Mr. Severn is residing in Rome at the present time, from which city
he transmits this paper.]

I well remember being struck with the clear and independent manner which
Washington Allston, in the year 1818, expressed his opinion of John
Keats's verse, when the young poet's writings first appeared, amid the
ridicule of most English readers, Mr. Allston was at that time the only
discriminating judge among the strangers to Keats who were residing
abroad, and he took occasion to emphasize in my hearing his opinion of
the early effusions of the young poet in words like these:--"They are
crude materials of real poetry, and Keats is sure to become a great
poet."

It is a singular pleasure to the few in personal friends of Keats in
England (who may still have to defend him against the old and worn-out
slanders) that in America he has always had a solid fame, independent of
the old English prejudices.

Here in Rome, as I write, I look back through forty years of worldly
changes to behold Keats's dear image again in memory. It seems as if he
should be living with me now, inasmuch as I never could understand his
strange and contradictory death, his falling away so suddenly from
health and strength. He had that fine compactness of person which we
regard as the promise of longevity, and no mind was ever more exultant
in youthful feeling. I cannot summon a sufficient reason why in one
short year he should have been thus cut off, "with all his imperfections
on his head." Was it that he lived too soon,--that the world he sought
was not ready for him?