University of Virginia Library

To the Editor of The Times:—
Sir,

—As the centenary of the birth of John Keats approaches, it will doubtless be of importance to a wide circle of lovers of English poetry to be informed of any steps which it may be intended to take in the direction of honoring so beloved a memory. . . . The American Committee, which has been engaged for some five years past in preparing for an English memorial of Keats, has done me the honor to communicate to me its intentions, and has asked me to make them known in this country.

The movement is due to the piety of Mr. F. Holland Day of Norwood, Massachusetts, who is a great Keats enthusiast. As early as 1889, Mr. Day began to suggest to certain men-of-letters and artists in America that a monument to the poet should be presented by the United States to England. He consulted Mr. Lowell in particular, and received the warmest encouragement from him. There is no doubt, indeed, that, if the life of Mr. Lowell had been prolonged, he would to-day be found at the head of this generous movement. Among those, however, who, on the failure of Mr. Lowell's health, continued to urge forward the execution of the scheme, were Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, Mr. T. B. Aldrich, Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, the late Dr. T. W. Parsons, and, indeed, most of those who are now prominent in American poetical literature. . . . Mr. Day has arrived in this country with a marble bust of Keats, which, through the kindness of the vicar, the Rev. Mr. Burnaby, will shortly be unveiled in the parish church at Hampstead. It now merely awaits the carrying out of the accepted design for a bracket, upon which the advice of Mr. E. Onslow Ford, A.R.A., was desired. Lovers of Keats—and this is but a synonym for lovers of poetry—will presently receive a formal announcement of the date when the little ceremony of presenting and accepting the bust will be performed at Hampstead.

So far I obey the duty which has been laid upon me by our American friends. Will you permit me to add one word for ourselves? Surely, while we accept this gracious gift from our Transatlantic kinsfolk, we shall not be able to do so without some sense of shame at our own negligence in rites so appropriate and seemly. How long are we to be contented to accept from others monuments to those men of genius who are, after all, not theirs, but ours? In a few months a hundred years will have passed since the birth of one of the most illustrious and original of the long line of English poets, yet if there is any scheme on foot for the celebration of that event by Englishmen on English soil, I have not been fortunate enough to hear of it. There is no other country in the world that could have produced a Keats a hundred years ago,

and yet could still point out no public monument to his memory. It is fortunate that America, at least, is sensitive about those national glories to which we seem perfectly indifferent.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Edmund Gosse. 29, Delamere-terrace, London, W., May 24.