I have dipped my pen in
consuming fire to chastise his destroyers; otherwise the tone of the
poem is solemn and exalted. I send it to the press here, and you will
soon have a copy.'
[13] As Byron is introduced into _Adonais_ as mourning for Keats, and as
in fact he cared for Keats hardly at all, it seems possible that his
silence was dictated by antagonism rather than by modesty.
[14] _Blackwood_ seems to imply that the _Quarterly_ accused _Endymion_
of indecency; this is not correct.
[15] The reader of Keats's preface will find that this is a
misrepresentation. Keats did not speak of any fierce hell of criticism,
nor did he ask to remain uncriticised in order that he might write more.
What he said was that a feeling critic would not fall foul of him for
hoping to write good poetry in the long run, and would be aware that
Keats's own sense of failure in _Endymion_ was as fierce a hell as he
could be chastised by.
[16] This passage of the letter had remained unpublished up to 1890. It
then appeared in Mr. Buxton Forman's volume, _Poetry and Prose by John
Keats_. Some authentic information as to Keats's change of feeling had,
however, been published before.
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