"
The student will at once question its power to cause distress in the
mind of the poet; as for malignant severity, there are several reviews
among the present reprints that put the brief _Quarterly_ article to
shame. When we turn to what Swinburne calls the "obscener insolence" of
the _Blackwood_ article, we find an unrestrained torrent of abuse
against both Hunt and Keats that amply justified Landor's subsequent
allusions to the _Blackguard's Magazine_. The _Quarterly_ critique was
captious and ill-tempered; but the _Blackwood_ article was a personal
insult.
It is impossible to consider in detail the vexed question of the
influence which these reviews had upon Keats. In Mr. W.M. Rossetti's
_Life of Keats_, pp. (83-106) there is a full discussion of the evidence
on the subject. Within a few months after the appearance of the
articles, Keats wrote:--"Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on
the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic
of his own works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain without
comparison beyond what _Blackwood_ or _The Quarterly_ could possibly
inflict.
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