oduction has more of poetry, Hunt's
of finish. The sonnet "On leaving some friends at an early hour" is
characteristic enough. This is as much detail as need be given here to
the "Poems" of 1817. The sonnet on Chapman's Homer revealed a hand which
might easily prove to be a master's. All else was prentice-work, with
some melody, some richness and freshness, some independence, much
enthusiasm; also many solecisms and perversities of diction, imagery,
and method: and not a few pieces were included which only self-conceit,
or torpor of the critical faculty, or the mis-persuasion of friends,
could have allowed to pass muster. But Keats chose to publish--to
exhibit his poetic identity at this stage and in this guise; and of
course we can see, in the light of his after-work, that the experiment
was rather a rash forestalling than a positive mistake.

There are a few other sonnets which Keats wrote in 1817, or, in general
terms, between the publishing dates of the "Poems" volume and of
"Endymion." Those "On a Picture of Leander," and "On the Sea," and the
one which begins "After dark vapours have oppressed our plains," rank
among the best of his juvenile productions. A general observation,
applicable to all the early work, whether printed at the time or
unprinted, is that the ideas are constantly _expressed_ in an imperfect
way. There are perceptions, thoughts, and emotions; but the vehicle of
words is, as a rule, huddled and approximate.

"Endymion" now claims our attention. I believe that no better criticism
of "Endymion" has ever been written than that which Shelley supplied in
a letter dated in September 1819. Certainly no criticism which is
equally short is also equally good. I therefore extract it here, and
shall have little to say about the poem which is not potentially
condensed into Shelley's brief utterance. "I have read Keats's poem," he
wrote: "much praise is due to me for having read it, the author's
intention appearing to be that no person should possibly get to the end
of it. Yet it is full of some of the highest and the finest gleams of
poetry; indeed, everything seems to be viewed by the mind of a poet
which is described in it. I think if he had printed about fifty pages of
fragments from it I should have been led to admire Keats as a poet more
than I ought, of which there is now no danger." In July 1820 Shelley
wrote to Keats himself on the subject, furnishing almost the only
addendum which could have been n