anical, and although, in all lovely work, what
concerns us is the ultimate form, not the conditions that necessitate
that form, yet the preference that precedes perfection, the evolution of
the beauty, and the mere making of the music, have, if not their artistic
value, at least their value to the artist.

It will be remembered that this sonnet was first published in 1848 by
Lord Houghton in his Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats.
Lord Houghton does not definitely state where he found it, but it was
probably among the Keats manuscripts belonging to Mr. Charles Brown. It
is evidently taken from a version later than that in my possession, as it
accepts all the corrections, and makes three variations. As in my
manuscript the first line is torn away, I give the sonnet here as it
appears in Lord Houghton's edition.

ANSWER TO A SONNET ENDING THUS:

Dark eyes are dearer far
Than those that make the hyacinthine bell. {74}

By J. H. REYNOLDS.

Blue! 'Tis the life of heaven,--the domain
Of Cynthia,--the wide palace of the sun,--
The tent of Hesperus and all his train,--
The bosomer of clouds, gold, grey and dun.
Blue! 'Tis the life of waters--ocean
And all its vassal streams: pools numberless
May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can
Subside if not to dark-blue nativeness.
Blue! gentle cousin of the forest green,
Married to green in all the sweetest flowers,
Forget-me-not,--the blue-bell,--and, that queen
Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers
Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great,
When in an Eye thou art alive with fate!

Feb. 1818.

In the Athenaeum of the 3rd of June 1876, appeared a letter from Mr. A.
J. Horwood, stating that he had in his possession a copy of The Garden of
Florence in which this sonnet was transcribed. Mr. Horwood, who was
unaware that the sonnet had been already published by Lord Houghton,
gives the transcript at length. His version reads hue for life in the
first line, and bright for wide in the second, and gives the sixth line
thus:

With all his tributary streams, pools numberless,

a foot too long: it also reads to for of in the ninth line. Mr. Buxton
Forman is of opinion that these variations are decidedly genuine, but
indicative of an earlier state of the poem than that adopted in Lord
Houghton's edition. However, now that we have before us Keats's first
draft of