ith warmth of feeling, and
with so much solidity of demonstration as availed to convince Mr. Dilke,
and also Mr. Abbey. Who were the other offenders glanced at by Colonel
Finch, as also in one of Severn's letters, I have no distinct idea.

CHAPTER III.

From this point forwards nothing but misery remains to be recorded of
John Keats. The narrative becomes depressing to write and depressing to
read. The sensation is like that of being confined in a dark vault at
noonday. One knows, indeed, that the sun of the poet's genius is blazing
outside, and that, on emerging from the vault, we shall be restored to
light and warmth; but the atmosphere within is not the less dark and
laden, nor the shades the less murky. In tedious wretchedness, racked
and dogged with the pang of body and soul, exasperated and protesting,
raging now, and now ground down into patience and acceptance, Keats
gropes through the valley of the shadow of death.

Before detailing the facts, we must glance for a minute at the position.
Keats had a passionate ambition and a passionate love--the ambition to
be a poet, the love of Fanny Brawne. At the beginning of 1820, he was
conscious of his authentic vocation as a poet, and conscious also that
this vocation, though recognized in a small and to some extent an
influential circle, was publicly denied and ridiculed; his portion was
the hiss of the viper and the gander, the hooting of the impostor and
the owl. His forthcoming volume was certain to share the same fate; he
knew its claims would be perversely resisted and cruelly repudiated. If
he could make no serious impression as a poet, not only was his leading
ambition thwarted, but he would also be impeded in getting any other and
more paying literary work to do--regular profession or employment he had
none. He was at best a poor man, and, for the while, almost bereft of
any command of funds. So long as this state of things, or anything like
it, continued, he would be unable to marry the woman of his heart. While
sickness kept him a prisoner, he was torn by ideas of her volatility and
fickleness. Disease was sapping his vitals, pain wrung him, Death
beckoned him with finger more and more imperative. Poetic fame became
the vision of Tantalus, and love the clasp of Ixion.

Such was the life, or such the incipient death, of Keats, in the last
twelvemonth of his brief existence.

For half a year prior to February 1820 he had been unrestful and
cheerles