ats printed
for "Endymion" the one which Shelley printed for "The Revolt of Islam."
Shelley, like Keats, was modest; he left his readers to settle any
question as to his poetic claims (although "Alastor," previously
published, might pretty well have vouched for these); but he resolutely
explained that reviewers would find in him no subject for bullying. I
can only make room for a few sentences:--

"The experience and the feelings to which I refer do not in
themselves constitute men poets, but only prepare them to be the
auditors of those who are. How far I shall be found to possess
that more essential attribute of poetry, the power of awakening
in others sensations like those which animate my own bosom, is
that which, to speak sincerely, I know not, and which, with an
acquiescent and contented spirit, I expect to be taught by the
effect which I shall produce upon those whom I now address.... It
is the misfortune of this age that its writers, too thoughtless
of immortality, are exquisitely sensible to temporary praise or
blame. They write with the fear of reviews before their eyes.
This system of criticism sprang up in that torpid interval when
poetry was not. Poetry, and the art which professes to regulate
and limit its powers, cannot subsist together.... I have sought,
therefore, to write (as I believe that Homer, Shakespeare, and
Milton wrote) in utter disregard of anonymous censure."

The publisher of "Endymion" (Mr. Taylor is probably meant) was nervous
as to the reception which potent critics would accord to the volume. He
went to William Gifford, the editor of the _Quarterly Review_, to
bespeak indulgence, but found a Cerberus who rejected every sop. In the
number of the _Quarterly_ for April 1818--not actually published, it
would seem, until September--appeared a critique branded into
ignominious permanence by the name and fame of Keats. Gifford himself is
regarded as its author. As an account of Keats's career would for
various reasons be incomplete in the absence of this critique, I
reproduce it here. It has the merit of brevity, and lends itself hardly
at all to curtailment, but I miss one or two details, relating chiefly
to Leigh Hunt.

"Reviewers have been sometimes accused of not reading the works
which they affected to criticize. On the present occasion we
shall anticipate the author's complaint, and honestly confess
that we have not read his