of character was Bailey: the one who had
a degree of genius fully worthy, whatever its limitations and defects,
of communing with his own, was Haydon. Shelley can hardly be reckoned
among his friends, though very willing and even earnest to be such, both
in life and after death. Keats held visibly aloof from Shelley, more
perhaps on the ground of his being a man of some family and position
than from any other motive. Shortly after the publication of "The Revolt
of Islam," Keats's rather naive expression was, "Poor Shelley, I think
he has his quota of good qualities." Neither did he show any warm or
frank admiration of Shelley's poetry. On receiving a copy of "The
Cenci," he urged its author to "curb his magnanimity, and be more of an
artist, and load every rift of his subject with ore." We should not
ascribe this to any mean-spirited jealousy, but to that sense, which
grew to a great degree of intensity in Keats, that the art of
composition and execution is of paramount importance in poetry, and must
supersede all considerations of abstract or proselytizing intention.

CHAPTER VIII.

I must next proceed to offer some account of Keats's person, character,
and turn of mind.

As I have already said, Keats was a very small man, barely more than
five feet in height. He was called "Little Keats" by his surgical
fellow-students. Archdeacon Bailey has left a good description of him in
brief:--

"There was in the character of his countenance the femineity
which Coleridge thought to be the mental constitution of true
genius. His hair was beautiful, and, if you placed your hand upon
his head, the curls fell round it like a rich plumage. I do not
particularly remember the thickness of the upper lip so generally
described; but the mouth was too wide, and out of harmony with
the rest of his face, which had a peculiar sweetness of
expression, with a character of mature thought, and an almost
painful sense of suffering."

Leigh Hunt should also be heard:--

"His lower limbs were small in comparison with the upper, but
neat and well-turned. His shoulders were very broad for his
size. He had a face in which energy and sensibility were
remarkably mixed up--an eager power checked and made impatient by
ill-health. Every feature was at once strongly cut and delicately
alive. If there was any faulty expression, it was in the mouth,
which was not without something of a character