'
[JUNE, 1919.
_The Problem of Keats_
It is a subject for congratulation that a second edition of Sir Sidney
Colvin's life of Keats[6] has been called for by the public: first,
because it is a good, a very good book, and secondly, because all
evidence of a general curiosity concerning a poet so great and so
greatly to be loved must be counted for righteousness. The impassioned
and intimate sympathy which is felt--as we may at least conclude--by a
portion of the present generation for Keats is a motion of the
consciousness which stands in a right and natural order. Keats is with
us; and it argues much for a generous elasticity in Sir Sidney Colvin's
mind, which we have neither the right nor the custom to expect in an
older generation, that he should have had more than a sidelong vision of
at least one aspect of the community between his poet-hero and a younger
race which has had the destiny to produce far more heroes than poets.
Commenting upon the inability of the late Mr Courthope to appreciate
Keats, Sir Sidney writes:--
'He supposed that Keats was indifferent to history or politics.
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