MEMOIR OF JOHN KEATS.
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ften made for the rhyme, and, while most poets wouldbe loth to allow how frequently the necessity of therhyme suggests the corresponding thought, here theuncommon prominence of the rhyme keeps this effectconstantly before the reader. Yet, when approachedwith sympathetic feeling and good will, this impressionsoon vanishes before the astonishing affluence of thoughtand imagination, which at once explains and excusesthe defect, if it be one. Picture after picture seems torise before the poet’s eye in a succession so rapid as toembarrass judgment and limit choice, and fancies andexpressions that elsewhere would be strange and far-fetched are here felt to have been the first suggested.When Keats’s apprenticeship was over and he re-moved to London to “wall the hospitals,” he soonbecame acquainted with men capable of appreciatingand cultivating his genius. Among the foremost LeighHunt welcomed him with a sympathy that ripened intofriendship, and the sonnet “On the day Leigh Huntleft Prison,” attests the earnestness of reciprocal affec-tion. They read and walked much together, and wrotein competition on subjects proposed. Much has beensaid of the influence of this connection on the writingsof Keats, and much of their mannerism has been tracedto this source. The justice of this supposition is morethan doubtful, and the stupid malevolence of the criti-cisms which mainly sustained it is now too well exposedto require refutation. »It is indeed probable that thefresh mind of Keats was directed by Hunt into many of MEMOIR OF JOHN KEATS. 23 the channels which had delighted his own, and thatpeculiarities that had taken the fancy of the one wereeasily pressed on the imagination of the other. ButKeats always defended himself energetically against thenotion that he belonged to Leigh Hunt’s or any otherschool. ‘I refused,” he wrote, “to visit Shelley, that I ? might have my own unfettered scope,” and he neverceased to desire to bear all the defects of his own ori-ginality. It is no contradiction to this to infer, that ifthe talents of Keats had been subjected to the disciplineof a complete and regular classical education, and a self-distrust inculeated by the continual presence of thehighest original models of thought and form, he wouldhave escaped very much of the mannerism which accom-panied his early efforts; but it may be doubted whetherthe well-trained plant would have thrown out such luxu-rious shoots and expanded into such rare and delightfulfoliage. The most that can be said of the influence ofLeigh Hunt and his friends on Keats was that he becameobnoxious to those evils which inevitably beset everyliterary coterie, that he learned rather to encourage thanto restrain individual peculiarities, and to demand apublic and permanent attention for matters that couldonly justly claim a private and personal interest. Buton the other hand it is impossible to deny that in thisgenial atmosphere the faculty of the young poet ripenedwith incredible facility, and advantages of literary cul-ture were afforded which no just critic can disparage orconceal. Chatterton eating out his heart in his desolate
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