19, 1818, which was
objected to by Hamilton Reynolds, and by his friends generally. It was
certainly off-hand and unconciliating, and some readers would have
regarded it as defiant. Its general purport was that the poem was
faulty, but the author would not keep it back for revision, which would
make the performance a tedium to himself, "I have written to please
myself, and in hopes to please others, and for a love of fame." There
was a good deal more, jaunty and provocative enough. Keats was not well
inclined to suppress this preface. He replied on April 9th to Reynolds
in a letter from which some weighty words must be quoted:--

"I have not the slightest feeling of humility towards the public,
or to anything in existence but the Eternal Being, the principle
of Beauty, and the memory of great men.... A preface is written
to the public--a thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy,
and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility.... I
would be subdued before my friends, and thank them for subduing
me; but among multitudes of men I have no feel of stooping--I
hate the idea of humility to them. I never wrote one single line
of poetry with the least shadow of public thought.... I hate a
mawkish popularity. I cannot be subdued before them. My glory
would be to daunt and dazzle the thousand jabberers about
pictures and books."

Keats, however, yielded to his censors, and wrote a rather shorter
preface, by far a better one. It bears the date of April 10th, being the
very next day after he had written to Reynolds in so unsubmissive a
tone. This second preface says substantially much the same thing as the
first, but without any aggressive or "devil-may-care" addenda. It is too
important to be omitted here:--

"Knowing within myself the manner in which this poem has been
produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it
public. What manner I mean will be quite clear to the reader, who
must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every
error denoting a feverish attempt rather than a deed
accomplished. The two first books, and indeed the two last, I
feel sensible, are not of such completion as to warrant their
passing the press; nor should they, if I thought a year's
castigation would do them any good. It will not: the foundations
are too sandy. It is just that this youngster should die away--a
sad thought for me, if I had not