LIFE,

LETTERS, AND LITERARY REMAINS,

OF

JOHN KEATS.

EDITED BY

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.

NEW-YORK:

GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY,

1848.

ΤΟ

FRANCIS JEFFREY,

ONE OF THE SENATORS OF THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE IN SCOTLAND.

DEAR LORD Jeffrey,

It is with great pleasure that I dedicate to you these late memorials and relics of a man, whose early genius you did much to rescue from the alternative of obloquy or oblivion.

The merits which your generous sagacity perceived under so many disadvantages, are now recognized by every student and lover of poetry in this country, and have acquired a still brighter fame, in that other and wider England beyond the Atlantic, whose national youth is, perhaps, more keenly susceptible of poetic impressions and delights, than the maturer and more conscious fatherland.

I think that the poetical portion of this volume, will confirm the opinions you hazarded at the time, when such views were hazardous even to a critical reputation so well-founded as your own: and I believe that you will find in the clear transcript of the poet's mind, conveyed in these familiar letters, more than a vindication of all the interest you took in a character, whose moral purity and nobleness is as significant as its intellectual excellence.

It has no doubt frequently amused you to have outlived literary reputations, whose sound and glitter you foresaw would not stand the

tests of time and altered circumstance; but it is a far deeper source of satisfaction to have received the ratification by public opinion of judgments, once doubted or derided, and thus to have anticipated the tardy justice which a great work of art frequently obtains, when the hand of the artist is cold, and the heart that palpitated under neglect is still for ever.

This composition, or rather compilation, has been indeed a labor of love, and I rejoice to prefix to it a name not dearer to public esteem than to private friendship,-not less worthy of gratitude and of affection than of high professional honors and wide intellectual fame.

I remain, dear Lord Jeffrey,

Yours with respect and regard,

PALL MALL, Aug. 1, 1848.

R. MONCKTON MILNES.