g heartfelt,
and, as it were, repentant words to Shelley:--

"I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats--is it _actually_ true? I
did not think criticism had been so killing. Though I differ from you
essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor all
unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the highest
peak of Parnassus than have perished in such a manner. Poor fellow!
though, with such inordinate self-love, he would probably have not been
very happy.... Had I known that Keats was dead, or that he was 'alive,'
and so 'sensitive,' I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry,
to which I was provoked by his attack upon Pope, and my disapprobation
of his own style of writing."

To Murray he wrote the same day:--

"Is it true what Shelley writes me, that poor John Keats died at Rome of
the 'Quarterly Review?' I am very sorry for it; though I think he took
the wrong line as a poet, and was spoilt by Cockneyfying and suburbing,
and versifying Tooke's 'Pantheon' and Lempriere's 'Dictionary.' I know
by experience, that a savage review is hemlock to a sucking author; and
the one on me (which produced the 'English Bards,' etc.) knocked me
down; but I got up again. Instead of bursting a bloodvessel, I drank
three bottles of claret, and began an answer, finding that there was
nothing in the article for which I could lawfully knock Jeffrey on the
head, in an honorable way. However, I would not be the person who wrote
the homicidal article for all the honor and glory in the world, though I
by no means approve of that school of scribbling which it treats upon."

Some time after he wrote again to Murray, saying,--"You know very well
that I did not approve of Keats's poetry, nor of his poetical
principles, nor of his abuse of Pope. But he is dead. I beg that you
will therefore omit all I have said of him either in my manuscripts or
in my publications. His 'Hyperion' is a fine monument, and will cause
his name to last. I do not envy the man who wrote the article against
Keats."

Several months later he made complete amends. He added to his severe
article in answer to Blackwood, a note in the following terms:

"I have read the article before and since; and although it is bitter, I
do not think that a man should permit himself to be killed by it. But a
young man little dreams what he must inevitably encounter in the course
of a life ambitious of public notice. My indignation at Mr. Keat