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(page 170 in this edition) appears to have been supplied by the publishers. In a copy shown to me by the late Canon Ainger, Keats had drawn his pen through and through this advertizement, writing at the head, "I had no part in this; I was ill at the time." The statement about Endymion he had bracketed off from the rest; and beneath it he had written "This is a lie!" In connexion with this unusual vehemence of expression, it is no more than fair to mention that the Woodhouse Common-place book, used by the publishers when considering which of Keats's unpublished poems they would issue in 1820, records a vote against Hyperion; and the inference is that they were induced by Keats's friends to publish the fragment after all.

In regard to the remainder of Keats's Poetical Works, those, namely, which are not to be found in the three volumes published by himself, an endeavour is here made to arrange the whole under one chronology, although it is not possible to adhere literally to the scheme, in view of the fact that, while Otho the Great was being composed, other poems were also written, and must not, obviously, be inserted between the scenes of the tragedy. We have not, however, yet completed the tale of the editiones principes of Keats's Poetry, seeing that his posthuma have from time to time been issued in substantive volumes as distinguished from the mere extension of editions of his works. The first in importance, as in date, of these posthumous editiones principes is the late Lord Houghton's invaluable contribution of 1848. In 1833, at the villa of Walter Savage Landor "on the beautiful hill-side of Fiesole," Lord Houghton, then Mr. Richard Monckton Milnes, had met Charles Armitage Brown, whose name is now universally associated with that of Keats; he had previously learnt much about the poet from Joseph Severn, then still (as to the end) at Rome; and he now found that Brown, having carefully guarded the literary remains of Keats, intended to publish them in two or three years on returning to

England. Brown returned, got forward with his preparations, wrote his biographical account of Keats, and had arranged for publication, when he suddenly decided to emigrate to New Zealand. This he did, leaving his material for Lord Houghton to make use of, "for the purpose of vindicating the character and advancing the fame" of Keats.

Charles Cowden Clarke, Edward Holmes, George Felton Mathew, and Henry Stephens, helped the biographer and editor with their recollections; John Hamilton Reynolds "contributed the rich store of his correspondence"; Charles Wentworth Dilke and William Haslam supported the undertaking with letters and reminiscences; to John Taylor and James Augustus Hessey, Keats's friendly and helpful publishers, and Charles Ollier, who in a less friendly and helpful manner had preceded them in that office, Lord Houghton was "indebted for willing co-operation"; and Mr. Jeffrey, who had married George Keats's widow, contributed, in a very slovenly and misleading way, a great mass of letters and data which, notwithstanding his lack of judgment, of experience, and of thoroughness, were of quite extraordinary value. The result founded on all these aids and communications was given to the world in the year 1848, in two of those handy and agreeable volumes which, printed by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, issued in a steady stream for some years from the house of Edward Moxon of Dover Street-the volumes which we associate with the names of Shelley, Wordsworth, Landor, Hood, Tennyson, and the Brownings.

When the book made its appearance, one of the main literary supporters of the undertaking, who had known intimately both Keats and Brown, was amused as well as nettled at the rôle claimed for Brown as the "generous protector" of Keats, and left a somewhat caustic note on the subject in his copy of Lord Houghton's work, the title-page of which he decorated with the following couplet from The Rosciad:

Appearances to save his only care;

So things seem right, no matter what they are. Charles Wentworth Dilke, in quoting thus epigrammatically from Churchill, did not of course mean to apply the couplet literally; but the inscription and other notes show how advanced his views of editorial obligation were; for Lord Houghton can scarcely be said to have carried editorial licence beyond the limits then usual.

Lord Houghton's first contribution to Keats literature, published in the best of company, may be bibliographically described as consisting of two volumes, foolscap octavo, bound in purple-brown cloth, upright-straight-grained, blind-blocked on the sides with the same severe floral-scroll design that appears on the fourth edition of Tennyson's Poems (two volumes, 1846), The Princess (1847), In Memoriam (1850), Landor's Hellenics (1847), and many others. The colour is the same as that of the cloth used for several editions of In Memoriam. The Keats volumes are gilt-lettered across the back, "Life | Letters &c. of Keats. | Vol. I.[II.]" The title-pages are as follows:

LIFE,

LETTERS, AND LITERARY REMAINS,

OF

JOHN KEATS.

EDITED BY

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I. [II.]

LONDON:

EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET,

1848.

The half-titles read "Life, Letters, &c. of John Keats." Their versos are blank; but those of the titles have the central imprint "London: | Bradbury and Evans, Printers, Whitefriars." In volume I, pages v to vii contain a dedication to Francis (afterwards Lord) Jeffrey, page viii is blank, the preface extends from page ix to page xix, page xx is blank, and page 1 starts with a dropped head reading "Life and Letters of | John Keats." There are 288 pages of the text, with head-lines reading "Life and Letters of" on the versos and "John Keats" on the rectos, save on page 288, where the legend appears in full: the printers' imprint is repeated at the foot. The volume has for frontispiece a print from a steel plate engraved by H. Robinson after the well-known halflength portrait of Keats by Severn, three-quarter face, seated behind a table with an open book before him, the right hand resting on the book, the left supporting the chin and cheek (fingers closed), while the elbow rests on the table. An eight-page catalogue of Moxon's publications is generally found in perfect copies, inserted within the glazed primrose end-paper of the recto cover.

Of volume II the text also starts with a dropped head worded as in volume I, with which it is uniform as to head-lines up to page 108. Then there is a halftitle, "Literary Remains," dividing the posthumous poetry from the Life and Letters; and the poetry itself occupies the remainder of the volume, ending on page 306, and bearing distinctive head-lines. At the foot of page 306 the printers' imprint recurs; and facing it is a list, headed "Poetry," of volumes sold by Moxon: the verso of this is blank. The frontispiece to this second volume is a well lithographed fac-simile of a holograph manuscript,-the song "Shed no tearO shed no tear."

These fascinating volumes have no index of any kind, or even so much as a table of contents; but besides the Literary Remains forming the bulk of

the second volume, many poems and fragments are
scattered through the first volume, some embodied in
letters, and some appended at the close of the volume,
after the Notes on Milton there reprinted from the
scarce American periodical The Dial. A list of these
poems is proper to this place. The page column
indicates the position in Lord Houghton's volumes.

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(both reprinted from The Examiner)

On seeing a Lock of Milton's Hair

"Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port"

"O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind"
Sonnet on sitting down to read King Lear once again

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