to become a great
poet."

It is a singular pleasure to the few in personal friends of Keats in
England (who may still have to defend him against the old and worn-out
slanders) that in America he has always had a solid fame, independent of
the old English prejudices.

Here in Rome, as I write, I look back through forty years of worldly
changes to behold Keats's dear image again in memory. It seems as if he
should be living with me now, inasmuch as I never could understand his
strange and contradictory death, his falling away so suddenly from
health and strength. He had that fine compactness of person which we
regard as the promise of longevity, and no mind was ever more exultant
in youthful feeling. I cannot summon a sufficient reason why in one
short year he should have been thus cut off, "with all his imperfections
on his head." Was it that he lived too soon,--that the world he sought
was not ready for him?

For more than the year I am now dwelling on, he had fostered a tender
and enduring love for a young girl nearly of his own age, and this love
was reciprocal, not only in itself, but in all the worldly advantages
arising from it of fortune on her part and fame on his. It was
encouraged by the sole parent of the lady; and the fond mother was happy
in seeing her daughter so betrothed, and pleased that her inheritance
would fall to so worthy an object as Keats. This was all well settled in
the minds and hearts of the mutual friends of both parties, when poor
Keats, soon after the death of his younger brother, unaccountably showed
signs of consumption; at least, he himself thought so, though the
doctors were widely undecided about it. By degrees it began to be deemed
needful that the young poet should go to Italy, even to preserve his
life. This was at last accomplished, but too late; and now that I am
reviewing all the progress of his illness from his first symptoms,
I cannot but think his life might have been preserved by an Italian
sojourn, if it had been adopted in time, and if circumstances had been
improved as they presented themselves. And, further, if he had had the
good fortune to go to America, which he partly contemplated before the
death of his younger brother