Fortune likes
fine names.
Haydon tells us that Keats was very much depressed by the fortunes of his
book. This was natural enough, but he took it all in a manly way, and
determined to revenge himself by writing better poetry. He knew that
activity, and not despondency, is the true counterpoise to misfortune.
Haydon is sure of the change in his spirits, because he would come to the
painting-room and sit silent for hours. But we rather think that the
conversation, where Mr. Haydon was, resembled that in a young author's
first play, where the other interlocutors are only brought in as
convenient points for the hero to hitch the interminable web of his
monologue upon. Besides, Keats had been continuing his education this
year, by a course of Elgin marbles and pictures by the great Italians,
and might very naturally have found little to say about Mr. Haydon's
extensive works, that he would have cared to hear. Lord Houghton, on the
other hand, in his eagerness to prove that Keats was not killed by the
article in the Quarterly, is carried too far toward the opposite extreme,
and more than hints that he was not even hurt by it. This would have been
true of Wordsworth, who, by a constant companionship with mountains, had
acquired something of their manners, but was simply impossible to a man
of Keats's temperament.
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