ed, or
resulted in, the rupture of the pulmonary blood-vessel. Keats belonged
to a consumptive family; his mother died of consumption, and also his
younger brother: and the preliminaries of his mortal illness (even if we
do not date them farther back, for which some reason appears) began
towards the middle of July 1818, when, in very rough walking in the
Island of Mull, he caught a severe and persistent attack of sore throat.

1. 37. _The succeeding acknowledgments, from more candid critics, of the
true greatness of his powers._ The notice here principally referred to
is probably that which appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_ in August
1820, written by Lord Jeffrey.

1. 42. _Whether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart made callous by
many blows._ Shelley, in this expression, has no doubt himself in view.
He had had serious reason for complaining of the treatment meted out to
him by the _Quarterly Review_: see the opening (partially cited at p.
17) of his draft-letter to the Editor.

1. 44. _One of their associates is, to my knowledge, a most base and
unprincipled calumniator._ Shelley here refers to the writer of the
critique in the _Quarterly Review_ of his poem _Laon and Cythna (The
Revolt of Islam)_. At first he supposed the writer to be Southey;
afterwards, the Rev. Mr. (Dean) Milman. His indignant phrase is
therefore levelled at Milman. But Shelley was mistaken, for the article
was in fact written by Mr. (afterwards Judge) Coleridge.

1. 46. _Those who had celebrated with various degrees of complacency and
panegyric_ Paris, _and_ Woman, _and_ A Syrian Tale, _and Mrs. Lefanu,
and Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Howard Payne._ I presume that most readers of
the present day are in the same position as I was myself--that of
knowing nothing about these performances and their authors. In order to
understand Shelley's allusion, I looked up the _Quarterly Review_ from
April 1817 to April 1821, and have ascertained as follows, (1) The
_Quarterly_ of April 1817 contains a notice of _Paris in 1815, a Poem_.
The author's name is not given, nor do I know it. The poem, numbering
about a thousand lines, is in the Spenserian stanza, varied by the
heroic metre, and perhaps by some other rhythms. Numerous extracts are
given, sufficient to show that the poem is at any rate a creditable
piece of writing. Some of the critical dicta are the following:--'The
work of a powerful and poetic imagination.... The subject of the poem is
a desultory wa