[180] Story of Rimini, p. 35.
[181] Colvin, Keats, p. 31.
[182] References to Hunt in the sonnets and other poems of 1817 are the following:
1. “He of the rose, the violet, the spring
The social smile, the chain for Freedom’s sake:”
(Addressed to the Same [Haydon].) This sonnet did not appear in 1817, although it belongs to this period.
2. “... thy tender care
Thus startled unaware
Be jealous that the foot of other wight
Should madly follow that bright path of light
Trac’d by thy lov’d Libertas; he will speak,
And tell thee that my prayer is very meek
······
Him thou wilt hear.”
(Specimen of an Introduction, l. 57 ff.) Mrs. Clarke is the authority that “Libertas” was Hunt.
3. “With him who elegantly chats, and talks—
The wrong’d Libertas.”
(Epistle to Charles Cowden Clarke, l. 43-44.)
4. “I turn full-hearted to the friendly aids
That smooth the path of honour; brotherhood,
And friendliness the nurse of mutual good.
The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet
Into the brain ere one can think upon it;
The silence when some rhymes are coming out;
And when they’re come, the very pleasant rout:
The message certain to be done tomorrow.
’Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow
Some precious book from out its snug retreat,
To cluster round it when we next shall meet.”
(Sleep and Poetry.)
Lines 353-404 of the same, nearly one fifth of the entire poem, are a description of Hunt’s library. Mr. De Selincourt calls it “a glowing tribute to the sympathetic friendship which Keats had enjoyed at the Hampstead Cottage and an attempt to express in the style of the Story of Rimini something of the spirit which had informed the Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey.” (Poems of John Keats. Introduction p. 34.)