"May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn "Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn,

"In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright

"Of conscience, for their long offended might,
"For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries,
"Unlawful magic, and enticing lies.
"Corinthians! look upon that grey-beard wretch !
"Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch
"Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see!
"My sweet bride withers at their potency."
"Fool!" said the sophist, in an under-tone
Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan
From Lycius answer'd, as heart-struck and lost,
He sank supine beside the aching ghost.
"Fool! Fool!" repeated he, while his eyes still
Relented not, nor mov'd; "from every ill
"Of life have I preserv'd thee to this day,

"And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?"

285

290

Then Lamia breath'd death breath; the sophist's eye,
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well
As her weak hand could any meaning tell,
Motion'd him to be silent; vainly so,
He look'd and look'd again a level-No!

(293-4) In the manuscript

From Lycius answer'd, as he sunk supine
Upon the couch where Lamia's beauties pine.

(296) In the manuscript

from every ill

That youth might suffer have I shielded thee
Up to this very hour, and shall I see

Thee married to a Serpent? Pray you Mark,
Corinthians! A Serpent, plain and stark !"
(302) Cancelled reading, motion for meaning.

295

300

"A serpent!" echoed he; no sooner said, Than with a frightful scream she vanished: And Lycius' arms were empty of delight,

As were his limbs of life, from that same night.
On the high couch he lay!-his friends came round-
Supported him—no pulse, or breath they found,
And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.

305

310

(311) The following extract is appended in Keats's edition as a note to the last line of Lamia :—

"Philostratus, in his fourth book de Vita Apollonii, hath a memorable instance in this kind, which I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that going betwixt Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which taking him by the hand, carried him home to her house, in the suburbs of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry with her, he should hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never any drank, and no man should molest him ; but she, being fair and lovely, would live and die with him, that was fair and lovely to behold. The young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to moderate his passions, though not this of love, tarried with her a while to his great content, and at last married her, to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came Apollonius; who, by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, a lamia; and that all her furniture was, like Tantalus' gold, described by Homer, no substance but mere illusions. When she saw herself descried, she wept, and desired Apollonius to be silent, but he would not be moved, and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in it, vanished in an instant : many thousands took notice of this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece."

Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy.' Part 3. Sect. 2.

Memb. 1. Subs. I.

43

[In a letter to Reynolds dated the 27th of April 1818, Keats says, "I have written for my folio Shakspeare, in which there are the first few stanzas of my 'Pot of Basil.' I have the rest here, finished, and will copy the whole out fair shortly, and George will bring it you. The compliment is paid by us to Boccace, whether we publish or no..." The folio Shakspeare, now in Sir Charles Dilke's hands, contains no stanzas of Isabella, so it is to be presumed they were only loose in the book. Again on the 3rd of May 1818, Keats writes to Reynolds, "I have written to George for the first stanzas of my 'Isabel'. I shall have them soon, and will copy the whole out for you." And, in a letter to Bailey dated the 10th of June, he says, "I want to read you my 'Pot of Basil'." This all points to the recent completion of the poem ; and Lord Houghton records on the authority of Brown that it was only just completed when the friends started on their Scotch tour in June. On the 14th of February 1819, he promised to send the poem out to his brother George, with other recent work. It is necessary to be particular about this point, because Leigh Hunt when reviewing Lamia, Isabella, &c., made the unaccountable statement (see Appendix) that the poems in this volume "were almost all written four years ago, when the author was but twenty". The allusion to Boccaccio, Lord Houghton explains by telling us that Keats and Reynolds projected a volume of tales versified from that author. Two by Reynolds were published in The Garden of Florence, &c. (1821). In view of the unachieved scheme of joint authorship, the following sentences from the Preface to Reynolds's volume should stand associated with Isabella :

:

"The stories from Boccacio (The Garden of Florence, and The Ladye of Provence) were to have been associated with tales from the same source, intended to have been written by a friend ;-but illness on his part, and distracting engagements on mine, prevented us from accomplishing our plan at the time; and Death now, to my deep sorrow, has frustrated it for ever! He, who is gone, was one of the very kindest friends I possessed, and yet he was not kinder perhaps to me, than to others. His intense mind and powerful feeling would, I truly believe, have done the world some service, had his life been spared-but he was of too sensitive a nature—and thus he was destroyed! One story he completed, and that is to me now the most pathetic poem in existence !"

It is likely enough that Keats copied out Isabella as he intended, for the friend who wrote this about it after all was over. But as yet I have not succeeded in tracing any complete manuscript of the poem. Mr. R. A. Potts possesses what would seem to be two fragments of the original draft. This manuscript is of Stanzas XXX