ABSTRACT
Joseph Severn scarcely needs introduction to the readers of the “Atlantic Monthly”. It is a singular pleasure to the few 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. Keats had the fine compactness of person which one regards as the promise of longevity, and no mind was ever more exultant in youthful feeling. The most remarkable example of the strange capaciousness of Keats’s fame occurred during the painful visit of Sir Walter Scott to Rome in the winding-up days of his eventful life, when he was broken down not only by incurable illness and premature old age, but also by the accumulated misfortunes of fatal speculations and the heavy responsibility of making up all with the pen then trembling in his failing hand.
