Of Heaven and few ears.
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ontent as theirs,Rich in the timpU worship of a day." And yet, after all, the Preface which did appear w.-win the main deprecatoiy and with no " undersong ofdisrespect for the public ; " and when the Poet looko<lback on his labour he found it " a feverish attemfitrather than a deed accomplished." He said ; " theimagination of a boy is healthy, and the matureimagination of a man is healthy, but there is a 8pac<;of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, thecharacter undecided, the way of life uncertain, theambition thick-sighted." Surely, there was much in this to disarm tlioviolence of the criticism which was levelled at tin;Poem at its first birth into literary existence. Thearticles themselves, both in the " Quarterly" and in"Blackwood," were so superficial and coarse, kothoroughly uncritical, that, whatever sensations (^fdisgust and anger they may have aroused at thetime, there could hardly have been a question of theirpermanent influence on the mind and destiny ofKeats, but for the belief of many of his friends that
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