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[Leigh Hunt]
The Living Poets.
The Examiner  No. 565  (25 October 1818)  678.
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THE EXAMINER.

No. 565. SUNDAY, OCT. 25, 1818.







The Living Poets.—In the able and otherwise just article upon Mr. Keats’s Endymion, which we inserted on Sunday fortnight, a paragraph upon the other living poets escaped our attention, which we certainly should have omitted for more reasons than one. The truth is, that we were in a great hurry at the time, and in rapidly looking to the main part of the subject, our eyes so literally glanced over the paragraph in question, that we were surprised upon meeting it at our own breakfast table. To say nothing of our other reasons above alluded to, the writer is mistaken in thinking that the peculiar and individual characters of the writings of such men as Wordsworth, Moore, and Byron, can injure the survival of their poetry. That very circumstance, though certainly not necessary to the lasting nature of poetry, will nevertheless be among the preservatives of theirs, as we have observed on a former occasion. It is to Mr. Keats’s poetry what particular companionship is to solitude,—both excellent things, when genuine; and we are mistaken if he himself does not partake more of both than his intelligent critic supposes.

A Correspondent has called our attention to a pamphlet which has just appeared on the subject of the infamous publication known by the name of Blackwood’s Magazine. It is entitled “Hypocrisy Unveiled and Calumny Detected.” We are very happy to hear from our Correspondent, but it is quite impossible we can take any further notice of the poor callous or unhappy coward to whom he alludes; and agreeing with the pamphlet as we do in many things, we are nevertheless of opinion that it would be much better in the various eminent persons in whose company we have had the honour of the self-betraying abuse in question, to let it die the quiet and inevitable death of scorn.