PREFACE.

[Greek:

Pharmakon aelthe Bion poti son stoma, pharmakon eides.
Pos teu tois cheilessi potedrame kouk eglukanthae;
Tis de Brotos tossouton anameros ae kerasai toi,
Ae dounai laleonti to pharmakon; ekphugen odan.]

MOSCHUS, EPITAPH. BION.


It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem a
criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to be classed among the
writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age. 15 My known
repugnance to the narrow principles of taste on which several of his
earlier compositions were modelled proves at least that I am an
impartial judge. I consider the fragment of _Hyperion_ as second to
nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years. 20

John Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty-fourth year, on
the [23rd] of [February] 1821; and was buried in the romantic and lonely
cemetery of the protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is the
tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and
desolate, which formed the circuit of 25 ancient Rome. The cemetery is
an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and
daisies. It might make one in love with death to think that one should
be buried in so sweet a place.

30 The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I have dedicated