understand it. It is a highly wrought piece of art, and perhaps better,
in point of composition, than anything I have written.'

A letter to Mr. Ollier followed immediately afterwards.


'Pisa, June 8th, 1821,

'You may announce for publication a poem entitled _Adonais_. It is a
lament on the death of poor Keats, with some interspersed stabs on the
assassins of his peace and of his fame; and will be preceded by a
criticism on _Hyperion_, asserting the due claims which that fragment
gives him to the rank which I have assigned him. My poem is finished,
and consists of about forty Spenser stanzas [fifty-five as published]. I
shall send it to you, either printed at Pisa, or transcribed in such a
manner as it shall be difficult for the reviser to leave such errors as
assist the obscurity of the _Prometheus_. But in case I send it printed,
it will be merely that mistakes may be avoided. I shall only have a few
copies struck off in the cheapest manner. If you have interest enough in
the subject, I could wish that you enquired of some of the friends and
relations of Keats respecting the circumstances of his death, and could
transmit me any information you may be able to collect; and especially
as [to] the degree in which (as I am assured) the brutal attack in the
_Quarterly Review_ excited the disease by which he perished.'


The criticism which Shelley intended to write on _Hyperion_ remained, to
all appearance, unwritten. It will be seen, from the letter of Shelley
to Mr. Severn cited further on (p. 34), that, from the notion of writing
a criticism on _Hyperion_ to precede _Adonais_, his intention developed