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The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎49r] (102/244)

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The record is made up of 1 volume (120 folios). It was created in Apr 1892. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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1892 THE STORY OF GIF FORD KEATS 587
meant. To this day tlie belief tliat Gifford was the culprit has never
been seriously disturbed. Dr. Smiles, indeed, in the recently pub
lished Memoir and Gorres'pondence speaks of the
article as known to have been ' written by Mr. Croker,' but without
producing the precise vouchers required for such a statement. Till
that is done, Gifford, who is responsible for the article at all events
as having procured it and adopted it, must continue to be held
responsible for it wholly.
But, if the legend as to the cause of Keats's death originated
with Shelley, it was Byron that helped it into immediate circulation.
Byron, who was residing at Venice at the time of the publication of
Shelley's Adonais at Pisa, had seen an early copy of it. ' Are you
aware,' he wrote on the 30th of July, 1821, to his London publisher,
Mr. Murray, who was also proprietor of the that
Shelley has written an elegy on Keats and accuses the of
killing him ? ' In the same month Byron had versified the piece
of gossip, for his own amusement and Mr. Murray's, thus :
"Who killed Jolm Keats ?
i I,' says the
So savage and tartarly;
' 'Twas one of feats.'
In November 1821 Byron removed from Venice to Pisa; and it
may have been his companionship with Shelley in Pisa that led to
that higher and more serious appreciation of Keats's merits all in all
which we find him expressing in a manuscript note on the 12th of
that month. In this note he first repeats Shelley's story, and
then proceeds:
I have read the article before and since; and, though it is bitter, I do not think
tliat a man should permit himself to he killed hy it. But a young man little
dreams what he must inevitably encounter in the course of a life ambitious of
public notice. My indignation at Mr, Keats's depreciation of Pope has hardly
permitted me to do justice to his own genius, which, all the fantastic
fopperies of his style, was undoubtedly of great promise. His fragment of
Hyperion seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as JEschylus.
He is a loss to our literature.
In these words there seems just a hint that Byron, even while
repeating Shelley's story, had begun to have some doubts as to its truth.
It was too pungent a story, however, to be altogether given up; and
accordingly, in the eleventh canto of published in the
following year, Byron reproduced it in this well-known stanza:—
John Keats, who was killed off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, without Greek
Contrived to talk about the gods of late
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow ! his was an untoward fate;
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.

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Content

The file contains a copy of the journal The Nineteenth Century. A pencil note on the cover of the journal, in the hand of Lady Pelly, indicates that Lewis Pelly was being read an article from this journal on Easter Sunday five days before he died.

The article he and his wife were reading has been marked on the cover 'Prospects of Marriage for Women, by Miss Clara E Collet' which appears on folios 24-31.

A second annotation, written by Sir William Henry Rhodes Green, gives the date of Lewis Pelly's death and is provided as context to Lady Pelly's comments.

Extent and format
1 volume (120 folios)
Physical characteristics

The journal contains one set of foliation and three sets of original pagination.

The principal foliation for this volume appears in the top right hand corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. of each folio, using a pencil number enclosed with a circle.

The three sets of original printed pagination that appear are as follows:

The advertisments at the front of the journal are paginated as i-xxxii; the articles themselves are paginated as 525-712; and the Sampson Low, Marston & Company publications list at the rear of the journal has been paginated as 1-8.

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English in Latin script
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The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎49r] (102/244), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F126/28, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100023318122.0x000067> [accessed 29 March 2024]

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