e knows, has yet paralleled the absurdity above
mentioned in the case of Shelley, Keats has been taken by some
credit-worthy judges as an unusually strong witness to the truth of the
proposition already adopted here, that poets are good letter-writers.

He certainly is no exception to the rule; but to what exact extent he
exemplifies it may not be a matter to be settled quite off hand. There
is no doubt that at his best Keats is excellent in this way, and that
best is perhaps to be found with greatest certainty, by anyone who
wants to dip before plunging, in the letters to his brother and
sister-in-law, George and Georgiana. Those to his little sister Fanny
are also charming in their way, though the peculiar and very happy
mixture of life and literature to be found in the others does not, of
course, occur in them. His letters of description, to whomsoever
written, are, as one might expect, first-rate; and the very late
specimen--one of his very last to anyone--to _Mrs._ not Miss Brawne is
as brave as it is touching. As for the criticism, there are undoubtedly
(as again we should expect from the author of the wonderful preface to
_Endymion_) invaluable remarks--the inspiration of poetical practice
turned into formulas of poetical theory. On the other hand, the famous
advice to Shelley to "be more of an artist and load every rift with
ore"--Shelley whose art transcends artistry and whose substance is as
the unbroken nugget gold, so that there are no rifts in it to load--is,
even when one remembers how often poets misunderstand each other,[29]
rather "cold water to the back" of admiration.

It may, however, not unfairly introduce a very few considerations on the
side of Keats's letters which is not so good. All but idolaters
acknowledge a certain boyishness in him--a boyishness which is in fact
no mean source contributary of his charm in verse. It is perhaps not
always quite so charming in prose, and especially in letters. You do not
want self-criticism of an obviously second-thought kind in them. But you
do want that less obtrusive variety which prevents them from appearing
unkempt, "down-at-heel" etc. Perhaps there is, at any rate in the
earlier letters, something of this unkemptness in Keats as an epistoler.

A hasty person may say "What! do you venture to quarrel with letters
where, side by side with agreeable miscellaneous details, you may
suddenly come upon the original and virgin text of 'La Belle Dame sans
Merci'