Writing to Brown from Hampstead in the latter half of August, Keats seems aware that the critics are being kinder to him than before. ‘My book,’ he says, ‘has had good success among the literary people, and I believe has a moderate sale;’ and again, ‘the sale of my book has been very slow, but it has been very highly rated.’ The great guns of Scottish criticism had not yet spoken. Constable’s Edinburgh (formerly the Scots) Magazine, which never either hit or bit hard, and whose managers had preferred the ways of prudence when Bailey urged them two years before boldly to denounce the outrages of the ‘Z’ gang in Blackwood, in due course praised Keats’s new volume, but cautiously, saying that ‘it must and ought to attract attention, for it displays the ore of true poetic genius, though mingled with a large portion of dross.... He is continually shocking our ideas of poetical decorum, at the very time when we are acknowledging the hand of genius. In thus boldly running counter to old opinions, however, we cannot conceive that Mr Keats merits bitter contempt or ridicule; the weapons which are too frequently employed when liberal discussion and argument would be unsuccessful.’ As to Blackwood’s Magazine itself, we are fortunate in having an amusing first-hand narrative of an encounter of its owner and manager with Keats’s publisher which preceded the appearance of Keats’s new volume. The excellent Taylor, staunch to his injured young friend and client even at some risk, as in his last words he shows himself aware, to his own interests, writes from Fleet Street on the last day of August to his partner Hessey:—
I have had this day a call from Mr Blackwood. We shook hands and went into the Back Shop. After asking him what was new at Edinburgh, and talking about Clare, the Magazine, Baldwin, Peter Corcoran and a few other subjects,[6] I observed that we had published another Volume of Keats’s Poems on which his Editors would have another opportunity of being witty at his expense. He said they were disposed to speak favourably of Mr K. this time—and he expected that the article would have appeared in this month’s mag.
‘But can they be so inconsistent?’ ‘There is no inconsistency in praising him if they think he deserves it.’ ‘After what has been said of his talents I should think it very inconsistent.’ ‘Certainly they found fault with his former Poems but that was because they thought they deserved it.’ ‘But why did they attack him personally?’ ‘They did not do so.’
‘No? Did not they speak of him in ridicule as Johnny Keats, describe his appearance while addressing a Sonnet to Ailsa Crag, and compare him as a (?) hen to Shelley as a Bird of Paradise, besides, what can you say to that cold blooded passage when they say they will take care he shall never get £50 again for a vol. of his Poems—what had he done to deserve such attacks as these?’
‘Oh, it was all a joke, the writer meant nothing more than to be witty. He certainly thought there was much affectation in his Poetry, and he expressed his opinion only—It was done in the fair spirit of criticism.’
‘It was done in the Spirit of the Devil, Mr Blackwood. So if a young man is guilty of affectation while he is walking the streets it is fair in another Person because he dislikes it to come and knock him down.’
‘No,’ says B., ‘but a poet challenges public opinion by printing his book, but I suppose you would have them not criticized at all?’
‘I certainly think they are punished enough by neglect and by the failure of their hopes and to me it seems very cruel to abuse a man merely because he cannot give us as much pleasure as he wishes. But you go even beyond his ...(?) you strike a man when he is down. He gets a violent blow from the Quarterly—and then you begin.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ says B., ‘we were the first.’
‘I think not, but if you were the first, you continued it after, for that truly diabolical thrust about the £50 appeared after the critique in the Quarterly.’