ad down that page, and then again from line
193[8]. I could cite many other passages to convince you that it
deserved milder usage. Why it should have been reviewed at all,
excepting for the purpose of bringing its excellences into notice, I
cannot conceive; for it was very little read, and there was no danger
that it should become a model to the age of that false taste with which
I confess that it is replenished.

'Poor Keats was thrown into a dreadful state of mind by this review,
which, I am persuaded, was not written with any intention of producing
the effect--to which it has at least greatly contributed--of embittering
his existence, and inducing a disease from which there are now but faint
hopes of his recovery. The first effects are described to me to have
resembled insanity, and it was by assiduous watching that he was
restrained from effecting purposes of suicide. The agony of his
sufferings at length produced the rupture of a blood-vessel in the
lungs, and the usual process of consumption appears to have begun. He is
coming to pay me a visit in Italy; but I fear that, unless his mind can
be kept tranquil, little is to be hoped from the mere influence of
climate.

'But let me not extort anything from your pity. I have just seen a
second volume, published by him evidently in careless despair. I have
desired my bookseller to send you a copy: and allow me to solicit your
especial attention to the fragment of a poem entitled _Hyperion_, the
composition of which was checked by the review in question. The great
proportion of this piece is surely in the very highest style of poetry.
I speak impartially, for the canons of taste to which Keats has
conformed in his other compositions are the very reverse of my own. I
leave you to judge for yourself: it would be an insult to you to suppose
that, from motives however honourable, you would lend yourself to a
deception of the public.'

The question arises, How did Shelley know what he here states--that
Keats was thrown, by reading the _Quarterly_ article, into a state
resembling insanity, that he contemplated suicide, &c.? Not any document
has been published whereby this information could have been imparted to
Shelley: his chief informant on the subject appears to have been Mr.
Gisborne, who had now for a short while returned to England, and some
confirmation may have come from Hunt. As to the statements themselves,
they have, ever since the appearance in 1848 of Lord Hou