Page:Stories after Nature.pdf/14

x volume, barely heavier than a pamphlet," for although in small 12mo, it occupies no fewer than two hundred and fifty-one pages. This volume, published anonymously in 1822 (the year after Keats' death) by T. and J. Allman, Princes Street, Hanover Square, and C. and J. Ollier, Vere Street, Oxford Street, I picked off a book-stall nearly fifty years ago, in 1842, the only copy I have ever seen. Certainly I had found a treasure, which, shown to others, not I alone appreciated and admired. Dante Rossetti, to whom I lent it, was minded to illustrate some of the Stories, to be engraved by me for a promised reprint, an intention which we had not the fortune to carry out. Rossetti, I believe, brought the book to the notice of Swinburne, whose criticism (not all, I think, acceptable), in the prefatory note already referred to, is worthy of attention, and quoting at some length. He writes:

"The first publication of Mr. Wells, written, it is said, in his earliest youth, has