Mrs. Leigh Hunt, 11 November, 1820.) 'Keats's new volume has arrived to
us, and the fragment called _Hyperion_ promises for him that he is
destined to become one of the first writers of the age. His other things
are imperfect enough[9], and, what is worse, written in the bad sort of
style which is becoming fashionable among those who fancy that they are
imitating Hunt and Wordsworth.... Where is Keats now? I am anxiously
expecting him in Italy, when I shall take care to bestow every possible
attention on him. I consider his a most valuable life, and I am deeply
interested in his safety. I intend to be the physician both of his body
and his soul,--to keep the one warm, and to teach the other Greek and
Spanish. I am aware indeed, in part, that I am nourishing a rival who
will far surpass me; and this is an additional motive, and will be an
added pleasure.' (To Peacock, 15 February, 1821.) 'Among your anathemas
of the modern attempts in poetry do you include Keats's _Hyperion_? I
think it very fine. His other poems are worth little; but, if the
_Hyperion_ be not grand poetry, none has been produced by our
contemporaries.' There is also a phrase in a letter to Mr. Ollier,
written on 14 May, 1820, before the actual publication of the _Lamia_
volume: 'Keats, I hope, is going to show himself a great poet; like the
sun, to burst through the clouds which, though dyed in the finest
colours of the air, obscured his rising.'

Keats died in Rome on 23 February, 1821. Soon afterwards Shelley wrote
his _Adonais_. He has left various written references to _Adonais_, and
to Keats in connexion with it: these will come more appropriately when I
speak of that poem itself. But I may here at once quote from the letter
which Shelley addressed on 16 June, 1821, to Mr. Gisborne, who had sent
on to him a letter from Colonel Finch[10], giving a very painful account
of the last days of Keats, and especially (perhaps in more than due
proportion) of the violence of temper which he had exhibited. Shelley