[4] See above, p. 68.
[5] Particularly Sonnet XII:—
| Voi che portate la sembianza umile, Cogli occhi bassi mostrando dolore. |
It would have been easy to suppose that Keats had learnt something of the Vita Nuova through Leigh Hunt: but they were not yet acquainted when he wrote the Leander sonnet, so that the resemblance is most likely accidental.
[6] In the earlier editions this sonnet is headed On a picture of Leander. A note of Woodhouse (Houghton MSS., Transcripts III) puts the matter right and gives the date. Which particular Leander gem of Tassie’s Keats had before him it is impossible to tell. The general catalogue of Tassie’s reproductions gives a list of over sixty representing Leander swimming either alone or with Hero looking down at him from her tower. Most of them were not from true antiques but from later imitations.
[7] Here, for instance, are verses of Keats that have often been charged with Cockneyism and Huntism:—
| And revelled in a chat that ceased not When at nightfall among our books we got. The silence when some rimes are coming out, And when they’re come, the very pleasant rout. |
Well, but had not Drayton written in his Epistle to Henry Reynolds?—
| My dearly lovèd friend how oft have we In winter evenings (meaning to be free) To some well-chosen place used to retire, And there with moderate meat, and wine, and fire, Have past the hour contentedly with chat, Now talked of this and then discoursed of that, Spoke our own verses ‘twixt ourselves, if not Other men’s lines, which we by chance had got. |
And Milton in the Vacation Exercise?—