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CHAPTER I.
Keats’s grandfather Jennings; his father and mother; Keats born in London, October 31, 1795; his brothers and sister; goes to the school of John Clarke at Enfield, and is tutored by Charles Cowden Clarke; death of his parents; is apprenticed to a surgeon, Hammond; leaves Hammond, and studies surgery; reads Spenser, and takes to poetry; his literary acquaintances—Leigh Hunt, Haydon, J. Hamilton Reynolds, Dilke, &c.; Keats’s first volume, “Poems,” 1817[11]
CHAPTER II.
Keats begins “Endymion,” May 1817; his health suffers in Oxford; finishes “Endymion” in November; his friend, Charles Armitage Brown; his brother George marries and emigrates to America; Keats and Brown make a walking tour in Scotland and Ireland; returns to Hampstead, owing to a sore throat; death of his brother Tom; his description of Miss Cox (“Charmian”), and of Miss Brawne, with whom he falls in love; a difference with Haydon; visits Winchester; George Keats returns for a short while from America, but goes away again without doing anything to relieve John Keats from straits in money matters.[23]
CHAPTER III.
Keats’s consumptive illness begins, February 1820; he rallies, but has a relapse in June; he stays with Leigh Hunt, and leaves him suddenly; publication of his last volume, “Lamia” &c.; returns to Hampstead before starting for Italy; his love-letters to Miss Brawne—extracts; Haydon’s last sight of him; he sails for Italy with Joseph Severn; letter to Brown; Naples and Rome; extracts from Severn’s letters; Keats dies in Rome, February 23, 1821.[40]
CHAPTER IV.
Keats rhymes in infancy; his first writings, the “Imitation of Spenser,” and some sonnets; not precocious as a poet; his sonnet on Chapman’s Homer; contents of his first volume, “Poems,” 1817; Hunt’s first sight of his poems in MS.; “Sleep and Poetry,” extract regarding poetry of the Pope school, &c.; the publishers, Messrs. Ollier, give up the volume as a failure.[64]