the
problem--How did Keats receive the attacks made upon his poem and
himself? From an early date in the controversy three points seem to have
been very generally agreed upon: (1) That "Endymion" is (as Shelley
judiciously phrased it), "a poem considerably defective;" (2) that the
attacks upon it were, in essence, partly true, but so biassed--so keen
of scent after defects, and so dull of vision for beauties--as to be
practically unfair and perverse in a marked degree; and (3) that the
unfairness and perversity _quoad_ Keats were wilful devices of literary
and especially of political spite _quoad_ a knot of writers among whom
Leigh Hunt was the central figure. The question remains--In what spirit
did Keats meet his critics? Was he greatly distressed, or defiant and
retaliatory, or substantially indifferent?

Among the documents of Keats's life I find few records strictly
contemporary with the events themselves, serving to settle this point.
When the abuse of Z against Hunt began, Keats was indignant and
combative. He said in a letter which may belong to October 1817--

"There has been a flaming attack upon Hunt in the Edinburgh
magazine.... There has been but one number published--that on
Hunt, to which they have prefixed a motto by one Cornelius Webb,
'Poetaster,' who unfortunately was one of our party occasionally
at Hampstead, and took it into his head to write the following
(something about)--

'We'll talk on Wordsworth, Byron,
A theme we never tire on,'

and so forth till he came to Hunt and Keats. In the motto they
have put 'Hunt and Keats' in large letters. I have no doubt that
the second number was intended for me, but have hopes of its
non-appearance.... I don't mind the thing much; but, if he should
go to such lengths with me as he has done with Hunt, I must
infallibly call him to an account, if he be a human being, and
appears in squares and theatres where we might 'possibly meet.' I
don't relish his abuse."

It is worth observing also that, in a paper "On Kean as Richard Duke of
York" which Keats published on December 28, 1817, he wrote: "The English
people do not care one fig about Shakespeare, only as he flatters their
pride and their prejudices;... it is our firm opinion." If he thought
that English indifference to Shakespeare was of this degree of density,
he must surely have been prepared for a considerable amount of apathy in
relation to any