with Keats):--


'SIR,

'Should you cast your eye on the signature of this letter before you
read the contents, you might imagine that they related to a slanderous
paper which appeared in your Review some time since.... I am not in the
habit of permitting myself to be disturbed by what is said or written of
me.... The case is different with the unfortunate subject of this
letter, the author of _Endymion_, to whose feelings and situation I
entreat you to allow me to call your attention. I write considerably in
the dark; but, if it is Mr. Gifford that I am addressing, I am persuaded
that, in an appeal to his humanity and justice, he will acknowledge the
_fas ab hoste doceri_. I am aware that the first duty of a reviewer is
towards the public; and I am willing to confess that the _Endymion_ is a
poem considerably defective, and that perhaps it deserved as much
censure as the pages of your Review record against it. But, not to
mention that there is a certain contemptuousness of phraseology, from
which it Is difficult for a critic to abstain, in the review of
_Endymion_, I do not think that the writer has given it its due praise.
Surely the poem, with all its faults, is a very remarkable production
for a man of Keats's age[7]; and the promise of ultimate excellence is
such as has rarely been afforded even by such as have afterwards
attained high literary eminence. Look at book 2, line 833, &c., and book
3, lines 113 to 120; read down that page, and then again from line
193[8]. I could cite many other passages to convince you that it
deserved milder usage. Why it should have been reviewed at all,
excepting for the purpose of bringing its excellences into notice, I
cannot conceive; for it was very little read, and there was no danger