he but given me the hint!" The _hint_, forsooth! Moreover, I can
find no sort of allusion in _The Examiner_ for 1821, to the death of
Keats. I told Rossetti that by the reading of the periodicals of the
time, I formed a poor opinion of Hunt. Previously I was willing to
believe in his unswerving loyalty to the much greater men who were his
friends, but even that poor confidence in him must perforce be shaken
when one finds him silent at a moment when Keats most needs his voice,
and abusive when Coleridge is a common subject of ridicule. It was
all very well for Hunt to glorify himself in the borrowed splendour of
Keats's established fame when the poet was twenty years dead, and
to make much of his intimacy with Coleridge after the homage of two
generations had been offered him, but I know of no instance (unless in
the case of Shelley) in which Hunt stood by his friends in the winter
of their lives, and gave them that journalistic support which was, poor
man, the only thing he ever had to give, whatever he might take. I have,
however, heard Mr. H. A. Bright (one of Hawthorne's intimate friends in
England) say that no man here impressed the American romancer so much as
Hunt for good qualities, both of heart and head. But what I have stated
above, I believe to be facts; and I have gathered them at first-hand,
and by the light of them I do not hesitate to say that there is no
reason to believe that it was Keats's illness alone that caused him to
regard Hunt's friendship with suspicion. It is true, however, that when
one reads Hunt's letter to Severn at Borne, one feels that he must be
forgiven. On this pregnant subject Rossetti wrote:

Thanks for yours received to-day, and for all you say with
so much more kind solicitousness than the matter deserved,
about the opening of the Keats sonnet. I have now realized
that the new form is a gain in every way; and am therefore
glad that, though arising in accident, I was led to make the
change.... All you say of Keats shows that you have been
reading up the subject with good results. I fancy it would
hardly be desirable to add the sonnets you speak of (as
being worthless) at this date, though they might be valuable
for quotation as to the course of his mental and physical
state. I do not myself think that any poems now included
should be removed, but the reckless and tasteless plan of
the gatherings hitherto (in which t