n an
older generation, that he should have had more than a sidelong vision of
at least one aspect of the community between his poet-hero and a younger
race which has had the destiny to produce far more heroes than poets.
Commenting upon the inability of the late Mr Courthope to appreciate
Keats, Sir Sidney writes:--

'He supposed that Keats was indifferent to history or politics. But
of history he was in fact an assiduous reader, and the secret of his
indifference to politics, so far as it existed, was that those of
his own time had to men of his years and way of thinking been a
disillusion,--that the saving of the world from the grip of one
great overshadowing tyranny had but ended in reinstating a number of
ancient and minor tyrannies less interesting but not less
tyrannical. To that which lies behind and above politics and history
to the general destinies, aspirations, and tribulations of the race,
he was, as we have seen, not indifferent but only tragically and
acutely sensitive.'

[Footnote 6: _John Keats: His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics,
and After-fame_. By Sidney Colvin. Second edition. (Macmillan.)]

We believe that both the positive and the negative of that vindication
might be exemplified among chosen spirits to-day, living or untimely
dead; but we desire, not to enlist Sir Sidney in a cause, but only to
make apparent the reason why, in spite of minor dissents and inevitable
differences of estimation, our sympathy with him is enduring. It may be
that we have chosen to identify ourselves so closely with Keats that we
feel to Sir Sidney the attachment that is reserved for the staunch
friend of a friend who is dead; but we do not believe that this is so.
We are rather attached by the sense of a loyalty that exists in and for
itself; more intimate repercussions may follow, but they can follow only
when the critical honesty, the determination to let Keats be valid as
Keats, whatever it might cost (and we can see that it sometimes costs
Sir Sidney not a little), has impressed itself upon us.

It is rather by this than by Sir Sidney's particular contributions to
our knowledge of the poet that we judge his book. This assured, we
accept his patient exposition of the theme of 'Endymion' with a friendly
interest that would certainly not be given to one with a lesser claim
upon us; and in this spirit we can also find a welcome for the minute
investigation of